Quote of the Day: Is History Repeating Itself For The Democrats?

Today’s political Quote of the Day comes from Zogby International writer Paul Lomeo on a host of recent poll numbers that suggest Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s Presidential bid is systematically-deflating in the polls. It’s worth quoting more chunks of this than usual:

As the Democrats head into their convention, should they be singing the Eurythmics 1985 hit “Here Comes That Sinking Feeling”?

Just as party leaders pack their bags for Denver, our latest Reuters/Zogby poll finds their nominee in some trouble, as Republican John McCain has taken a five-point lead over Barack Obama. That is a 12-point reversal from the survey we took for Reuters in July. Interestingly, Obama’s margins among what had been his strongest demographic groups dropped by as much as 12 points. These include Democrats, women, city dwellers and younger voters – those ages 25-34. Also, Obama has lost his lead among the swing Catholic vote, dropping 11 points to McCain over a month.

What is happening is all too familiar to Democrats. McCain is using the Karl Rove playbook, attacking Obama’s perceived strengths, notably his mass appeal and freshness. Democrats hoped that eight years of a failed Bush presidency (80% in our latest survey said the nation was on the wrong track) so diminished the GOP brand that “going negative” would not work again for the Republicans.

But polls show that negative campaigning — coupled with some major stumbles by Obama and his advisers — is indeed working again.

It’s the old story about you can’t effectively compete in the existing political culture unless you are fully playing by the rules of the political culture. And responding to charges or insinuations ASAP, using political ju-jitsu to turn those charges into negatives on the person who made it, and answering with your own volley that directs the debate is the way to do it — not simply replying to the charge and then going off for a week’s vacation at a time when early voter perceptions about candidates are being formulated.

Negative campaigning did not work on either side of the aisle in the primaries and caucuses. However, clearly McCain has been the aggressor for the past month, seeing an opportunity to define Obama for General Election voters before Obama could define himself. At times, it has seemed like he has been the only one throwing any punches, especially with Obama on vacation in Hawaii.

He notes some other key factors indicating that the chips have now fallen McCain’s and the GOP’s way, such as:

–Obama’s trip to Europe and his Presidential aura. Europe isn’t a favorite among conservatives and, he notes, when conservatives closed their eyes and imagined Obama in office, they didn’t like what they saw (a liberal).

–Obama’s move to the center upset liberal voters.

–Obama’s poor choice of a vacation time — ignoring political history — coupled with the style of Obama’s campaign:

Choosing August for a vacation proved inopportune for Obama. August has been cruel to Democrats in the past. That is the month when Jimmy Carter, Mike Dukakis and John Kerry all went down in the polls.

What should be most troubling to Democrats is: Obama and his associates knew this since this factor was mentioned in news reports earlier in the primary season and the summer. Nonetheless, Obama still vanished for a week while McCain kept hammering.

This stems from a larger attitude problem with the Democratic Party as a whole.

In several Presidential election years now, we’ve seen a “We can’t lose to that bozo!” attitude — which on Election Day was followed by a “Will someone tell us how we lost to that bozo?” attitude. While Rove and his techniques are well-known — it was said by pundits and political mavens early in the primary season that the Republicans would go after the Democratic Party nominee’s strengths — there seems to have been no serious, formidable game plan ready in advance on how to respond to long-predicted attacks. Democrats need to guard themselves against feeling that Democrats can’t lose because of political factor X, Y and Z or other economic factors.

The bottom line is that Democrats (once again) seemingly didn’t put enough focus on what is perhaps the key Presidential campaign battleground:

As much as voters may prefer the Democrats on most issues, McCain is winning the contest of defining who has the character and personality that swing voters expect in a President. Obama appeals to the mind. McCain goes for the gut.

McCain’s war record and well-established image as a maverick Republican make it tough for Obama to assail McCain the man. Obama’s rhetoric this week shows he recognizes that his issues appeal must become more aggressive and emotional. With 48% of our poll respondents citing the economy as the most important issue, Obama is hitting hard at the GOP record on job losses. He clearly has work to do. Our Reuters/Zogby poll released Wednesday shows more voters trust McCain to deal effectively with economic issues.

Lomeo notes the race issue and how it’s a political minefield for Obama, since if he responds to it, he’s pounded for himself using the race card.

So what happens next?

It may happen that independent expenditure groups – those so-called “527s” – will raise the racial ante. If they do, Obama may be forced to follow the model set by Jackie Robinson, who ignored taunts in order to succeed as Major League baseball’s first African-American.

His vice-presidential pick and the convention now give Obama the opportunity to restore his image as an agent of positive change who would inspire the nation to act. It will be a tall order. But let’s not forget – it was the electric Obama speech at the Democratic convention four years ago that got this whole presidential campaign started in the first place.

The big shift is this: the early Obama appealed to the mind AND to the gut in his speeches due to his passionate talk about a kind of change many independent voters and even Republicans sought to see in policy specifics how government and politics could once again prize unity versus polarization. He also seemed like a fighter.

The summer Obama has come across more as someone self-assured that, in the end, he’d win even when responding to McCain and McCain ads.

McCain is coming across with someone with a fire in his belly; Obama is coming across as someone who has a big, recently-eaten meal in his belly and who’s sluggish.

Just as McCain seemingly squandered the spring months when the Democrats bitterly-battled each other, Obama has seemingly squandered the critical summer months when voters get their first impressions of likely Presidential candidates.

For now, Big Mo has left Obama for another guy who is the one coming across on the tube with more passion, energy, political nimbleness and is setting the terms of the daily and weekly debate.

Big Mo isn’t analyzing every single debating point but is more attracted to who looks seems stronger, more assertive, who controls the discussion and who seems more reassuringly-protective and able to take-charge to solve problems.

Can Obama recapture the early aura of his candidacy despite GOP efforts to say that, if crowds cheer it’s because they’re hypnotized, if he has a huge audience it’s because he himself is Messianic, and if he hits a high rhetorical high note and sounds as inspirational as JFK it’s because he’s really an inexperienced empty suit who only can make nice speeches?

And is he — and is his team and are the Democrats — ready to do battle not just on policy specifics but on the crucial battleground of a candidate’s image….defending his turf and making incursions into McCain’s poll-increased turf?

If not, then history is repeating itself this summer — and will also repeat itself on Election Day.

Cartoon by John Cole, The Scranton Times-Tribune