It has been noted by some that there have been a plethora of items here about Sarah Palin and not much else. I’m clearly guilty of the same sin of omission, but not for lack of searching. It’s just that not only does the entire country seem focused on the fresh, red meat of the Alaskan Governor, but the Democratic ticket doesn’t seem to be doing very much of note this week. (And I plan to examine why today.) Granted, Obama did talk to senior citizens about Social Security and scare them with warnings that McCain would cut benefits, privatize the program or raise the retirement age, but it was really retreaded material. (McCain denies these charges, by the way.) He also showed up in Pennsylvania to talk about the five year record high unemployment numbers and the shedding of jobs, but there was also nothing really inflammatory there either. The most interesting note from Team Obama may have been the agreement to appear in a non-partisan appearance with John McCain on Sept. 11 and to put politics aside for a few hours. Nice… but also really not anything to feed the ravening maw of the news beast.
So I will both pose and attempt to answer the following question: what is Obama up to? Is he actually trying to capture the media spotlight but being shoved down below the noise level by the storm of Palinmania? Or is he, in fact, lying low? My choice is the latter, and it could either prove brilliant or suicidal.
While I’m fully aware that I may be projecting some of my own feelings into my speculation on what’s running through the minds of Obama’s advisers, it does seem possible that they are currently taking a wait-and-see attitude about McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin. They may be hoping that the selection will prove disastrous and Palin will become an albatross around the neck of John McCain. If a tight election could be turned into a widening lead for Obama by virtue of Big Mac shooting himself in the foot, it would be a much easier path than trying to come up with new strategies to shoot-it-out in the streets.
How will this fare? Thus far the results are mixed. In the first week after the announcement, it seemed to do nothing to the Gallup three day rolling average which showed Obama reopening a measurable if not dominating lead after the Democrats’ big party in Denver. In recent days, however, after the Republican rejoinder in St. Paul and the various speeches given there, the worm seems to be turning. Obama’s previous nine point lead has shrunk to two and those numbers only include one full day after the nation watched Palin’s attack dog speech at the convention.
There are still 59 days to the election with several big debate events on the horizon, but letting the Palin story run loose without any serious counter-punching seems to be a strategy with a huge fork in the road ahead. The media, still rife in a fully justifiable snit-fit over their lack of unfettered, one-on-one access to the new candidate, may well continue to hammer on the negative: Palin’s thin resume, her impending legal perils in Troopergate, her walk-backs on pork barrel spending and government reform. If the electorate responds to that and McCain’s numbers take a turn south, Obama should have little to fear. But voters may also view this as somehow being an unfair attack on the former beauty queen, hockey mom turned P.T.A member, mayor and Governor. If that is the case, they may well continue to focus on the life story narrative which Team McCain has been trying to feed to the public and push Big Mac’s numbers even higher.
If that happens, however, and McCain’s risky choice proves to be prescient, Obama will be forced – for the first time in this general election cycle – to begin fighting from the underdog position and discover a way to make a comeback. This reminds me for some reason of when Ed Morrissey and I were liveblogging the last Super Bowl at Captain’s Quarters. (Ed was blogging, I was commenting.) The Giants, after holding the lead for a long time, had fallen behind near the end of the game. At that point, both Ed and I -nearly simultaneously – said that, “here’s where Mrs. Manning’s younger boy will have to prove if he’s really ready for that ring.” Should the Palin pick drive Big Mac measurably above the 50% mark, that’s when The One will have to prove whether he’s really got what it takes to grab that seat in the Oval Office.
He won’t be without hope, as serious stumbles by any of the candidates during the debates (or a sudden shot of horrible news from Alaska’s legislative inquiry) could still send the numbers spiraling in the other direction. But that’s not the sort of thing you want to be relying on a few weeks before the big game. I still think that the Palin nomination will blow up in McCain’s face, but I’ve been so wrong, so often this season, I can assure you that you have no reason to base your opinions on my predictions.