Obama, yesterday:
He warned that the general election campaign could get ugly. “They’re going to try to scare people. They’re going to try to say that ‘that Obama is a scary guy,’” he said...
“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama said.
On May 30th I noted that McCain was underestimating Obama in this election. A few days later, Mark Halperin at Time noted the same thing.
I think this will be a major undercurrent in this election, one that's worth taking note of as we move into general election mode. It is the reason behind the green screen fiasco, McCain's flip-flopping and confusion, and the signs of despair amongst Republican insiders.
Here is the list offered up by Halperin of the things that McCain is underestimating about Obama:
- The astonishing enthusiasm that Obama inspires in his supporters — and how much it contrasts with the respect, but not passion, McCain enjoys from his own backers. (And the size of Obama’s crowds…)
- The “Major League vs Little League” difference between Obama’s infrastructure and his own.
- The inherent difficulty/sensitivity of running against two figures at once. McCain will have to 1) explicitly criticize a sitting Republican president before Republican audiences and 2) prevent the historic event of electing the nation’s first African-American president that many in the country (and the media) desire.
- The ever-present danger on the trail that he might evoke Bob Dole with a Bob Dole-like misstep (fall off a stage, sound like a Washington fossil, seem angry and out of touch).
- How little most Americans care about foreign policy (beyond the Iraq War) when the economy is in the tank.
- How many voters (even Republican stalwarts) dread the idea of a virtual third Bush term.
- How many members of the media dread the idea of covering a virtual third Bush term (and how much they buy Obama’s argument that McCain is an extension of Bush-Cheney).
- The extent to which McCain’s lack of an economic message could make Obama (who also is challenged in adequately addressing the economy) seem like Bob Rubin, Bill Clinton, and Lou Dobbs all rolled into one.
- That many of his party’s wiseguys and wisegals see polling data suggesting his chances of winning are no more than 30% (and how much it infects their cable TV appearances).
- That in modern America, perception is often reality and style often beats substance.
- That age is only a number unless it’s a really high number — then it’s a liability.
- How old he looks when he is acting “presidential” on the stump – and how incongruous it makes his message of change appear.
- How powerful debates might be when the allegedly inexperienced Obama of allegedly questionable judgment goes toe-to-toe with McCain, even on national security, and is therefore deemed of sufficient strength and stature to be president by many.
- How valuable Obama makes voters feel (”we are the change we have been waiting for”) – while McCain’s campaign instructs and lectures voters.
- How forcefully Obama will now move to the center as a mainstream, optimistic candidate celebrating both change and America’s greatness.
I would add one very important thing: That Obama won't be a pushover like the last two Democratic candidates.
John Kerry was good with the pushback, but sloooow. I think it took him two weeks to respond to the SwiftBoat attacks. He barely sent any Democrats to the RNC convention to provide a countermessage to all the attacks. Kerry was very capable of the counterpunch, you saw him wipe the floor with Bush during the debates, but on the campaign trail he just wasn't on the ball.
Al Gore was, let's be honest, too smug and overconfident. He figured that because Bush was an idiot (true) and didn't have any sensible policies (true) that the American voters would see through him. But you can't take any votes for granted, you have to fight for them. And you do that by punching your opponent until they are bloody in the face.
I don't think that will be a problem with Obama. McCain is like a bloated old pugilist who is used to knocking down his chump opponents with the first blow. But now he's going up against a real opponent, someone who gets back off the mat and punches back, and McCain isn't sure how to take it.
It's definitely taking a toll on him. Inside, he wants to unleash his venom and anger, to blow up at Obama and deliver a few choice 4-letter words. But he can't do that, he knows he has to remain calm, so instead he sputters almost incoherently about how Obama "has no experience" or "wants to surrender" or "represents Jimmy Carter's third term". It's all very weak and pathetic. McCain spews these prefabricated, dusty old attack lines but never backs them up. He doesn't understand Obama, he doesn't understand Obama's positions, so how can he deliver a stinging rebuttal? He can't.
McCain wants this kid to take a fall, and the kid won't, and McCain doesn't know what to do about it.
Obama is ready to bring it in this election, and he's got the resources he'll need. Obama is a student of history, particularly recent history, and the fact that he was outside Washington for the Clinton years and Bush's first term gives him a unique perspective that McCain doesn't have. McCain has never run a close race in Arizona, he gets his ass kissed all over Washington, the pundits love him when he goes on their Sunday shows, and by the way who the fuck is this new guy trying to steal his spot?
Hillary didn't understand it, maybe she still doesn't. McCain doesn't understand it, and he probably won't until the day after the election, if then. These people have been living on the top of their little mountain for so long they think they are on Everest. In reality it's nothing more than a little hill, eroded by the Bush years, by their own compromises, by their own corruption. Obama has built himself a much bigger hill, a real mountain, with the help of millions. It didn't take long, but sometimes the greatest upheavals happen in the shortest of times.
I wonder if McCain knows what's coming. Right now, it sure doesn't look like it.
[Crossposted at Old Man McCain]