Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Why McCain Will Win

By Alan Caruba

The nice thing about politics in America is that everyone can have an opinion and even the experts are often as wrong as the rest of us.

Take, for example, the way the Democrat Party has selected an astonishing bunch of losers to run for President since the days Harry Truman exited the White House. Republican Dwight Eisenhower took over.

Here are the Democrats who won: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.

JFK was canonized by assassination, but did well handling the Cuban Missile Crisis and he launched the space program. It was, however, JFK that took over the Vietnam conflict from the French. It was Lyndon Johnson who compounded that mistake to the tune of some 55,000 dead American soldiers. Despite civil rights legislation, LBJ is mostly recalled for making such a hash of things he declined to run for a second term on his own merits.

If Richard Nixon, a Republican, had not been totally paranoid, he might have left office a hero for ending the Vietnam War and opening up China, but instead he gave us Watergate and set us up for Jimmy Carter. People tend to forget how utterly incompetent Carter was, but the Iranians made the point by holding U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days until Ronald Reagan ushered in two of the best terms of the Presidency America has known.

Bill Clinton much-touted charisma did nothing for his wife’s run for the office. He can count himself fortunate that his first term cost the Democrats the loss of Congress. The legislation the Republicans passed was some of the best in years for which he, of course, took credit. When you say Clinton these days, the only thing that comes to mind are endless scandals.

Let’s look at the Democrat nominees for President since 1972 starting with George McGovern, 1984's Walter Mondale, 1988’s Michael Dukakis, 2000’s Al Gore, and 2004’s John Kerry. It is hard to imagine are lamer bunch of candidates. Voters looked at them and went “ugh!”

This brings us to Barack Obama. Thus far he has been unable to convince at least half the registered voters to give him the nod. The bounce in the polls that followed his triumphal tour of the Middle East and Europe disappeared within a day or two after he got back to the U.S.

Who will not vote for Barack Obama? The first and most obvious answer is, of course, Republicans. Lots of Republicans.

When you begin to look at various demographic groups, Obama will not do well among senior citizens. He has already touched the third rail of politics by suggesting he wants to mess around with Social Security. Bad move. Moreover, he wants to tax all those forms of income that old people depend upon to pay the mortgage, rent or groceries. Most importantly, old people come out and vote, and they are a large portion of the population these days.

Veterans vote too. Veterans don’t like what they hear and see in Barack Obama. They don’t like the people who he hangs out with like former Weatherman terrorists, convicted real estate developers, and ministers who say bad things about the U.S.A.

Evangelicals, still a potent voting block, are aghast at the brand of Black Liberation theology Obama listened to for twenty years. The anti-American views of Rev. Jeremiah Wright are a drag on his candidacy.

The days when the unions wielded any clout are over, but the Democrat Party which depends heavily on their money and manpower may discover on Election Day that a lot of union members will have voted for McCain. Obama simply does not resonate among working people. He lacks the common touch, if, indeed, he ever had one.

Let’s also throw in the gun-owners too, 80 million of them, who did not take kindly to his “clinging to guns” remarks.

There are also all those people in “fly over” America who don’t much care what those on the East and West Coast think.

There’s not much point getting into the various religious groups, but it is safe to say that Jews, traditionally Democrat, may find it difficult to vote for anyone named Barack Hussein Obama. That could cost him Florida.

Too much parsing of various ethnic, religious, and racial groups is essentially useless with the exception of Afro-Americans. They will surely vote for Obama. Not generally known, however, is that Hispanic-Americans outnumber blacks in America these days and how they will vote remains to be seen.

Obama’s biggest problem is that the majority of Americans racially are white. Even Hispanics, racially, are white. Once you get by all the usual politically correct blather about race, the likelihood that whites will vote for Obama is slim to none when they get in the privacy of the voting booth.

That is why John McCain, unless he selects a serial killer as his vice president running mate, is likely to be the next President of the United States of America.

10 comments:

Sailingbum said...

I believe you assessment is correct..
obie has done a pretty good job of offending almost every little special interest group, including blacks..
Unfortunately the color of skin means more to them than common sense and they will vote for him..
Not sure which way the Jewish community will go. I often wonder how strong they're connect to Israel is beyond financial generosity..

Chris Crawford said...

Nice theory. The problem with theories is that they are tested against real-world data, which pretty clearly says that your theory is wrong. There's nothing in your theory to suggest that the polls today will be different in November. I think you're indulging in wishful thinking.

Lenny Ladner said...

We are spending too much time worrying about which MARXIST will occupy the White House. We need to get rid of all of the members of the House of Representatives.

Please see my blog:

http://ladner4ussenate.blogspot.com/2008/06/who-gonna-be-president.html

Alan Caruba said...

Lenny: Your blog is a bit "over the top", but your freedom of speech will be protected here.

Hispanic American said...

To say Jews won't vote for Obama because of Obama's middle name is a stupid assessment.

Also, to say that because most Americans are white they may not vote for Obama, (sounds like a subliminal racist rant), is also short-minded.

I agree with most of what this blogger suggests but those two remarks leaves him open to liberal left beliefs of racist conspiracy.

Let's get beyond this.

The other theories are strong points. Let's argue those points and see what the liberal Senator can come up with to suggest he is on the same page as we independant thinkers.

I believe most Ameicans are on the middle and no longer follow the party line when it comes to politics.

Both Republican Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have screwed us often enough to make this an even playing field.

Who ever wins will have his balls to the wall because of what's at stake.

Alan Caruba said...

I am afraid we cannot or will not "get beyond this." That's the whole point of my analysis.

Blacks will vote for Obama and there is a strong likelyhood that whites will not, purely on the basis of race. To suggest otherwise is to ignore the reality of race in America.

Despite this, I think Obama will be defeated because he is a radical Leftist offering a lot of very bad ideas for the future of the nation.

Hispanic American said...

No not ignoring. I just don't feel comfortable with this divisive media hype.

True, this has existed in local urban areas. But the majority of a community has the right of choice in these matters.

To generalize that the entire country is polarized over race in this election is a stretch and I don't agree.

I will admit that this did happen when I lived in NYC and R.Gulliani was running up against D.Dinkins the first time around,(Dinkins was the Democratic black nominee).

Race card ruled, Gulliani lost. This is a perfect example of your argument and politics at it's worst.

Second time around, a bittersweet lesson was learned and the right man for the job became one of NYC's greatest mayors.

To generalize that blacks are just going to vote along racial lines is disturbing. Conservatives are falling for the liberal media hype.

To form an anology....conservative commentators suggest that a good candidate for Obama's VP would be the Montana governor, Bill Richardson.

Why? because he can pull in the Hispanic vote. That is one of the stupidist theories offered up by conservative media outlets. He's about as Hispanic as my Chinese made American flag.

If you dwell too much on the race card issue then one is equally as much to blame for the surge. And I hold both ideologies to blame for this.

Tradtionally, young people don't vote but make furious rants and that is the core base for Obama, (silly, socialist idealism learned in colleges).

Come November, it will be the seniors that will put this tired old argument to rest.

Alan Caruba said...

You've obviously given some serious thought to Obama's chances of winning or losing because of his race.

One factor you should consider is the Democrat Party's dependence on the black vote. They are a core constituency, particulary at the local level of political races.

Since you identify as Hispanic, I will bet you that most Hispanic Americans will back McCain because his positions more naturally reflect theirs.

But you are right when you say that older voters will decide the election.

Check out my latest post, "Let Obama Be Obama."

obamawill said...

this nutjob seems to forget that in the primaries obama got more votes then any "white" candidate.
don't forget that he won the young female vote- even while facing the most viable female candidate ever. he also trippled the votes his republican counterparts were getting in their primaries. remember how no one ever thought he could come this far (beat a clinton). it all started on the cold winter day in IOWA!

Alan Caruba said...

That was then. This is now. What Obama supporters overlook or may not know is that 60% of all voters identify themselves as conservative. That is the true tipping point when it comes to the election.