The race tightens, Obama slipping

The Washington Times warns that centrist Democrats, the Reagan Democrats, are leaning away from Obama;

 Sen. Barack Obama is doing what Republicans once thought only a presidential candidacy by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton could do – uniting the right and center.

State Republican Party leaders interviewed by The Washington Times said fear of a far-left Obama presidency is warming once-skeptical voters to Sen. John McCain, fueling growing enthusiasm among Republicans that Mr. McCain’s more aggressive campaigning can lead to victory.

“It appears that the more that Obama speaks, the more afraid folks in South Carolina get,” said Spartanburg County Republican Party Chairman Rick Beltram. “We are seeing ‘die-hard’ Democrats tell us that Obama is not their man.

Of course, when I first read that, considering the sources, it sounded a bit like wishful thinking. Then over at Politico I read;

 A few weeks back, Time magazine was musing that John McCain was in danger of sliding from “a long shot” to a “no-shot.” Around the same time, a hard-nosed former Hillary Clinton insider declared the race “effectively over” thanks to the McCain campaign’s ineptitude, the tanking U.S. economy and Obama’s advantages in cash, charisma and hope. And Obama, up by three to six points nationally, was about to leverage a much-anticipated trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe into a pre-convention poll surge.

Instead, his supporters are now suffering a pre-Denver panic attack, watching as John McCain draws incrementally closer in state and national polls – with Rasmussen’s most recent daily national tracker showing a statistical dead heat.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has been privately enumerating her doubts about Obama to supporters, according to people who have spoken with her. Clinton’s pollster Mark Penn recently unveiled a PowerPoint presentation red-flagging Obama’s lukewarm leads among white female voters and Hispanics – while predicting a five-point swing could turn a presumed Obama win into a McCain landslide.

But the most disturbing thing I read at Politico was a quote by Bob Kerrey;

“The idea that Obama was going to win in a blowout was always preposterous,” says former Nebraska senator and onetime presidential hopeful Bob Kerrey, an Obama backer. “A big piece of this, of course, is whether white people are going to support a black guy… If [Obama] is a tall, skinny white guy named Paul Jones it’s a different story.”

It’s talk like that which will drive the white voters to McCain. Even though the Democrat elitists are steeped in and vote based on their white liberal guilt, main stream working class Democrats don’t feel the pull of their heart strings, like they feel the pull of their purse strings when they pull the lever in the voting booth. But the Democrats have never understood Americans – which is why they can’t believe their candidates lose elections legitimately.

In another Washington Times article, Michael Steele explains that all blacks won’t vote for Obama;

Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, a black Republican whose name is mentioned among potential McCain running mates, expresses incredulity about the historical notion.

“The novelty of history wears off pretty quickly,” Mr. Steele says. “What happens when [black Republicans] wake up the next day after the election and realize that you voted for a man to be president that you are totally philosophically opposed to?”

“As an African-American, I am very proud of the accomplishments Barack Obama’s been able to achieve,” he says.

However, Mr. Steele remembers what Mr. Obama said about him during his 2006 campaign for U.S. senator.

“He said this [election] is not about race; that I seemed like an affable fellow, but my resume was a little thin to be a United States senator. Here we are a year later and this individual is running for president with less of a resume than I have. I think Barack himself makes the point,” Mr. Steele says.

Of course, there will probably be endless court battles when McCain wins in November because the Democrats who live in their echo chambers won’t notice that the world has passed them by while they’re still stuck in that 60s mindset.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, John McCain/Sarah Palin, Politics