Where did Barack Obama's mojo go?

Where did Barack Obama's mojo go?
Something's going on. Or some things.

A new CNN/Opinion Research poll out Wednesday shows that despite nine
solid days of blanket media coverage from overseas with Barack Obama
cheered by adoring throngs of Germans and parlez-vousing with the
French, making a three-point shot in the Middle East and standing
outside No. 10 Downing Street, the freshman Illinois senator is stuck
right where he was in the polls before he left.

No bounce. Not even a roll.

He still leads Republican Sen. John McCain 51-44. But it's the same
51-44 as last time.

A CNN poll average shows an even slimmer 48-45 Obama lead, dangerously
close for an experienced opponent who relishes being the underdog.

"Obama has not picked up any ground against McCain on foreign issues,"
says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "And some 52% think McCain
would do a better job than Obama on the war in Iraq — virtually the
same number who felt that way in April."

Other polls show the same stubborn one-digit lead holding for the
Democratic nominee-to-be with only 96 days left until the general
election. Some crucial state polls even show McCain gaining.

Obama seems to have everything going for him. A fresh face. A smooth,
cadenced speaking style suited for TV. A message of change at a time
when Americans historically favor change, after one party holds the
White House for two terms. And after several convictions of GOP
legislators.

Obama's got tons of money. An attractive family. Energized followers.
A media that's curious about the new guy and tired of....

...the dogged old POW one. High gas prices, a poor housing market, a
two-front war ongoing and a slightly sagging economy, all of which
should help political challengers. Not to mention an unpopular
incumbent president.

A lead's a lead, but political strategists are puzzled.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, the last sitting senator to win the
presidency, announced his candidacy on Jan. 2. In 10 months he not
only won the Democratic nomination in a blaze of freshness, he beat 47-
year-old Richard M. Nixon, who'd been a prominent vice president for
eight years and a House member and senator before that.

Obama's had nearly twice that long to campaign. He's barely ahead and
should be pulling away. But isn't. How to explain this?

Well, it is summer -- vacation time when millions of Americans are
actually having personal fun, enjoying "The Dark Knight" and the
bright beach, just before the Back-to-School sales. It's already been
a long campaign -- 19 months -- for everyone to pay attention all the
time. And the interregnum between winning the nominations and getting
them is a long, hot one.

Also, the down side to "fresh face" is "little-known face." Obama's
still a very new character on the national stage. And while Europeans
have shown they can fall in love with an American politician during
one speech in a platz, Americans historically take much longer to grow
comfortable with a potential national father-figure.

For a large number of Americans who don't make up their minds anymore
according to their parents' "D" or "R," they let the anecdotal
impressions of candidates accumulate over time to create a larger,
whole portrait for their gut ballot decision. The TV debates could be
crucial.

Despite awfully quick denials by party officials and the smiling
summit of Obama and Hillary Clinton in Unity, N.H., is the Democratic
Party perhaps more severely fractured than it looks? Is race more
important than many let on?

The Iraq war and Obama's much-touted early opposition to it have
seemed to shrink in importance in direct proportion to the dramatic
drop in U.S. casualties.

A focus so far has been on McCain's age, but are others maybe wary of
Obama's relative youth and public inexperience?

Several strategists of both parties sense Americans want to vote for
Obama, but something is holding them back. Or several somethings, as
we suggested up top.

Maybe Obama's flips -- his outspoken opposition to denouncing the Rev.
Jeremiah Wright until he did, his promise to take public campaign
financing, since broken, his eagerness to debate McCain in townhalls,
now abandoned, his apparent unwillingness to see progress in the Iraq
troop surge, which he opposed and predicted would worsen sectarian
violence?

Is there a simmering concern over arrogance by the Ivy League lawyer
and mere candidate who so blithely patted the French president on the
back for a well-done news conference? Asked the other day if he ever
doubted himself, Obama replied smartly, "Never!" And grinned broadly.
Sounded more like a 20-year-old than someone about to turn 47 next
week.

Americans bought George W. Bush's message of changing Washington in
2000. But he was a governor coming from Austin. Americans like
governors as chief executives; four of the last five presidents were
governors first.

Voters have proven more suspicious of legislators. This year they have
no more choice; it'll be only the third time in American history a
sitting (or standing) senator has been elected to the White House.

Obama's talking change too. But he's a legislator who's been in
Washington three years now, two of them as a member of a Democratic-
controlled Congress that was elected in 2006 with great promise but
currently holds historically low favorability ratings.

What's Obama done for D.C. change since arriving? What's Obama done
for reform back home within the historically monolithic and corrupt
Chicago Democratic machine, where some up-and-comers are sent off to
Congress for seasoning before advancing to the big-time of City
Council?

The longer the Obama campaign goes without pulling comfortably ahead
of the former fighter pilot who was trained to stay on his opponent's
tail, the more worrisome it'll become for chief strategist David
Axelrod (see photo) and others behind the closed doors in their Windy
City headquarters.

A good reason maybe to consider a jump-start: perhaps advance the
announcement of his running mate, get another fresh (or maybe not-so-
fresh) face out there to draw news coverage while Obama takes a week
of well-deserved vacation like so many other Americans, who could care
less about the static polls these days.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Associated Press (above); Chicago Tribune (below).

Posted by Andrew Malcolm on July 31, 2008 in Campaigning , Democratic
Politics , Foreign Policy , Iran , Iraq War , Media , Newspapers ,
Party Convention , Polls , Presidential Campaign , Republican
Politics , Television , Terrorism | Permalink
Bookmark it:
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/816965/31850716

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Where did Barack
Obama's mojo go?:

Comments
Well, it's not as if McCain has any good or nice qualities. That
Republicans, who have so betrayed the country and stolen it blind,
even dare show their face in public is only due to that the media is
owned by them. A real, free press would long ago have exposed
Republican vice and crime in high places. Instead of wondering what
could be 'wrong" with the Democrat.

Posted by: J Hart | July 31, 2008 at 02:50 AM

... and while Europeans have shown they can fall in love with an
American politician during one speech in a platz, Americans
historically take much longer to grow comfortable with a potential
national father-figure.

Please, Europeans have been following this campaign for as long as you
have. Like Americans, they come to their decisions by reading about
what the candidates say and do. That's why they care enough to head
out to the platz in the first place.

And I doubt anyone could say that George Bush or Bill Clinton were
perceived as "national father-figures". About the only thing those two
shared was their ability to smile and chat and put folks at ease -
they're both "beers with the boys" guys.

Posted by: JT | July 31, 2008 at 02:54 AM

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/07/obama-mccain-po.html
.

Quantcast