|  So let's talk a little bit about The Speech. No, no, not that speech. We spent the weekend talking about that. I am talking about this speech (Media reviews: "Put McCain's speech against Obama's - and this was a wipe-out.").
This is The Speech that introduces John McCain to the country. We, in fact, got to meet the entire McCain family. We met John "I never saw a teleprompter I understood" McCain, John "the rictus smile of death" McCain (that one will never be let out in public again), John "my campaign looks like rank amateurs" McCain, John "I'm broke and I can't afford a big arena, even if we had the crowds" McCain, John "Change is the thing, so let me rip off Obama's slogans and campaign theme because I don't have one" McCain, and especially John "Goddamnit, I'm not George Bush" McCain. Seeing all of the McCains live has the Republicans very worried about their Presidential candidate's election chances in the fall. That, on top of being petrified of what's going to happen to Congressional Republicans.
Between the lack of money, the lack of enthusiasm and the lack of ideas, John "vote for me because there's no one else left" McCain isn't so much the issue. As more than one wag noted, Tuesday was a very real, live in your living room display of John "Bob Dole without the charisma" McCain, and if that's how he campaigns for the rest of the election, he's doomed.
What's got Democrats worried (Democrats always worry, usually out loud and to the press) is party unity. And there's no question Obama has his work cut out for him. Now, here's the thing. If I had a nickel for every idiot pundit who says (as Jay Carney did Sunday on ABC with George S) that since Obama lost PA to Clinton, therefore PA is trouble for him in the fall, I'd be a very rich man. No candidate runs in a vacuum (otherwise the lopsided generic wins for D vs R mean we wouldn't need to discuss the election at all.) Obama lost to a very strong and vigorous Democrat in Pennsylvania, not a tired and inarticulate 71 year old Republican who looked every year of his age Tuesday night. He's running with Ed Rendell's machine, not against it. And he's running against the McCain family, including John "you voted 100% of the time with Bush in 2008 and 95% of the time in 2007" McCain.
The battlegrounds are MI and NH far more than PA and the tristate area (NY/NJ/CT), all of which (but for CT) Clinton won in the primaries and none of which John "doesn’t really understand economics" McCain will win in the fall.
Obama’s [8 point] bounce is the result of growing unity among the Democratic Party. Eighty-one percent (81%) of Democrats say they will vote for Obama over McCain. That’s the highest level of party support ever enjoyed by Obama. Still, three-out-of-ten voters are either uncommitted or could change their mind before Election Day. Fifty-six percent (56%) of those swayable voters are women and most earn less than $60,000 a year. There are more conservatives than liberals among these potential swing voters.
What's got Republicans worried is playing defense in FL, OH and VA with no money, and having to deal with IA, NM, CO, MT and NV with a lousy candidate, all at the same time as trying to go on offense in the upper midwest and PA. We can just hope they're idiots and waste resources in CA, but that's, alas, asking for too much. But if we're lucky, John "scare the grandchildren" McCain will at least show up there, keeping him from campaigning somewhere else. And as for what Republicans really think:
In not-for-attribution interviews, a number of Republicans were neither optimistic about his chances nor positive in their assessment of his campaign so far.
"I think we've got a world of problems," said one Republican strategist with extensive experience in presidential campaigns. He said this came home to him with a thud when he watched Obama and McCain give speeches last Tuesday, with the Democrat speaking before "20,000 screaming fans, while John McCain looked every bit of his 72 years" in a speech televised from New Orleans. This Republican cited the liberal blogger Atrios' description of McCain's speech with a green backdrop that made McCain "look like the cottage cheese in a lime Jell-O salad."
Barack Obama's biggest problem is introducing himself to the public that doesn't know him, and convincing people that it's better to take a chance on the new guy than go with John "you know what you're getting with me, and it ain't pretty" McCain. It's the challenge of the 2008 election; if he does it, he wins, and if he doesn't, he'll lose. And highlighting what he needs to do and giving him tools to do it was the biggest benefit of this prolonged primary. Truly, running against Hillary made Barack a better candidate. [And, in response to comments, no, none of this makes Obama inevitable. He still has work to do to win over skeptical voters.]
None of that depends on McCain, of course. As with the primary, McCain only wins if everyone else loses. Nothing made that clearer than John McCain's godawful speech.
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