Why Obama may win the election

The mainstream media commentators think McCain did pretty well in the debate, but the public thinks he didn’t. Paul of Powerline explains why this is a bad sign for the GOP in November:

… As far as I can tell, the pundit class judged John McCain’s performance about as favorably as could be expected. That is, most conservative commentators viewed McCain as the clear victor, while a good number of those in the MSM gave his performance grudging respect….

Yet most of the early polls I saw indicated that the public viewed Obama as the winner. Why the apparent disconnect? Because, I think, while commentators tried to focus on how well the candidates debated their respective positions, the rest of the audience focused, naturally enough, on how much they liked those positions.

And that’s where those headwinds enter the picture. The ones McCain confronts have to do with unhappiness over the Iraq war and over the state of the economy. Thus, McCain may have hammered Obama over his opposition to the surge, but if voters think the decision to invade Iraq was more consequential than the decisions that finally seem to have enabled us to succeed there, then Obama will still have the edge. Similarly, no matter how well McCain debates the economy (and here his performance was not that strong), the justified perception that his economic views are closer than Obama’s to those of President Bush’s represent a built-in disadvantage….

If McCain “lost” last night’s debate, let’s hope that he lost it because he didn’t debate well. Debate performances can improve; just ask George W. Bush. But if McCain out-debated Obama (as I believe he did) but still “lost,” that would be a pretty strong sign that voters just aren’t buying what he’s selling and that, consequently, McCain is destined to be rejected in November….

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 28, 2008 02:15 PM | Send