An Obama Election Day Blowout: The Thing That No One Yet Dares Speak The Name Of

My capacity for being surprised has somehow endured despite writing thousands of news stories, commentaries and blog posts about pretty much everything from the fact that pigs really can fly (in reserved USAir seats) to O.J. Simpson being acquitted for murder (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary). And so it is with signs that Barack Obama may be on the verge of blowing out John McCain.

This outcome, which if it is sustained would easily rank atop a fairly hefty list of surprises in the nine presidential campaigns that I have covered, is heightened by the fact that:

* Going into the campaign, McCain was a widely known and hugely respected veteran campaigner while Obama was a near unknown.

* Obama has had to contend with the bitter aftershock of beating Hillary Clinton and the bitter stain of racism.

* McCain has had at hand shrewd, battle-tested managers, many of them magna cum laude graduates of the Karl Rove School of Divide-and-Conquer Politics.

* Even with the widespread disaffection for all things Bush, Obama’s change-and-hope mantra was vague and seemingly naive.

* The ability of the Republicans to rally around a candidate in contrast to the Democrats’ hard-earned reputation for grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory.

I’m not a high-stakes gambler like McCain, and I’ll hedge my sense of surprise by noting that the signs of a blowout come in the closing weeks of a campaign distinguished by enormous swings. This may yet have the effect of neutralizing a truisim of presidential politics — that voters pretty much make up their minds by the beginning of October.

That so noted:

* Virtually all trend lines favor Obama.

* Obama has broken 50 percent in most national polls and despite the ping-pong dynamic of the polls this season, McCain has had no discernible bounceback in days.

* Obama has moved ahead in Florida, Colorado and several other states crucial to McCain.

* McCain is pulling campaign staff out of the battleground state of Michigan. (Obama has pulled out of North Dakota.)

* Obama’s favorables are increasing in tandem with McCain’s unfavorables, and at a time when President Bush’s unfavorables have reached an historic low.

* Sarah Palin’s disapproval ratings have converged with and are passing her approval ratings, while last night’s exercise in lowered expectations changed few minds.

And the numbers that ultimately matter the most — Electoral College projections — average out at 327 for Obama and 201 for McCain. That, my friends, is a blowout.

It is way too early for post mortems, but try this pre-mortem on for size: McCain may have run out of road because he has based his campaign on shock, smoke and mirrors. And is guilty of grand theft in shamelessly appropriating his opponent’s change meme.

In running a campaign a mile wide and an inch deep, McCain has left himself vulnerable to events on the ground, as they say, and nothing is playing bigger on the ground in states like Michigan than the economy. As it is, Obama has had trouble connecting with blue-collar voters in that state and elsewhere, but McCain has proven to be so inept when it comes campaigning on the economy that he had to cut his loses.

It is now way too late for McCain to pull another robbery. That would be stealing a key ingredient that has gotten Obama to where he is — substance.

One more thought in squaring the surprise circle:

Obama, like the man that it increasingly looks like he will succeed, is largely untested. Like that man, he will need to depend to an extraordinary extent on advisers who are tested.

In that respect voters are rolling the dice just as they did in 2000. Pretty scary, eh?