Monday, July 28, 2008

I know Novac is smart, so is it just wishful thinking?

So Robert Novack, a smart conservative writer, has an article today about how McCain might back into the Presidency. And, of course, McCain might - but not from the evidence produced by Novack.
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His thinking is that at this time in 1976 and 1988 Jimmy Carter and Michael Dukakis were ahead by 33 and 17 points respectively. And both lost those leads prior to the election. He notes that Obama is only up 9 or 10 points and should therefore lose given history.
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Novack does explain why Carter and Dukakis were so far ahead...
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One candid Republican consultant says that the massive Carter and Dukakis summer leads were illusory, based on large generic Democratic leads. But their generic lead is back at 15 points after 12 years of a Republican Congress and eight years of George W. Bush.

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And Obama's lead is less than 15 points that a "generic" democrat would have.
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Well all that is fine, but I don't think Obama is a "generic" Democratic candidate. I think that the prolonged primary battle and the media attention focused on a black Presidential candidate has moved Obama far from a "Generic" Democratic candidate. We didn't get a lot of investigation of Carter or Dukakis until very late in the Presidential Campaign cycle (the tank picture was take in October!). We didn't find out that Dukakis was stunned emotionally and Carter was over endowed emotionally until much closer to the election.
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We know a lot more about Obama now than we did with either of those candidates. In fact I say we know a lot more about Obama than we do of any previous candidate at this point. The same would have been true with Hillary - for the same reason. It was a long, well documented primary fight with a unique candidate that television can visually encapsulate (a black man or a woman).
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One might argue that we know less about McCain as a person that we do about Obama. Most of what non-Republicans know is that he is/was the "anti-Bush". As people learn more about him he moves from being generic to having positions some people may truly disagree with (or agree).
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But the point isn't about McCain or Obama here, it is kind of a question about Novack. Didn't he really think this through, or do you think he is trying to build up McCain? I don't know. To be honest when I really like someone who has no chance of winning I fugue out scenarios of how they should / could / might win. Maybe Novack is doing that.
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Oh well, just my thoughts (and Ed isn't here to bounce them off of...)