Is It Over?

By Ron Beasley

Over at The Moderate Voice my friend Jazz asks Is Election 2008 Over?  Jazz doesn't think so:

But it is also worth remembering that John McCain was up in the polls only a couple of weeks ago. American politics can and does turn on a dime and few are prescient enough to predict when and where those coins will fall. There is still nearly a month to go, and in political time that may as well be a century. Swings states tend to swing, and, like any good pendulum, what goes one way should not surprise any of us if it turns around and heads back in the other direction. While the Obama inaugural celebrations are being planned, I would remind his supporters about the rule regarding counting chickens before beaks are visible. Congratulations to you if you prevail, but you’ll excuse me if I don’t order my inaugural ball tickets just yet.

Now to give Jazz a break some new polls have come out showing Obama up in Virginia by 10% or more and the McCain campaign wrote off Florida when it announced it would cut medicare.  Most of the daily tracking polls show Obama with 50 percent or more and an eight to ten point lead.  For the first time Pollester.com shows Obama over the magic 270 EVs needed to win and Steve Lombardo points out that the issue is the economy and there's not going to be any improvement in the next four weeks.

We believe that when the history of this election is written, September 15th will be seen as the day Obama won (or perhaps the day McCain lost the election). The previous Friday morning it was announced that Lehman was filing for bankruptcy. As the markets prepared to open it looked like we were headed for a downturn. In an apparent effort to bring some stability to the markets, at approximately 9:00 in the morning - during a stump speech in Jacksonville - McCain said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." That marked the beginning of the end for his campaign. By 2:00 p.m., at his next stop in Orlando, he was backtracking, saying, "The economic crisis is not the fault of the American people. Our workers are the most innovative, the hardest-working, the best-skilled, most productive, most competitive in the world, that's the American worker. My opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals, the American worker and their innovation, their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they're strong." The stock market dropped 505 points that day.

And about the character assassination:

The window for challenging Obama's character may have closed. Media reports indicate that Team McCain is going to take the gloves off (they have begun by launching attacks on Obama's connection with Bill Ayers). However, it is our sense that this should have been done in August and September, and that at this point it will likely fall on deaf ears. We are not saying that this is not a solid campaign tactic, but in light of the serious (and potentially catastrophic) issues facing the country it seems off-key at best. At worst it seems desperate. Voter opinions of Obama started to shift and harden (in his favor) after that first debate. He became substantially more acceptable. Since that time, the economic situation has made Obama a more acceptable alternative. Character attacks are part of politics and often work, but not when the country is at war and mired in an economic recession.

If it's not over already it could be after the debate tomorrow night.  McCain needs an exceptional night and he needs for Obama to have a really bad one.  Neither of those are likely.  Unless the debate is a real game changer in McCain's favor expect the Republican Party to cut the McCain campaign lose and spend what money the party has trying to save some Senators.