novatownhall blog

NBC/Mason Dixon poll just announced John McCain now trails Barack Obama 47% – 43%, with a margin of error of 4%.

Elsewhere on the same page, the Time/CNN poll has Obama 55%, McCain 43%. So you need to choose whom you believe.

Or like RCP just average them together, which lends an air of credence possibly not deserved to whichever is wrong. But what the hey. As Karl Rove said, there’s a lot of polls out there nowadays.

I have labeled the the left side of my front yard as Obama territory and the right side McCain, and I can tell you there is far more squirrel nut-burying activity on the right side – something like 58% to Obama’s 39%. Average that poll in with the other two and McCain has pulled ahead of Obama for the first time since late September. To me this indicates the undecideds breaking for McCain, which has to be the Obama campaign’s chief concern right now.

But here is what is most interesting: Even with the ungodly advantage in advertising in all forms he has been doing, Obama not only cannot close the deal but may be losing ground as time goes on. Americans are getting to know Barack Obama better, and not liking what they see.

This is surprising: Early voters in Florida are giving John McCain a 4 point advantage over Barack Obama, and McCain is leading by 20 points in absentee ballots already tabulated. Democrats are turning out in larger numbers than Republicans, as expected – but they are not all voting for Obama.

As the Dems for McCain crowd has opined, there are some lingering bad feelings about the Obama campaign’s tactics in the primaries, and paybacks can be hell.

Or maybe all those Democrats who happen to own or work for small businesses are getting wind of Obama’s tax hikes for over a million small companies which might just be the beginning.

Whatever the reason, this is great news.

Barack Obama merely needs to hold it together in this debate, and the following two, and he will likely be our next president. Whether justified or not (it’s not), the economic crisis is going to benefit the party that is not in the White House. When banks are closing, and people have to be thinking about whether they are over the FDIC insurance limit at any one institution, things are bad. The easiest way to register protest against that state of affairs, if you are the average voter whose main source of information is the mainstream media, is to vote for the guy with the D after his name.

That, and the fact Obama supposedly is going to have a much better ground game on November 4, and the Democrats have a huge head start in the critical vote fraud effort, means the status quo is a loss for John McCain.

McCain needs to dramatically break through the mainstream media filter with 1) strong, clear messages that will resonate with viewers and 2) at least one bone-jarring attack on Barack Obama that causes Obama to completely tweak.

In McCain’s favor are the facts that he is right about more issues than Obama and he is a better extemporaneous speaker. Off the cuff, Obama has a history of letting slip what he really thinks, which often, rightfully, comes off as highly repugnant to many Americans. He also has proven himself thin-skinned and easily rattled.

So McCain needs to hit on some topics that reveal the cracks in Obama’s facade. My suggestions are some inconvenient truths such as the following:

- The Annenberg-Ayers connection and general fact that the Obamas like people who hate America;

- The fact that Obama, despite his rhetoric, pays his female employees worse than either McCain or Hillary Clinton did;

- Obama’s abysmal record on Second Amendment issues;

- Any of Obama’s lies – here’s a set of them, and here are some more;

- Or any of the “Chicago machine” stuff, because of all the swipes “typical politician” seems to be one that cuts to the bone, probably because it is both extremely true and extremely ruinous to his carefully constructed persona.

I think any of these truths, clearly and calmly explained by McCain, will get Obama twitching, and one major instance of this in front of 40 million viewers will be the end of his viability as a candidate.

That’s not to say McCain can’t win the thing just by making the case for himself. He can be very persuasive and sincere when speaking off the cuff, and as at the Saddleback Church forum, this contrasts very favorably with Obama’s tendency to stumble for words and generally show muddled thinking.

But it does not seem like a very safe tactic to assume Obama is going to make himself look bad, and besides it would be better style to at least try and rattle him a few times – people love to see clay feet revealed, and this is one juicy target.