Why Isn't Obama Further Ahead?
Dear Stumped:

Why isn't Barack Obama breaking away from John McCain in the polls, considering the strength of Obama's campaign, his inspiring message and the negative brand equity of Republicans and the Bush administration?

Dutch


Over the weekend, I was riveted by the story of the dodgy character the New York Post amusingly called "Mockefeller," a con artist who'd long pretended to be a Rockefeller and who kidnapped his daughter in Boston last week. (He's been apprehended, she's ok, so all's well). But I couldn't get anyone around me to focus on this drama; all anyone wanted to talk about was the point you raise: Why isn't Barack Obama further ahead in the polls?

I agree with your premise; it shouldn't be so close. The Republicans' brand equity, as you put it, has been greatly devalued, and Obama has been running a polished campaign predicated on delivering change and resurrecting hope to a country weary of George Bush & Co.

One problem for Democrats is that they have yet to convince centrist voters that a McCain administration would indeed represent a third Bush term. McCain's maverick reputation, fairly or not, is his strongest asset. He's the ideal GOP nominee, insofar as he is able to avoid being victimized by the party's awful brand equity. It's up to the Democrats to convince the electorate that whatever he might have been in the past, McCain today - on Iraq, tax policy, energy policy, you name it - is a pretty standard GOP standard-bearer.

The contest to define Obama is of even greater consequence, likely to determine who wins the presidency, and whether it's by a large margin. He is new on the national stage, and inspiringly/shockingly "new" as a black candidate with a foreign father and Hussein for a middle name. Voters may go to the polls in November with generally positive feelings towards McCain (as they did towards Bob Dole in 1996), but he'll still be trounced if Obama manages to reassure them that he is ready to become commander in chief, and is patriotic enough, and independent enough (at times he does seems a tad beholden to his party's special interests) to do what's right for the country in that position.

It is sad, of course, that this is the test before him (the patriotism/identity part of it). And it will be distasteful to watch the lengths to which Republicans will go to make sure he flunks in the eyes of those heartland voters who still insist that he must be a Muslim, even as they decry the rants of his longtime Christian minister.

It would be unfair, however, for Obama's campaign to cry "racism" every time Republicans try to define the Democrat in unflattering terms. It would also be a mistake, likely to backfire with voters who won't take kindly to a relative newcomer trying to exempt himself from the ordinary, if unfortunate, rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign.