Posted by
Bryn T. Jones on Saturday, October 18, 2008 4:09:30 PM
I can recall, not too long ago, that op-ed after op-ed was declaring what Barak Obama failed to do in his campaign. The op-eds and assorted articles were responding to how fast John McCain had taken in the polls. It was early September and the conservative base was on fire. People flocked to see Sarah Palin and John McCain and they put Barak Obama on defense something fierce. Minnesota, of all places, was within a couple points' reach for McCain. Michigan, too, had jumped into play along with Pensilvannia.
Barak Obama and his willing accomplices in the MSM went on a long and nasty war against Sarah Palin (which leaves me wondering how they take such a high ground position against John McCain with regard to negative ads). Week after week the world was treated to how terrible Sarah was and how McCain had shown his senility. Oh, and that's right, he's old, leaving her a 'heartbeat away from the presidency.'
None of this onslaught has changed Sarah's appeal. Rather, the financial crisis induced a knee-jerk reaction against Republicans of every stripe. And still, some polls only have McCain down by two to three percentage points.
This leads me to my next item of interest: I wonder how much the media, in its gameplan to help Obama, is cooking the data to favor their candidate. It isn't like this would be new territory for polsters.
Despite these insurmountable polls, we keep hearing story after story about how miserable McCain and Palin are. Voters are 'souring' to McCain-Obama stays steady. If the polls are acurate, why all the blatant headlines? Why not write about whether McCain's strategy will make a comeback? Why not write stories about why some still support him? Those might be interesting news pieces in light of such an impending landslide.
In short, if McCain is basically a dead candidate walking, why are the MSM and Obama's camp still kicking him?
I suspect they know that elections have been extremely closer in the past 30+ years than they like to remember. They like to pretend that George W. Bush didn't win by the largest popular vote in history in 2004. They like to forget that despite the polls, Hillary routed Obama in all the big states, particularly at the end.
While it is entirely possible the polls are tapping into an angry populace that does appear to back Obama for now, things can change in two weeks. Things can even change in the voting booth.