He just completed a tour of the Middle East and Europe and was welcomed throughout as a conqueror, a liberator, as a breath of fresh . . . well, he wasn't George Bush. And that was good enough. Jordan's King Abdullah personally chauffeured Obama from dinner to O-Force One. Sarkozy all but filled out an absentee ballot in making his preferences known for the upcoming election. 200,000 Germans waved American flags at Berlin's Victory Column as he assured them that this is their time as well as ours.
Back in the states, Team McCain stewed. They bemoaned the press's love affair with all things Obama. They countered video of Barack's triumphal speech in Berlin with footage of McCain taking questions at -- it might have been the Piggly Wiggly, I'm not sure -- in Bethlehem. That's Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, not the one with the manger. They ran ads claiming Obama would rather lose the war than the election and would rather work out than visit wounded troops. Patently absurd but, hey, the Straight Talk Express ain't what it used to be, is it? Basically, they ceded a two-week news cycle to their opponent and were reduced to nitpicking his performance as he tap danced across the world stage, winning friends and influencing people. It was like watching a bunch of old maids critique the swimsuit competition at the Miss America contest.
So where's the bump? How can Obama create some space in this contest?
I suppose he could choose a running mate -- beat McCain and the inevitable Romney to the punch. But it's not like his options are all that exciting, either. Here's a list of possibilities and why Obama hasn't snatched one up yet:
Hillary -- too Clinton. Her Veep negatives poll as high as her positives.
Biden -- too Beltway.
Richardson -- too brown. Barack's got enough trouble trying to win working whites already.
Edwards -- too many kids.
Bayh -- supported the war.
Bloomberg -- too rich, sort of Republican.
Sibelius -- not Hillary.
Webb -- Tailhook.
Rendell -- unwilling second banana.
There are more -- Virginia governor Tim Kaine, retired general Wesley Clark -- but no one who makes your heart skip a beat. Certainly no one who's going to push the polls.
Which is the point, finally. Nobody votes on the vice president. Kaine, Rendell, Biden -- all fine choices but they're not going to help (or hurt) Obama's chances. Clinton might be a big enough name to throw some weight around but it's going to cut both ways.
The only thing that's going to drive Obama over 50% is voter registration and turnout. Kids, African-Americans and Hispanics. He needs blacks to comprise at least 13% of the total vote, up from 11% in '04 and 10% in 'oo. Assuming at least 130 million vote ( a fair assumption, considering 120 million voted in the last election and registration is off the charts), that would mean around 17 million of them will be African Americans, up from around 13 million in '04.
According to a New York Times/CBS News poll taken on July 16, Obama is currently favored over McCain among blacks by a margin of 89-2. He leads among Hispanics 62-23. McCain holds a 46-37 advantage among whites. If Obama can hold, or improve upon, those margins, as well as continue to attract new voters to his campaign, he won't have to worry about those tricky "hard-working whites" that claim they don't know him yet.
I'm not talking about all blue collar whites. It's the voters the Obama campaign is specifically targeting with its most recent mailer that are problematic. The ones that are still asking questions like, "Does he wear a flag pin?" "Is he a Christian?" "Was he sworn in on the bible?" "Was he born in America?" That sort of nonsense. Sure, there are people out there who don't pay much attention to politics until election week, but I don't think they're the one's doing the asking. These questions are code for, "Do you really expect me to vote for a black man?" And while the answer to each question in the mailer is "Yes," the honest response to their ultimate question is "No, I guess I probably don't."
The people-just-don't-know-him-yet argument won't fly anymore. Obama's been a front-page, prime-time story since at least January. I keep hearing about how Americans are much more comfortable with John McCain, that they just have a feel for how he'll perform as president that they don't have yet for the the new kid in town. Well, I'd be willing to bet the average man on the street could actually tell you more about Barack Obama than he could John McCain. That he was born in Hawaii and brought up in Indonesia. That he was raised by a single mom and his grandparents. That he was a community organizer in Chicago after law school. That he opposed the war. McCain? Take away the Hanoi Hilton and the Surge from his narrative and what do you have? I suspect 4 out of 5 voters couldn't identify a single biographical or legislative accomplishment of note. Of the other 20%, half would identify him as a maverick, campaign finance reformer and the other half would label him a flip-flopper. How can anyone honestly say they feel comfortable with who he is? He's pivoted 180 degrees since his last presidential run. Maverick? I don't think so. He's a guy with a temper who likes to tell dirty jokes.
People are uncomfortable talking about the racial aspect of this election. There was much hope that Obama's Philadelphia speech in March would initiate a national dialogue which would begin to heal the scars of our racial divide. The enthusiasm lasted about a week before the discussion was dropped. Other than a half-hearted debate about whether Obama's Appalachian Problem was race-based as Hillary rolled him in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky, the subject has not, for the most part, been revisited.
I'm not sure Obama can transcend race in this election. 75 percent of the voters in this country are white and less than 40 percent of them say they have a favorable impression of the African American candidate. I don't know what he can do to change their minds in the upcoming months.
Fortunately for him, he might not have to. Each day the electorate seems to grow younger and more diverse as McCain appears older and less relevant. Obama may finally overcome the race obstacle, not by transcending it, but by overwhelming it.
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