Musings on Barack Obama: Why The Only Question Is What His Margin of Victory Will Be
Even with the election three and a half months out, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama will be the next president.
This is not a particularly rash prediction given that color-blind Democrats and Independents and even some Republicans will far outnumber people who would never vote for an African-American, Obama has an enthusiastic base and will attract a broad cross-section of voters, is pretty much in tune with the mainstream on the issues that matter, has long coattails and is incredibly well organized and financed.
In contrast, John McCain has a small and unenthusiastic base, is running a lackadaisical campaign more focused on raising money than winning votes, has trouble figuring out where he stands on the issues that matter, has no coattails and is stuck with an albatross known as George Bush, whose unpopularity he wears like a bad case of five o’clock shadow.
The only question is whether Obama will squeak by or win in a walk, and I believe the margin will have a lot to do with how successful he is at defining who John McCain is.
This notion runs against the political grain, but then the media has been deaf and dumb to a lot of what’s really going on since well before it was blindsided by the Obama phenomenon in Iowa. Entire forests have been pulped to print commentaries about who Obama is, what he stands for, whether he walks on water and whether he has a genuine birth certificate.
Obama, in fact, is pretty much an open book, while it is McCain who is emerging as a mystery man. It is for this reason that Obama cannot be content to merely let McCain fall on his own sword, which he will continue to do and do with greater frequency when debate season commences.
Obama has to aim right through the White House for McCain’s wheelhouse, and that will take some dexterity. McCain’s Vietnam War experience has little bearing on whether he is presidential timber, but in any event is off limits. So are McCain’s history as a misogynist and his septuagenarian discombobulations.
Fair game are McCain’s voodoo economic and health care plans, as well as his views on Social Security and women’s reproductive rights. But the more Obama hammers McCain about that five o’clock shadow — and smokes out how hard wired McCcin is to the presidential failures of the last seven-plus years and how incredibly un-maverick he really is — the wider his margin of victory could be.
Speaking of race, the No S— Story of the month is the much chattered over New York Times article last week that solemnly declared Obama is not closing the racial gap in America.
I have given no thought as to whether McCain is closing the Luddite gap, while it never occurred to me, as it most certainly and absurdly did The Times, that Obama would bridge racial fault lines a couple of centuries in the making by his mere presence on the national stage.
The Times story is additionally problematic because it reduces the most exciting presidential campaign of my lifetime to a single issue. While race matters to knuckledraggers, it is a non-starter for a healthy majority of American voters who will proudly elect a man whose mother was a white woman from Kansas and father a black man from Kenya.
As it is, I believe in my head and heart that we are an election cycle or two away from a time when race and sexual preference simply won’t be of particular consequence to a candidate’s viability. Racists and homophobes are dying breeds, and while they will never become extinct, they will be even a minority in the ossified Republican Party of the near future.
Obama needs to stop flapping his gums about the less than respectful coverage that his wife is getting in the right-wing media. It is unnecessarily distracting.
There was a time when a candidate’s wife was little more than wallpaper, but as Rosalynn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama herself have shown, they are their husband’s leading surrogates.
That doesn’t justify scurrilous and otherwise unfair attacks on the candidates’ wives, but they are fair game.
Despite generally fawning media coverage, McCain can’t seem to catch a break and doesn’t deserve to. After badmouthing Obama for weeks over not visiting Iraq or Afghanistan, the presumptive Democratic nominee is doing just that. He moves on to Jordan today and then Israel, the Palestinian territories, Germany, France and England.
It is well nigh ironic that the man who McCain says is sorely lacking in foreign policy experience has long recognized Afghanistan as the central front in the War on Terror even if Bush insists that the terrorists who wrecked havoc on 9/11 were from Iraq, which of course has been the central distraction in the War on Terror. McCain has been smart enough to not repeat that canard, but has been dumb and dumber in repeatedly declaring victory but adamantly refusing to address any kind of troop withdrawal timetable.
The chaos in Afghanistan has forced Bush and McCain to sidle up to Obama’s position like a pair of hapless fools who have been thrown out of a party and are gingerly making their way along the narrow ledge of a tall building high above the street in an attempt to find a window get back in. It would be comical if it wasn’t so bloody sad.
To their additional discomfort, Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki are more or less on the same page about U.S. troop withdrawals. Al-Maliki’s insistence that Iraq’s national sovereignty be recognized has forced the man in the White House to do some shape shifting and provoked his wannabe successor to issue the second most asinine statement of the week past — that Bush and Obama are a lot closer on Iraq than he is. (The first is that the toxic Phil Gramm really has been expelled from the campaign.)
Let’s be clear: This doesn’t mean that Obama is a great national security sage. He is not, but he does have foresight, a hallmark of all great leaders.
And while McCain suffered mightily in a North Vietnamese POW camp while Bush was back home playing Air National Guard flyboy when not partying, they don’t even have hindsight let alone foresight: Neither have learned the lessons from that unhappy war that have had to be learned all over again in Iraq.
Expectations for Obama’s overseas trip are ridiculously high considering that it is primarily a meet and greet.
But in yet another slap to McCain, we will be constantly reminded throughout the week that if people in Europe could vote in the presidential election, the hugely popular Obama would win in a landslide over McCain, who is accurately viewed as an older but not wiser version of the most reviled man in the world who doesn’t live in a cave and wear a white turban and a beard.
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21 Responses to “Musings on Barack Obama: Why The Only Question Is What His Margin of Victory Will Be”
And so we have the far left, pretending to be center, politician who has proposed billions in new spending. Has promised to pull out of Iraq BUT to escalate the war in Afghanistan. Who has shown no desire what so ever nor has he even talked about balancing the budget.
So we are going to elect a tax and spend Liberal who has said he will roll back Bush's tax cuts and instead give them to the middle class and the poor.
Who wants his turn in the Candy store that is known as our budget.
When Bush was in the White House I had to pay for 2 Wars and watch the dollar fall just so our corporations could compete on the global stage with excessively priced labor compared to the wages of the world market. With Obama in the White House I have to pay for 2 wars AND 100 billion dollars plus of new spending. So under Barak Obama our Budget deficit will be 500 billion per year instead of 400 billion.
Who will pay………..well China of course. There was a time when Our budget deficit was money we owed OURSELVES at that time it was not a serious deal. Today its fast becoming money we OWE ofther nations and now it is becoming a serious deal.
AMERICA IS NOW A DEBTOR NATION.
and on the other hand, Senator John McCain's solutions to our many problems are …status quo…..?
Shaun,
Please take the advise of the Kossite and never apologize or make excuses for Democrats. Senator Obama's proposals are just as voodoo-ish as the plans of Senator McCAin.
Do you really think that the U.S. can have open borders and unlimited immigration while reducing energy consumption while making real wages go up? How does someplace like Lancaster, PA fair under the proposed Obama policies. Gasoline will be so expensive that car trips will be cost prohibitive. No new non-tourist business will be able to establish themselves due to greenhouse gasoline regulation. The growing numbers of Hispanics and blacks will have no idea what Lancaster is and have zero desire to visit there.
Please regain some credibility and demonstrate that you are willing to criticize someone of the left for their voodoo proposals. How can you really take serioyusly a presidential candidate who believes that lead paint abatement is more important than academic learning?
christoofar
At least McCain has offered to balance the budget. Obama has made no such offer, and avoids the conversation because there are just too many new programs he wants to put out there.
The dollar has been allowed to fall by design. Our corporations cannot compete on the world stage with 25 dollar per hour labor. The only way to let them compete is to let the dollar plummet which allows us to sell stuff on the foreign markets but it hurts hard here at home.
Or we can prop up the dollar, force corporations to lay off people because they cannot sell their products abroad but it lowers prices at homes.
Status Quo. I believe that neither candidate is right. McCain has shown no proclivity to have answers for our national fiscal dilemna. But I keep asking.
This post was OBAMA IS our next president…….So Im asking….whats he gonna do. He has offered us nothing……..except spend, spend, spend. and End the war in Iraq. Other then that he has offered no proposals and the ones he has have been met with BOOSSSS.
Works, Faith Based Charities.
I want to see specific proposals and were not going to see any. None. Zip. Zilch.
He has no answers to The ailing dollar and real wages because to address this problem would require a balanced budget so that other nations are not turning away from our financial instruments and by default punish us with lower dollar value.
He has no answer and hes not going to give an answer because he only wants to do one thing when he gets in office. SPEND more money and have bigger debts and give money to the middle class instead of having the balls to face down his base who is tax and spend and solving these issues like Mr. Clinton did.
He has no answers, only inspirational speeches that make us believe that things will change.
And they will not. Only change this country is facing is the names on the door.
Any concerns about overconfidence notwithstanding, Shaun's pretty well nailed it here. Barring some sort of (fantasy) October suprise scenario, this is highly unlikely to go the way of McCain. As for the usual reactionary responses? Good luck with your candidate… whoever he is. You'll need it.
Jspencer,
the real question is what will politics and culture be like in the coming one party state. Currently people can at least vote with their feet and move to an area where the culture and politics match their own.
Yet, in the coming Obama Administration, all issues will be nationalized. That limits people's ability to vote with their feet and since few elections are competative and the changing demographics of the U.S. will reinforce the one party state, how will politics function in the future.
Will the U.S. become like Chicago where inside deals and powerbrokers have all of the say? Will most people give up on politics and the politcal process as a lost causes? Will corruption become rampant when the political process can no longer be used to make changes?
By indefinitely occupying large swaths of the Middle East and giving rich folks tax cuts.
That would be like Oprah announcing she's going to lose 50 pounds by going on an all Pizza Hut diet.
SD, if I thought your characterizations (“one party state” & “nationalizing all issues”) were accurate, then I'd be concerned, but they aren't, and I'm not.
Jspencer,
There is no credible scenerio that has the Republicans making a comeback. And it is pure fantasy to believe that any group currently in the Democratic party is going to walk away from power. What is more likely, that national politics will become more life California politics as the demographics of the U.S. become more like California or that the Republicans can make a comeback.
The Democrats are going to have to nationalize policy to keep people from voting with their feet. Can you really expect there to be nationalized healthcare when all of the middle class healthcare workers move out of places like NYC for a higher standard of living in places like Charlotte, Nashville, Atlanta, etc? The Democratic party will have to find a way to keep people from moving into the last few places where fiscal conservatives still have any ability to affect policy.
Here's an interesting article from The Financial Times which supports the view that Obama will have a conclusive victory in the fall, based on a tested “formula”… but with one new variable:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3bf5c59a-5666-11dd-86…
I bet it will be less divisive than when we had one-party rule under the GOP. The Dems are more open to Cantrist policies thaw the neo-cons ever were. There will be no Terry Schivo fiascos, and our Constitution will be repared.
WagmerScj.
The republicans never got to sixty seats in the Senate. If the Democrats do not make it this year, they will make it in 2010. the Democrats are bound to pick up 30 more seats in the House in 2012 after the redistricting. I doubt that there will be a Republican house member north of Virginia in 2012.
Shaun's getting tiresome again. But the issue is, yes, Obama is presumed to be the winner over McCain this year. My own standard for an “exceptional” victory by Obama is that which naturally defines a true supermajority and, libs and Dems may even insist, constitutes a mandate. Will Obama defeat McCain by at least 62-38?
Superdestroyer: The GOP made a comeback in 1994, admittedly due to the Clintons' lurch to the left. Such a response may not arise out of a tired public (tired of Bush and the GOP, that is) in 2010 if Obama, or Obama with a strong Dem majority in both houses of Congress and even more arrogance and conceit and poor politics and economics at “work.” But the GOP can always remain as an opposition party to Dem overreach and has a chance to grow even in this pitiful role as taxes and spending related to our already-colossal Social Security and Medicare programs threaten to raise taxes to levels not seen before in this country. We are normal, and won't like it any more than we like high motor vehicle fuel prices.
Why don't either Obama or McCain have a real plan to take action now rather than later? They don't want to tell the public the bad news they don't want to hear, to quote Obama's promise not do behave in such a way, is the answer.
“The Medicare Report shows that the [HI] program could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years by an immediate 122 percent increase in the payroll tax (from 2.9 percent to 6.44 percent), or an immediate 51 percent reduction in program outlays or some combination of the two. As with Social Security, adjustments of greater magnitude would be necessary if changes are delayed or phased in gradually. Larger changes would also be required to make the program solvent on a sustainable basis beyond the 75-year horizon.
[...E]xpected steep [SMI and Part D] cost increases will result in rapidly growing general revenue financing needs—projected to rise from 1.3 percent of GDP in 2007 to 4.1 percent in 2082—as well as substantial increases over time in beneficiary premium charges.”
“Social Security could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years in various ways, including an immediate increase of 14 percent in payroll tax revenues (from 12.4 percent to 14.1 percent) or an immediate reduction in benefits of 12 percent or some combination of the two. Ensuring that the system is solvent on a sustainable basis beyond the next 75 years would require larger changes, because an aging population and increasing longevity cause the projected current-law OASDI cash-flow deficits to be substantially larger after the 75-year projection period than they are on average during the period.
The projected actuarial deficit in the OASDI Trust Fund over the infinite future is 3.2 percent of taxable payroll (1.1 percent of GDP), or $13.6 trillion in present value terms. The system could be brought into actuarial balance over this time horizon with an immediate increase in payroll tax revenues of 26 percent (from 12.4 percent to 15.6 percent) or an immediate reduction in benefits of 20 percent, or some combination of the two. ”
“Concern about the long-range financial outlook for Medicare and Social Security often focuses on the exhaustion dates for the HI and OASDI Trust Funds—the time when projected finances under current law would be insufficient to pay the full amount of scheduled benefits. A more immediate issue is the growing burden that the programs will place on the Federal budget well before the trust funds are exhausted.
The difference between the cost of scheduled benefits and tax income for the HI and OASDI Trust Funds is shown in Chart E, together with the Federal general fund revenues provided under current law for SMI. During 2008-18 for HI, general revenues (the red bars in the chart) must be used to cover the interest earnings and asset redemptions required to offset the shortfall of HI tax revenues. Similarly, general revenues cover these offsets for the OASDI deficits during 2017-40 (blue bars). In addition, general revenues pay for roughly 75 percent of all SMI costs under current law (green bars).
In 2019 and later for HI, and in 2041 and later for OASDI, there is no provision in current law that would enable full payment of benefits, once the trust funds are exhausted. If asset exhaustion actually occurred, benefits could be paid only up to the amount of ongoing dedicated revenues. Further general fund transfers could not be made to finance the deficits.
The initial negative amounts shown for OASDI indicate that tax income exceeds cost (which occurs during 2008-16) and represent net cash flow to the Treasury that results in the issuance of special Treasury bonds to the trust funds. Those OASDI net revenues are more than offset by the Medicare general revenue requirements under current law. For instance, in 2008 the Social Security tax income surplus ($79 billion) is estimated to be significantly smaller than the statutory Medicare Part B and Part D general revenue transfers, resulting in an overall cash requirement of $117 billion (0.8 percent of GDP) from the general fund of the Treasury.
The combined difference grows each year, so that by 2017, net revenue flows from the general fund will total $449 billion (2.0 percent of GDP). The positive amounts that begin in 2017 for OASDI, and in 2008 for HI, initially represent payments the Treasury must make to the trust funds when assets are redeemed to help pay benefits in years prior to exhaustion of the funds. Note that neither the redemption of trust fund bonds, nor interest paid on those bonds, provides any new net income to the Treasury, which must finance redemptions and interest payments through some combination of increased taxation, reductions in other government spending, or additional borrowing from the public.
Chart E shows that the difference between outgo and dedicated payroll tax and premium income will grow rapidly in the 2010-30 period as the baby-boom generation reaches retirement age. Beyond 2030, the difference continues to increase nearly as rapidly due primarily to health care costs that grow faster than GDP. After the trust fund exhaustion dates (2041 for OASDI, 2019 for HI), the increasing positive amounts for OASDI and HI depict the excess of scheduled benefits over projected program income. When the statutory SMI general fund revenue requirements are added in, the projected combined Social Security and Medicare deficits and statutory general fund revenues in 2082 equal 9.3 percent of GDP, indicating the magnitude of the potential effect on the Federal budget if general revenues were used to ensure payment of all scheduled program benefits. A similar burden today would require more than 80 percent of all Federal income tax revenues, which amounted to 11.2 percent of GDP in 2007.
To put these magnitudes into historical perspective, in 2007 the combined annual cost of HI, SMI, and OASDI amounted to 38 percent of total Federal revenues, or about 7 percent of GDP. That cost (as a percentage of GDP) is projected to double by 2060, and then to increase further to nearly 17 percent of GDP in 2082. It is noteworthy that over the past four decades, the average amount of total Federal revenue as a percentage of GDP has been 18 percent, and has not exceeded 21 percent in a given year. Assuming the continued need to fund a wide range of other government functions, the projected growth in Social Security and Medicare costs would require that the total Federal revenue share of GDP increase to wholly unprecedented levels.
This year's Trustees Reports describe large long-term financial imbalances for Social Security and Medicare, and demonstrate the need for timely and effective action. The sooner that solutions are adopted, the more varied and gradual they can be.”
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/index.html
With Obama voters like those described in this NPR story, I expect a landslide.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st…
I read about an interesting feature of current polling practice that excludes cell phone users from their polls. Apparently its illegal to use auto-dialers on cell phone numbers which is how polling outfits reach landline users.
There is a great percentage of younger people that are solely cell phone users. They have no traditional land line and thus are excluded from most polls. So is it possible that current polls we are seeing have a glaring blind spot in regards to youth vote? Who are they likely to vote for?
The polls confuse as much as they inform.
Question: How many and which of those polled will actually vote?
Polling is a money making industry. Issuing poll resutls is self-advertising.
I don't believe all ads I read or hear, and neither should anyone else.
Buyer beware!
“The Democrats are going to have to nationalize policy to keep people from voting with their feet. Can you really expect there to be nationalized healthcare when all of the middle class healthcare workers move out of places like NYC for a higher standard of living in places like Charlotte, Nashville, Atlanta, etc?”
Yes, they federalize as much as they can — or as someone else said, “Expand the scope of jurisdiction to make escape impractical.”
Escape from what? Not government health care (federal health care for a uniform standard nation-wide is what most people want, not state or county health care) but failed policies of more, bloated government and taxes that are outrageously high. (Just wait another 10-20 years as costs mount to support government retirees. Those places with hordes of government workers now and retirees later are going to hurt even more than they do now — as will those who face changes to their anticipated or expected standards of living as government retirees.)
In addition to flight of people there is flight of jobs and this is resented in Blue Nation. (But where's the reform to keep the jobs where they are, or to attract more, new jobs?)
* * *
“I want to see specific proposals and were not going to see any. None. Zip. Zilch.”
And Cabinet selections, etc.
Just be aware of basic strategy both candidates will follow, to ward off negative ads and attacks — they reveal as few details (objects of attack) as possible.
Well It seems Obama wants to occupy Afghanistan and NOT balance the budget and give tax cuts to the middle class.
Seems pretty warmongering, fiscally irresponsible to me.
I'd hardly call Mr. Obama an “open book”. For example, there has been a significant cloud of controversy concerning a document his campaign posted of what it claims is a copy of Mr. Obama's authentic Hawaiian “Certificate of Live Birth. It may be seen here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/birthcert
Outside of the fact that there is no signature, no official state seal and the certificate number was redacted (which make it invalid on its face), a number of graphics experts have also concluded that the image is a forgery.
Mr. Obama could end this cloud of suspicion by sending $10 (per certificate) to the State of Hawaii and requesting that they release a signed and officially sealed copy of his Certificate of Live Birth to a select number of respected media organizations. It's really that easy. But he's not willing to do that. How come?
Keep in mind that no one is asking him here to release any personal information that he hasn't already released himself. Because all we'd like to see is a copy of that SAME document that's currently on his OFFICIAL campaign website albeit this time with a signature, official seal and certificate number.
Mr. OpenBookAMA is not nearly as transparent as you believe and he is also not the inevitable victor in this race. Just remember, the faster they rise, the faster they fall. And since Obama is the new messiah, that means that things are going to really suck for him on the way down.
[...] AR wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThis notion runs against the political grain, but then the media has been deaf and dumb to a lot of what’s really going on since well before it was blindsided by the Obama phenomenon in Iowa. Entire forests have been pulped to print … Read the rest of this great post here [...]