Posted by
Andrews on Friday, September 05, 2008 10:12:13 PM
It appears that even those on the left are starting to admit, if only tacitly, that Obama could lose this election he was once guaranteed to win. And, as is their wont, the left is already starting to look for excuses. Apparently realizing they have done the "stolen election" story to death, they seem to have
settled on "racism" as the presumptive excuse, describing everything from criticisms about his lack of experience to claims he is too liberal as evidence of covert racism. The right, meanwhile, seems absolutely puzzled by this change of fortunes. Some have come up with explanations, McCain's maverick reputation, his choice of Palin, Obama's politics, all have been trotted out, but not very forcefully. The right seems just as puzzled as the left by this outcome.
Of course, the problem is that the right and left both live in the same media bubble. They believe what the media says, they see through the eyes of the media. You could see it back in March and April when a few of us were already predicting defeat for Obama. Predictably the left would hear nothing of it, but much more puzzling, neither would the right. But it is all explained if you simply look at right wing pundits, not as right wingers, but as pundits, media creations who live in the media world. They may peddle a right wing line, but they live in the same media environment as the left wingers, and they too are surrounded by stories of Obama's charisma, his success with liberal audiences and his virtual coronation by the Democrats.
That is the problem. The entire Obama story was written while the primaries were still in full swing. Obama's description was drawn up by watching him preach to the choir. And that is where he excels, winning races in liberal environments against other liberals. He won in Chicago, he won in Illinois by winning Chicago, and he won the primary by preaching to liberals. When he can read stump speeches to adoring liberal audiences, when he can avoid any tough questions because of ideological lock step inherent in such venues, he is a champion. And so, the media decided he was the ultimate campaigner, the golden boy who could not lose. And, now that he is losing, they can't figure out why.
The answer is simple. All the other explanations, McCain's fortunate position as a maverick which helps pick up crossover votes, his pick of Palin, Obama's mediocre pick of Biden, and many other factors play into it, but the real reason Obama is losing is Obama. His decisions, while ideally suited for winning in a left-wing echo chamber, won't work in an ideologically diverse national campaign.
Obama's forte, as we saw in the early primaries, is in saying nothing specific. He tosses out positive platitudes of the left and allows his audience
to read into them what they will. It works very well for left wing audiences. For the moderates he is a moderate, for the far left he is a true believer, they read into the liberal boilerplate their own dream candidate. It explains why he developed
such an enthusiastic following, they each saw exactly what they wanted, he was their dream candidate, precisely because they had created him in their own minds.
But it doesn't work once you leave the echo chamber. The liberal boilerplate sounds vaguely left to many in the middle. It makes them uneasy, but is also so vague they need clarification, and that is where Obama stumbles. Having allowed others to decide what he believes, he has implicitly promised the moon to his voters. Some think him center, some left, but once he takes a stand he cannot be all of those things. So, if he needs to clarify to win the center, he inevitably drives away some of those on the left. And worse still, as they had developed such a strong emotional attachment to him, they do not see this disagreement as a slight difference of opinion, but as total betrayal, he does not slightly anger voters he might win back, he drives them away for good. (And, as many are young voters or others who were fired up only for Obama, not for any down ticket candidates, it is unlikely they will be going to the polls at all, meaning he not only loses his vote, but loses those votes for the entire party, risking the anticipated congressional sweep.)
It is funny that no one in the press, on either side of the aisle, anticipated this, especially as
so many of us out in the hinterland did. But then again, we are not caught up in the media story of Obama. We are not lost in the somewhat illusory world that surrounds most pundits. However, after this election, and the poor job pundits on the right and left did predicting the outcome, I do have to ask if the pundits will hold such influence for much longer. The left, with its fawning adoration has clearly lost any ability to claim impartiality, but even the right, and "experts" of all political stripes, have continually predicted an Obama sweep which all available evidence said was not coming, yet they continued to insist, and some still do, that Obama's victory was a sure thing.
If they cannot see through their own delusions, why should anyone listen to them?
UPDATE
First, I have to correct myself. James. Taranto of the Wall Street Journal has been at least open to the possibility of an Obama loss, and has been more even handed than most in evaluating the election. There are probably a handful of others, but, for the most part, the pundits on the right have almost to a man bought into the conventional wisdom that hatred for Bush and
Obama's "charisma" would guarantee a win.
Only recently have I even begun to see a few break with that belief.
Second, one interesting confirmation of this fact is seen from the Obama campaign themselves. While they ran the primaries by "taking the high road", throwing out vague promises of "hope" and "change" rather than attacking their opponents, they have changed since just before the convention. Knowing his strategy will not appeal to the center, and knowing triangulation will cause his left wing base to erode, his newest strategy is to
convince voters that McCain is a clone of Bush. It makes sense, as it is the only tactic available which does not mean clarifying what he means by his platitudes and thus alienating all those who interpreted them differently.