Welcome to the Jungle
May 30th, 2008What is the Democratic Party going to do to defeat John McCain? According to Rasmussen polling data, the American public trusts McCain over Obama to deal with the economy, the war in Iraq, general national security and taxes. Convention holds that the numbers are going to close up in the coming months, as Obama focuses exclusively on the Senator from Arizona, but what if they don’t? What if the Republicans convince Americans that leaving Iraq is surrender — data says very few Americans want to withdraw “immediately,” so if Republicans can drive that home it might doom Obama — and stand strong on all other national security issues? What are we going to do when McCain argues that Obama is going to raise all our taxes to pay for his crazy socialist ideas, which will be a potent argument considering the lack of money Americans have now. “The Democrats want to take even more away.” Worst of all, I fear we have a candidate running who is not positioned to counter character attacks because superficially he is vulnerable in ways that McCain isn’t, and the newest controversy from his church is a great example of this. I believe that Hillary Clinton has stayed in this race (and might remain in this race) for two reasons: she wants to be President, like any of the other people in this race, and she believes that Obama is not going to win the election, so she wishes to spare the party a disaster. I’m willing to vote for Obama, but I am very concerned about the election. This will be one to watch and read about for a long time to come.