Noonan: Idea Starting To Take Hold That McCain Can Win This Thing
I have to say, she brings up some very valid and interesting points and I’ll be damned if I don’t actually have a sense of hope that maybe B. Hussein Obama won’t win in November after all…
Political Cycles
By Peggy Noonan
Wall Street Journal
You’re in a plane and you’re flying over the campaign at a level of about 10,000 feet, and you look down and see: Not much has changed. Battle lines fixed, topography the same, troops pretty much where they were.
But land the plane, walk around and talk to people, and you realize: This thing is moving. Things are shifting around a bit. That’s what I see looking back at the past four weeks.
For the first time the idea began to take hold that John McCain can win this thing. You saw the USA Today-Gallup poll this week, with Mr. McCain gaining six points since late June among those Gallup dubbed likely voters. Mr. McCain took the lead, 49% to 45%. Among registered voters, it’s still Barack Obama, 47% to 44%. A poll came out saying people are tired of hearing about Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain took the lead in YouTube hits. Small stuff, and there will be a lot of twists and turns before this is over, but there’s movement down there beneath the crust of the Earth.
Mr. Obama got tagged the past month as something new, not the candidate from Men’s Vogue but arrogant, aloof and somehow ethereal. There is no there there. Everyone I know plays the game of “This election is just like 1932,” or ‘52, or whatever. “It’s 1960—the youthful charismatic JFK versus the boring and so Republican Nixon.” “No, it’s ‘92 and the youthful charismatic Clinton versus the tired old Bush.” This election is, in fact, exactly like the 2008 election. But the other day a friend said something I hadn’t heard before: “This is 1948, and Obama is Tom Dewey”—the sleek, well-groomed, inevitable one who lost. I pondered this and said maybe he’s Dewey, but Mr. McCain’s not Truman, not so far. He is still, on the trail, his scattered self, not “Give ‘Em Hell Harry.” But the point is, even the clichés have begun to shift.
The daring and exciting European trip was probably a wash, and possibly a mistake in the bridge-too-far sense. During the coverage, pundits were always saying the trip leveled the playing field on foreign affairs between Sens. Obama and McCain. But Mr. McCain isn’t Mr. Obama’s problem in foreign affairs. Mr. McCain early on positioned himself, reasonably or unreasonably, depending on your view, as the candidate of possible new wars. I don’t think people want new wars. Mr. Obama’s problem on foreign affairs is his own youth and inexperience. In a time of high stakes, do we want Mr. Untried and Untested?
What Mr. Obama has been doing, and this started before the European trip and continued throughout, is making people see him as president. He’s doing this when he ambles back to the back of the plane and leans over the reporters, in his shirtsleeves, speaking affably into their held-up mics and recorders, at the end of the victorious tour. That’s what presidents do. He speaks to rapturous crowds in foreign capitals. That’s what presidents do.
He isn’t doing this to show he’s inevitable and invincible. He’s doing it to give voters the impression that they’ve already seen President Obama. That he’s kind of already been president, he’s done and can do all the things presidents do, to the point that by the middle of October a certain portion of the country is going to think he already is president.
And he needs to give them this impression because he’s a young black man from nowhere who’s been well-known for less than a year. And he knows one of his biggest problems with older white voters is they just can’t imagine a young black man from nowhere as president. He’s helping them imagine.
It’s not vanity, it’s strategy.
However. Mr. Obama consistently shows that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. It’s a theme with his talented, confident staff. They don’t know what they don’t know either. Because they’re young and they’ve never been in power and it takes time to know what you don’t know. The presidential-type seal with OBAMA on it, the sometimes over-the-top rhetoric about healing the earth and parting the seas. They pick the biggest, showiest venue for the Berlin speech, the Brandenburg Gate, just like a president, not realizing people would think: Ya gotta earn that one, kid. Going to Europe was fine, but they should have gone in modestly, with a modest venue, quietly spread word that his speech was open to the public, and then left the watching world awed by the hordes that showed up. For they would have. “We couldn’t help it, they love him!” It would have looked as if Europe was coming to him, and let that sink in back home.
Anyone can carp like this in retrospect, but when you know what you don’t know, you can plan like this in advance.
* * *
Two weeks ago a journalist, a moderate liberal, spoke to me of what he called Mr. Obama’s arrogance. I said I didn’t think it was arrogance but high self-regard. He said there’s no difference. I said no, arrogance has an air about it of pushing people around, insisting on your way. Mr. Obama doesn’t seem like that. He took down a machine without raising his voice. Extremely high self-regard, though, can itself be a problem.
“What’s wrong with that?” my friend said. “You want a self-confident president.”
I said yes, but it brings up the Churchill question. Churchill had been scored by an acquaintance for his own very high self-regard, and responded with what was for him a certain sheepishness. “We’re all worms,” he said, “but I do believe I am a glowworm.” He believed he was great, and he was. Is Mr. Obama a glowworm? Does he have real greatness in him? Or is he, say, a product of the self-esteem campaign, that movement within the schools and homes of our country the past 25 years that says the way to get a winner is to tell the kid he’s a winner every day? You can get some true people of achievement that way, because some people need a lot of reinforcement to rise. But you can also get, not to put too fine a point of it, empty suits that take on a normal shape only because they’re so puffed up with ego.
Is Mr. Obama’s self-conception in line with his gifts, depth, wisdom and character? That’s the big question, I suspect, on a number of minds.
As for Mr. McCain, I think he had the best moment of the month this week at the big motorcycle convention in Sturgis, S.D., when he was greeted with that mighty roar. And his great line: “As you may know, not long ago a couple hundred thousand Berliners made a lot of noise for my opponent. I’ll take the roar of 50,000 Harleys any day.” Oh, that was good.
There’s a thing that’s out there and it’s big, and latent, and somehow always taken into account and always ignored, and political professionals always assume they understand it. It has been called many things the past 50 years, “the silent center,” “the silent majority,” “the coalition,” “the base.” The idea of it has evolved as its composition has evolved, but the fact that it’s big, and relatively silent, and somehow always latent, maintains. And watching that McCain event—vroom vroom—one got the sense it is perhaps beginning to pay attention to the campaign. I see it as the old America, and if and when it reasserts itself, the campaign will shift indeed, and in ways you can even see from 10,000 feet.
(WSJ)
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I think John Sidney McCain will beat Barack Hussein Obama this November. as a matter of fact i think McCain will win big. This guy is just too damn liberal. his thoughts on how this country should move forward in the years to come are downright scary and most people in this country are patriotic and are closer to the center than it seems sometimes.
my prediction stands.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:31 pmMs. Noonan gives TheOne far too much creedence when she even asks the question “Does he have real greatness in him?”
He’s Carter redux absent the good intentions, humility and legitimate Christian background.
August 8th, 2008 at 4:35 pmThe United States is a center right country…the people will elect a center right President every time, if given the opportunity. John McCain is about as center right as you can possibly get.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:28 pmI have come to hate noonan’s writings.
read this wet hole she offered to the messiah…completely ignorant or dismissing the fact it was free rock concerts that drew the little nazi spawns out.
“Going to Europe was fine, but they should have gone in modestly, with a modest venue, quietly spread word that his speech was open to the public, and then left the watching world awed by the hordes that showed up. For they would have. “We couldn’t help it, they love him!” It would have looked as if Europe was coming to him, and let that sink in back home.”
August 8th, 2008 at 5:32 pmHas the media covered Obama’s foreign contributions form Gaza? Gibberish donors?
Has the media covered birth certificate forgery?
Has the media covered Obama’s corruptions eruptions?
Has the media covered Obama’s Website: Hub for hate, terror and antisemitism?
Peggy is a brilliant writer but entirely too kind.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:38 pmI’m sticking with my prediction - this will be like 1972 and Obama will go down in flames. Most people didn’t vote *for* Nixon in 1972. It’s going to be a referendum on Obama - as much as white America would like to vote for a black man who they think shares their values, Obama is just too liberal, inexperienced, and tainted by corruption to be President.
August 8th, 2008 at 5:57 pmI agree with Steve. I used to like to read Noonan. Now I can’t stand her. Sure, she writes well but the content tends to be over the top gracious to the Dems. As to McCain winning this. Yes, until today, the Republicans were on track to win and win big. However, they choose to forfeit the economic issue they had to beat the Dems. The “Gang of Ten” deal on oil/energy emasculated the one economic issue Republicans could have beaten the Dems mercilessly with. Without any plan to win or any strategy, the Republicans have shown they have no leadership. I can’t believe they did this.
August 8th, 2008 at 6:58 pmI will second Trial Dog’s affirmation of Steve’s POV. Noonan seems to have lost her own bearings, and increasingly sounds in awe of Obama. In truth, I think she just really doesn’t like McCain. In truth, he’s the best of a sorry lot of Republican options for President, however, it may be that this is the year that the Republican turtle beats the Democratic hare. McCain - old but steady, slow but not flashy, character-tested and proven - vs the flash-in-the-pan empty suit, quick to start but slow to finish Obama. Noonan’s been hanging around with too many of the faux folks in NYC & LA - she needs to go visit real folks in Mississippi or Indiana. If she did, she would see what the vast majority of America sees. I predict McCain by at least 10.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:39 pmI read the head line and skimmed the article. I’m not gonna lie. I never lost faith in America. I knew eventually the masses would see through that bastards front. Realize he’s an empty suit. That he is not nearly as grand as he tries to portray him self.
http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh307/T-BaggsPhotos/obama1.jpg?t=1218253340
August 8th, 2008 at 7:42 pmI’m not the fan I used to be of Noonan, either. A couple months ago she wrote that weird piece where she seemed jealous that Pres. Bush doesn’t have to stand in line for security checks before he boards Air Force One. She should have blamed the criminals from 9/11.
August 8th, 2008 at 9:18 pmI can’t stand Noonan either — she is nothing but a whiner and complainer. Remember during Bush’s first term when she would praise him to the heavens, and even went to work for his reelection campaign in ‘04, and then completely turned on him after his second inauguration speech, which she personally didn’t approve of? Ever since, it has been nothing but bashing, trashing, and hating, not only on Bush, but anyone who doesn’t want to join in her personal feud against the president. I have the feeling that something happened behind the scenes where she felt “snubbed” by the president, and she has been looking for payback ever since.
Now, she reads like a lefty who is, yes, firmly in the tank for Obama. The ONLY difference between her and Maureen Dowd, Ariana Huffington, etc., is that she once worked for Reagan (whatever did he see in her?). She is an angry, bitter, washed-up hack whose time has come and gone…
August 8th, 2008 at 10:02 pmsnob-ama was toast after Rev. wright and the “bitter clingers” thing hit the fan.
With the advent of the internet, the butt-kissin’ media can cover his ass for only so long before facts - or lack thereof - start leaking out.
Then Americans start wondering whose hand is up the sock puppet’s skirt….
August 8th, 2008 at 11:17 pmMy favorite line of the week:
Jimmy Carter - now available in black.
August 9th, 2008 at 3:04 amPeggy, Peggy you have become a parody, the Manhattan Conservative…I think she has loss touch with what this country is about. She sounds like a ghost that is floating around the Round Table at the Algonquin Hotel.
August 9th, 2008 at 3:40 amIt is sad that she has lost so much of what made her a great writer. But a girl got to do something to pay the bills!
In the land of MSM bullshit makes the world go ’round and the left feeds itself plenty on a daily basis–with a side order of global warming using the good BDS china and silverware. Sadly for them bullshit painted any other color is still bullshit and America can smell it from miles away–at least a major portion of America. To use a phrase from that old Cheech and Chong comedy album “good thing we didn’t step in it”.
***Lemme be a little tongue-n-cheek for a moment***
There’s a commercial that has been running for a couple of years now for herpes medication and a sinister little statistic is glossed over…the commercial says that 70% of herpes cases are spread when the person shows no sign of the condition. That means that 30% of the folks that get herpes got it by having sex with somebody with runny puss laden open sores. So given these numbers I am betting that Obama gets the 30% open sore vote this fall while the rest of America has the good sense to stay out of the sack with these idiots. …but that’s just my take.
August 9th, 2008 at 5:44 amHe’s doing it to give voters the impression that they’ve already seen President Obama.
Uh, and that’s not arrogance? Is he running for president or Son of God? Going over to Europe pissed me off even more at this chimera of a man. Fuck him.
August 9th, 2008 at 5:48 amWhen was this ever out of McCain’s reach?
August 9th, 2008 at 6:02 amAll I can say is we can’t take anything for granted, nor can we become complacent. The stakes are simply too high to let Obama win, and the Dems to make gains in Congress.
August 9th, 2008 at 6:57 amI’m convinced that “oBUMa” is his own worst enemy and he’s going to implode closer to the election.
He’s been increasingly on the defensive the past several weeks and it’s not gonna get any better for him. All he does anymore is try to explain away and make excuses for his seedy friends and ridiculous policies.
I can’t wait for the first debate between him and McCain.It should be a real eye-opener for the people sitting on the “fence”. I’m laughing my ass off in anticipation.
You know the Democrat party is regretting pushing this Mookie to the forefront.
I can hear Howard Dean now “What the fuck were we thinking?” That’s your problem, Howie, all of you Commie bastards, posing as American citizens, couldn’t come up with a rational thought if your lives depended on it.
August 9th, 2008 at 8:14 am