McCain Finally Has a Message! (and Momentum)

I take great pride in the fact that yesterday Nate Silver came to the same conclusion about last week's debate that I did two days ago. The results are in and McCain won the last debate decisively among conservatives. He has now closed the gap from 7.1% last Wednesday to 5% today. There is no other way to explain such a sudden shift in momentum toward McCain, as there was no other significant news. All four insta-polls went heavily to Obama, but those polls are either slanted toward Democrats (because there are more registered Democrats than Republicans) or focused on independent and undecided voters, who clearly preferred Obama's performance to McCain's. But it is the social and fiscal conservatives that are fired up now. Red state America loves Joe the Plumber, despite his failure to pay taxes, the fact that he's not a plumber, and his tax advantage under the Obama plan. The McCain campaign is now accusing Obama of unfairly "attacking" Joe the Plumber, even though he's done no such thing, and the conservatives are rallying to his cause. In fact, "share the wealth" is becoming this cycle's "cling to guns and religion"; Obama-as-socialist is scoring points for McCain. The "What's the Matter with Kansas" principle may still apply: even people of modest means abhor the idea of rich people sharing the wealth, and will enthusiastically vote for the guy who promises to cut taxes for the most fortunate 1%. Why? Because they want to be rich too someday, and believe they will be, and think it is fair for people that strike the jackpot to keep their winnings.

The second piece of red meat McCain threw out during the debate was a full-throated pro-life message. He even said that he thought a Supreme Court justice candidate that supported Roe v Wade probably wasn't qualified for the job. Again, the social conservatives love this kind of "straight talk" and I think they are throwing their weight more enthusiastically toward McCain. I was surprised to see in the NYT this morning that only 54% of American women are pro-choice, according to an August Pew Research Center poll. I always thought that number was significantly higher. 42% of women are pro-life and 16% say it should be banned "in all cases." (even a point higher than men!). This is clearly a winning issue for McCain among his base.

I disagree with Silver about one key point, however. I think McCain can win the election with a full-bore conservative base campaign. I don't think he will, but he can. What we are seeing now is similar to what we saw when Palin was nominated. Let's not forget that McCain was up by as many as 3-4 points after her nomination and the convention. I don't think this election will go that far in the other direction because of the economy and a generally higher comfort level with Obama than the country had previously, but it is certainly conceivable to see this falling into a popular vote dead heat.

McCain has a concrete, two-pronged message now with Joe the Plumber/wealth redistribution and abortion. This message offers the added advantage of synching better with his running mate than his prior messages have. I think we'll stop seeing the Bill Ayers/Rezko crap, as even the McCain campaign recognizes that America wants to know why McCain is running for president. Now we know: he wants to lower taxes for the wealthy and make sure Roe v Wade is overturned. We blue state "elites" may think this is a nutty platform to run on, but at least he stands for something now, which he didn't before. And it is clearly working.

The question is, how much? Interestingly, the state polls are still squarely in Obama's column and haven't moved much. And Powell's endorsement today may help a little. The independents and undecideds, which make up about 9% of the electorate, are still breaking pretty strongly to Obama and a good third of them probably won't even vote. But most experts think this will shift toward McCain as election days nears, with maybe 4-5% going to him, 1-2% going to Obama, and 2-3% not voting. That means McCain would gain about 3 points net. He probably still has a couple more points coming to him from the conservatives, which would get us basically to a dead heat.

But the states are what count, obviously. From where we stand today, I would guess that McCain closes the gap and takes Florida, North Carolina and Ohio. He has to; if he loses any one of those three, he will lose the election. But even if Obama gets swept in those three states, he will still likely hold onto Virginia, Colorado, Minnesota and New Mexico. And that puts him in great position. Obama already has 249 out of the 270 electors he needs locked up in solid blue states. So he only needs 21 more. Any of the following combos of Obama-leaning states would put him over the top:

• Colorado + Virginia
• Minnesota + Virginia
• Minnesota + Colorado + New Mexico

This is an incredibly strong position for Obama. He could lose all eight of the toss-up states and still win the election by winning just two of the four states that are leaning toward him. Add to this the clear advantage Obama has in his GOTV efforts, and we are looking at a very likely Obama victory, despite McCain's recent success. But it will probably not be the walk in the park some were hoping for and expecting. Election Day is going to be more fun than the Final Four and World Cup combined (and only slightly less important).