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Obama Hasn’t Closed the Sale – WSJ.com — Exactly why Karl Rove is left out in the cold to write op-eds and blog while the GOP blows the election, is mystifying. Love him or hate him, he’s a wonk’s wonk. Here is his analysis of the situation. Summary: McCain is losing, but it’s not over yet. He points out that Obama is not taking anything for granted although most Democrats are already planning for the inaugural ball.
Mr. McCain’s other adjustment is his schedule. His campaign understands the dire circumstances it faces and is narrowing his travels almost exclusively to Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada. If he carries those states, while losing only Iowa and New Mexico from the GOP’s 2004 total, Mr. McCain will carry 274 Electoral College votes and the White House. It’s threading the needle, but it’s come to that.
This task, while not impossible, will be difficult. By mid-September, the McCain camp was slightly ahead in the polls. Then came the financial crisis. The past month has taken an enormous toll on the McCain campaign.
Whether it can find the right formula in the next 19 days to dig out is a question. If Mr. McCain succeeds, he will have engineered the most impressive and improbable political comeback since Harry Truman in 1948. But having to reach back more than a half-century for inspiration is not the place campaign managers want to be now.
Simple. Go on Letterman every night.
It most likely will be a cake walk but the truth is that most Americans want nobody that is running in the coming election.
Or pray that this doesn’t happen.
Because if that does, he may actually get my vote…. and a few million more conservative votes along with it.
I hate to give Rove credit for anything; but he may be right on this.
The people who want McCain elected and, just as important, those who are against Obama, will vote.
If all the talk about a landslide victory convinces Obama voters that they need not bother to vote, they will be sorely disappointed when he gets whipped. Then they’ll sit around and wonder what happened.
I agree with that creep, Rove. The Obama camp must stay on track while McCain and Palin try to score some points entertaining voters on Letterman and SNL.
Do not underestimate the fickleness of the American Public to vote for McCain because he tells good jokes. It’s this sad state of affairs that may cost Americans a chance to have a great leader.
Are you liberals really this nervous? Honestly, I don’t get it. Why so concerned?
I don’t see how the Dems could possibly blow this election. They could have run LBJ and won.
Paddy-O…correction…you mean Carter.
#5 Dallas
There’s no since kidding ourselves neither Obama or McCain are great leaders. However, both do strangely resemble great opportunists.
#8
I thought about saying Carter but, even being dead, LBJ makes for a stronger candidate. 😉
Any day now the media will start blaring out that “POLLS SHOW RACE TIGHTENING IN FINAL DAYS”. It happens in every Presidential election, so watch for it.
This is the point where the losing candidate may cut loose with one last reeking piece of garbage, some crazy personal smear that grabs the headlines and is impossible to refute or counter in the little time remaining. Karl Rove knows all about this.
#7/8, Either.
Looking back at that Dvorak unofficial poll, just over half the people voted for Obama. What was surprising was the number of “Other” voters.
If the readers of this blog are any indication of mainstream America, McCain is sunk.
The bright side of the picture is that perhaps people will start to wonder why 1/4 of the country is pissed off enough at both parties to vote for someone else.
In any of the cases, Nov is going to be an interesting month.
why is Karl Rove not in jail yet?
Rove’s misinformation must be a habit. Because Truman’s “comeback” is mostly a tale of lousy polls – a half-century ago – and even lousier journalism.
The Republicans were so sure of victory they stopped polling the beginning of September. The Dems kept polling and tracking and putting their resources where they had to.
I don’t expect most folks who live by their opinions on politics to take the time to actually research facts. I am surprised when someone who earns their living via politics doesn’t check facts.
But, then, this blog and only a few others have kicked aside the Bradley Effect. TV Talking Heads still bring it up, every day.
#13
It’s hard to disagree with your overall assessment so as you say when the smoke clears McCain will be the next president.
i’m a great guy.
When I’m not running for office.
Newscorp don’t want a political leper on the Fox payroll, but the GOP want him there for 2012, so my guess is that Rove has been asked to seek deep cover.
Karl Rove is an amoral lying sack of sh&t who doesn’t give a damn about our tradition of democracy, lies openly and gets away with it, uses dirty dirty tricks and sometimes those tricks win elections.
And some people admire him because winning is all that counts, right?
Truth is we are going to see MASSIVE voter disenfranchisement. Hopefully the MSM will be on the ball, reporting it rather than staying in Hollywood worrying about what Brad Pitt is doing.
We will see long lines, broken machines, vote flipping, outright challenges to voters, and people turned away, especially in poor, minority communities.
The only solution is for democrats to come out in force and overwhelm the vote counting fraud that will be inevitable. Nobody will be able to audit the GOP-run voting machine companies because in 2004 international vote observers were banned from witnessing the counting.
This country is absolutely ridiculous.
Why would any news outfit give Rove a job? How can you expect him to say anything except “Republicans are TEH ROXORZ!!!!”?
#19
Karl Rove is an amoral lying sack of sh&t who doesn’t give a damn about our tradition of democracy, lies openly and gets away with it, uses dirty dirty tricks and sometimes those tricks win elections.
I’m sorry….are you sure you aren’t talking about James Carvell?
Obama is ahead in the polls – the trick is to get the people who respond to polls to get out and vote.
Scott Adams (http://www.dilbert.com/blog/) has predicted a McCain win followed by riots in the streets.
Let us recall the last election when was going around saying the Repubs wouldn’t lose the House let alone the Senate.
If Rove is so great, why has both of his national campaign been won by the slimmest of margins (and in the case of the first Bush election, it was won by the margin of 9 aka the Supremes)?
That’s the stupidist thing I ever heard. The polls say candidate A is going to win. B wins. Must be rigged. Burn the city.
We were all told last January that the NE Patriots were unbeatable. Giants beat them in the Super Bowl….must have been rigged.
Why bother holding the election. We have been told who is going to win….just give him the keys.
#22 – BillM
>>I’m sorry….are you sure you aren’t talking
>>about James Carvell?
Heh heh. Herr Karl only WISHES he had the success record of the Rajun Cajun. That guy ROCKS.
Mr Musty
I don’t question his success. It’s just that the comment about Rove was “winning is all that counts”. But of course I’m sure the venerable “snake head” Carvell was completely above board in his actions.
#19…
Calling Rove an amoral sack of shit is giving him too much credit.
And, I’m surprised John hasn’t figured this out yet but Rove IS running things. This is part of his act.
I suspect the fear of Palin becoming president should McCain drop dead suddenly will get Obama back the votes he’ll lose from the passive racist vote.
McCain needs a national security emergency to pull this rabbit out of the hat. It will be interesting to see if the neo-cons can come up with one.
I said it before and I will say it again and in 2 weeks I will be proven correct.
Obama is going to win by a large margin or a landslide.
He doesn’t have the luxury of saying or believing that which is one of the reasons he will win. Because he won’t stop fighting until the battle is won. The campaign will continue to push the people out to vote and because of the magnitude of this election they will vote and they will mostly vote for Democrats. It is human nature.
“Obama is ahead in the polls – the trick is to get the people who respond to polls to get out and vote.”
We also need to remember that if these are phone polls they are calling people who have land lines. Who have land lines? Older people. So these polls are leaving out a lot of younger people, who are admittedly less likely to vote than older people. Conventional wisdom says that older people are more likely to want to vote Republican and younger people are more likely to vote Democrat. So it seems equally likely that the polls are skewed towards McCain as they are that damn liberal media with their damn liberal bias.