First let me clarify the title by saying that this is not a Clinton would do better diary (she has as much chance of winning now as Kucinich), nor is this concern trolling, as I see this election as ours to lose and Obama has to be favored right now. What I am going to write about though are a few of the reasons that will cause Obama to lose should they become (thanks to our beloved media) major campaign issues.
- Ethanol. Obama supports both the ethanol subsidies and more importantly the ethanol mandates for blending, McCain does not. While this is a relatively minor issue in the grand scheme of things, it may be an immensely important one to many Americans come November if food prices continue to shoot to the moon and shortages continue to happen/get news in the rest of the world. Our ethanol policy (which is really dumb) is a direct contributor to the rise in food prices and the shortages globally. If this gets worse and gets more mass media attention, it could sink Obama (provided he continues his support of ethanol).
- Patriotism. This is a traditional Republican attack that sadly has worked in the past (see Kerry, John) and may be trotted out again this time (although I think they will hold off on this one until things look really grim). Obama has several "sound bite" ready (and by this I mean things that look bad on a sound bite, but are easily explained when discussed in length, which unfortunately is not something the public ever seems to want/get) associations that could hurt him in an election against McCain (I am talking Rev. Wright and William Ayers here). I do not think these will work as well this time as they did against Kerry, but I refuse to overestimate the American voter.
- The Electoral College. Polls show (and god knows its way too early to read anything into them) that Obama dramatically closes the gap in many red states, but has trouble in Ohio/Florida. Should some of these trends hold out, Obama may very well win the popular vote in a landslide (by several million, possibly even a 50%+ majority), but could still lose the election electorally by not actually winning any of the states he makes close. This would be the most interesting outcome (for us political junkies) in my opinion, with long term impacts on our Constitution likely (considering that an Obama popular vote win + loss would almost assuredly be accompanied by large gains in the House and Senate).
- Racism. It had to be said. It is hard to gauge what (if any) impact racism will have in this election, but there is a pretty good chance that if Obama ends up losing in November, racism will have played some role (and probably a large one in a few key states). There is nothing we can really do to offset this, but hope that the American people have grown up.
- October Surprise. While I doubt there will be one that gos against us, it has to be laid out as a possibility.