The National Review's John Hood:
With the supercharged 24-hour news cycle, the burgeoning blogosphere, and the legions of journalists furiously scribbling as much as they can before craigslist.com kills off their employers, it’s seems like the 2008 presidential contest has already been analyzed from every possible angle, by everyone with an angle. In fact, it feels as though we’ve already had several national elections since last summer. And yet we’ve only just begun the general-election campaign Tuesday night with Barack Obama weakly clinching the Democratic nomination while losing one of the final two primaries and John McCain blandly promising a respectful contest with his fresh-faced Senate colleague.It's easy to grow tired of the sheer volume of political coverage. This will wind up being the longest presidential campaign in the history of the Republic, dominating the news cycle for 15 months essentially unabated. Barack Obama and John McCain have taken their share of hits, and shown their share of warts, and will continue to do so.
We’re stuck with these two mediocrities for the rest of the year. What’s more, we’re also going to be subjected to hundreds of mainstream-media mediocrities endlessly recycling the same trite observations, then revising the observations, then rediscovering the original observations, ad nauseatium.
Candidates never look good at this stage of the political cycle, any more than football players do after playing a game in the mud. But I tend to think that these are two of the objectively stronger candidates that have been nominated in some time, creating perhaps the best matchup since the Kennedy-Nixon race of 1960. Barack Obama and John McCain each have classic and proud American biographies. Obama is probably the best political athlete since Bill Clinton; John McCain has a brand so strong that even Democrats feel obligated to compliment him. How many Republicans would rather have George W. Bush running again? How many Democrats would rather have John Kerry than Obama?
42 comments
Nate wrote (in the earlier thread): "I don't really feel badly at all about our projection in South Dakota. There were versions of the model that had Obama winning by 10 or 11 points, and there were versions that had Clinton winning by 7 or 8 points."
I don't think Nate should feel badly either. His model is really interesting and it is fun to see what it predicts (and it has had some unambigious great successes). Still, I do think that the model did badly in SD tonight (which is different from saying that Nate should feel badly). A couple things: (a) it sounds like the model had a 20 pt margin of error depending on slight adjustments; that is way too much flexibility to be happy with the model; and (b) Clinton's margin of victory (10 pts.) was beyond even the most pro-Clinton version of the model. That seems problematic.
Finally, Nate's note suggests that the model can kind of serve as a reality check for the polls. But is that how it has worked so far? That is, when the model and polls are both off, does the average of the two of them come close to the real result?
I'm one Dem who'd rather have Kerry than Obama. Kerry actually contested swing states, which Obama does not seem interested in doing.
I'm going to hold off on pronouncing McCain "objectively strong" until we've seen a little bit of the general.
He backed into the Republican nomination almost by default when all his opponents were found with a fatal flaw. It's hard for me to see him having prevailed in a primary with an opponent of the strength of either Obama or Clinton - or Edwards for that matter.
Once the Obama campaign has had a few months with him, maybe a debate, if he's still looking good I'll call him strong. In the meantime, he's iffy with his base, lagging in fundraising, facing an opponent who can also appeal to independents, and somehow had months for free when the Dems were fighting and didn't do much with it. His best move up to now has simply been not quitting in 2007; so far, I'm not impressed.
Certainly agree with you about Obama, though. ;)
That's a bizarre comment.
I bet most republicans would rather have George W Bush running than John McCain.
I've been cheering for a McCain-Obama match up for several months. I think it's a functional equivelant of Texas v. USC a couple years ago.
Anon @00:39 --
I think most democrats would too. Maybe something can be arranged?
Yes ... I think Obama would love to run against Bush. In fact that's who he's trying to make McCain into (and I support this strategy 100%.)
But yeah, I'm far more excited about Barack Obama than I was about Kerry. Don't get me wrong, I supported Kerry and I voted for him - but this year I'm actually donating to Obama - I'm wearing Obama shirts - I'm planning on campaigning for him. You know, the excitement level is much higher because he's someone I believe in - rather than just voting against the Republicans - which I'd do pretty much no matter who the Dems ran.
I'd rather have John Kerry than Obama--if Kerry were running for reelection.
I think John Hood has lost sight of the big picture - perhaps because of the 24-hour news cycle. Obama came from nowhere in 6 months to knock off the best the nearly fabled Clinton political machine had to offer. His late primary losses don't reflect weakness so much as the difficulty of the contest.
The Ds have had two exceptionally strong candidates, both of whom have run powerhouse campaigns by any historical standard.
Its too early to tell about McCain yet; I always think the Rs are mediocre.
I got that George Bush "eh heh heh heh" feel watching McCain smile in his speech. It was...probably just a normal smile and something that completely should not matter, but it didn't look good.
How many Democrats would rather have John Kerry than Obama?
2 - and their names are John and Teresa.
To the last anon, that is false. I happily voted for Kerry in 2004 and will begrudingly vote for Obama in 2008. Obama may be a great campaigner but I don't think he will make a good president even though I agree with most of his policies.
Nate or Sean,
Please disable anonymous comments. I have read very few interesting comments, and many mean-spirited or foolish ones, by the unnamed legions which have descended on your excellent site.
Pollster.com's commentary improved greatly after they required sign-ins. I think the intelligent commenters will be willing to get a google/blogger or OpenID, or at least give a URL.
There is some truth that a high percentage of Anonymous commenters seem to be trolls, on any kind of comment board.
I couldn't disagree with John Hood more strongly. It seems to me that this is a very rare year where both parties have selected the best possible candidate from their respective nomination contests, if serving the larger national interest is your first concern.
Both Obama and McCain are committed to courting moderates - a slap in the face to Rovian politics.
Both of them are committed to ideological heterodoxy with regard to the prevailing dogmas of their respective parties.
Both of them seem like honorable men who genuinely love their country and feel called to public service out of a mix of personal ambition and selflessness which tilts more strongly to the latter (than to the former) than any such pair of candidates in recent memory.
While they may differ on policy matters, both of them seem more committed to open government and to positive campaign tactics, than any such pair of candidates in recent memory.
Is there really anyone out there who feels that we have been unfairly deprived of the Gulliani-Clinton subway series that many pundits felt we were destined to get when this process started?
If you put aside for a moment partisan considerations of who would be easier to run against, for one side or the other, then it seems to me that for a country which has been at times bitterly divided along partisan lines during the Bush years, we have obtained the best possible matchup, out of all the permutations that were available.
May the best canidate win.
It's interesting. About a year ago, I looked at the GOP potential nominees and I concluded that the only way the GOP stood a chance against any of the Dems' top 6 candidates was if they nominated McCain. Being a left-wing Dem, I was consequently pretty happy when he went bankrupt. Somehow, the GOP got their stuff together and nominating him anyway. So goes the world.
Same here, Neek. eighteen months ago, I thought McCain was the only chance for a GOP victory. Then by the summer he was running fourth and needed the feds to bail him out financially...I figured, well his bid is over...and yet somehow he won the nomination. Amazing really. And meanwhile the Dems are doing their best to take themselves out of contention again. Truly a remarkable primary season this year.
No candidate is ever perfect. I think so many people realize that the country has been so badly led the last 7 years that they aren't looking for perfection in a president. They just want a caring, honest, and good manager who can provide a sense of optimism as we confront several huge and urgent issues.
Two facinating candidates who have the ability to energize large crowds ... more people than ever engaged in the political process ... the whole world watching and indeed reevaluating their opinions of the USA. Not to mention the fact that both candidates have made personal mistakes in the past and have readily admitted to them (Obama and drugs, McCain with Keating and his first marriage), so there's a better chance of this campaign focusing on the issues. Roll on November.
I don't think "strongest" is the right word - McCain is a sputtering speaker, forced by the demands of the GOP primary to endorse a number of stupid ideas - which have cut away from the on