The New York Times and other mainstream media pundits are convinced that John McCain is in dire straits and everything is going swimmingly for their favorite son Barack Obama. But is this right?
It is hard to ignore the stream of Obama gaffes. The Cuban community in Florida is unimpressed. Foreign leaders continue to express concern about Obama’s foreign policy pronouncements. And for someone who is now the certain nominee of the party “destined” to win in November his poll numbers are mediocre at best. Why after all this supposedly horrible news for McCain would Obama only be tied with him (and Clinton only slightly ahead of McCain) in the last Newsweek poll? (In Gallup and Rasmussen tracking polls McCain is up slightly over Obama.)
Meanwhile, McCain’s medical records seem to have removed concern about his health. And he even managed to slip out a year of his wife’s tax returns to quell concern over that issue.
Now, pundits may be right that the McCain camp has a way to go in sprucing up its money and communications apparatus. He does in fact need a better defined agenda and a “narrative,” as Karl Rove explained on Sunday. Still, with all that, it is hard to make the case that Obama has been improving his standing with the public and surging to a dominating position in the general election since he was crowned the presumptive nominee.
It is easy to figure out why. In part, Obama simply does not win the news cycle when the topic is foreign policy, and specifically his own ever-shifting statements. And in part, the Obama-mania novelty is wearing off. (The latest graduation speech sounds eerily reminiscent of a dozen stump speeches we have all heard before.) Finally, it is a truism that the public likes a winner, and the weekly drubbings he has received at the hands of the already declared runner-up have likely dimmed his allure.
None of this is to suggest that Obama is not the favorite or that McCain doesn’t face tough challenges. But the conventional wisdom that recent events have been helpful to Obama’s cause seems wrong. Put differently, Obama is likely anxious not to repeat the controversies, gaffes and foreign policy scrutiny – not to mention the election losses – that have dominated the news. So maybe, this is not exactly the best of times for Obama.
