Of Messiahs, Mere Mortals And Great Men
Michael Gerson almost nails it. If McCain loses, despite all the teeth-gnashing and garment-rending of conservative commentators lately, it won’t be because he’s a little man, who ran an inept campaign with a flawed veep candidate, or because Obama is the Messiah, astride storm-tossed waters with divinely inspired policies and a quick comeback for the devil. It will be because the great man got blindsided by history, Gerson posits. WPost:
The diverging political fortunes of Barack Obama and McCain can be traced to a single moment. In the middle of September, the net favorable rating for each candidate was about the same. By Oct. 7, Obama was ahead on this measure by about 16 points. Did McCain suddenly become a stumbling failure? No, the world suddenly went into an economic slide. Americans blamed the party with executive power, which is also the party most closely tied in the public mind to bankers and Wall Street. None of this was fair to McCain, who has never been the Wall Street type. But party images are vivid, durable and almost impossible to shift on short notice.
Previous to this economic free fall — and after his transformative vice-presidential choice — McCain was about tied in a race he should have been losing by a large margin. The public clearly had questions about Obama’s leadership qualities. But the McCain campaign also proved itself capable of constructing an effective narrative: Obama as lightweight celebrity, McCain as maverick reformer. Until history intervened.
Following the onset of the crisis, McCain was left with flawed options. He reasonably chose to work for a responsible bailout while hoping the markets would stabilize quickly. Instead, the bailout proved politically unpopular and the markets gyrated like the Pussycat Dolls. Then McCain raised Obama’s past association with William Ayers — a valid attack if properly raised. (Can anyone doubt that the past political association of McCain with a right-wing terrorist would attract some attention?) But this accusation naturally looks small compared to the nation’s outsized economic fears.
Obama’s task has been easier. He needs only to ride a historical current instead of fighting it. And this plays to his greatest political strength: the easy, laid-back self-assurance of a 1940s crooner. During the financial crisis Obama has contributed nothing of note or consequence. His only recent accomplishment has been to say questionable things in the debates — attacking Republicans and capitalism for a credit meltdown that congressional Democrats helped to cause, blaming America for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, talking piously about genocide prevention when his own early Iraq policies might have resulted in genocide — all while sounding supremely reassuring and presidential.
Obama’s current success is not enjoyable for conservatives. But this does not make McCain an incompetent. Maybe he is a great man running at the most difficult of times.
What Gerson shares in common with the conservative panic he cites is that he is looking at it like a race that is over. What Gerson fails to note are the consequences of the choice Americans are lurching toward, which constitute McCain’s greatest line of attack, and the one he should press aggressively, in very blunt terms. A nation that takes the counsel of its fears risks electing an inexperienced candidate whose true beliefs are not in fact an enigma, but based on the associations and cited mentors of the past 40 years, alarming in their radicalism. The nation will not be miraculously delivered from financial ruin. It will, in addition to having to work blunder its way through these difficult times, have to spend the next two decades pulling itself out of the wreckage of bad economic, social and foreign policies, some of which are truly dangerous.
There is the danger that the electorate, or that small wavering portion of it that will decide this election, is terrified and not thinking very clearly, and may grasp for what it thinks is a safety line. But despite the fears and recriminations on the right, it isn’t over yet. The same people who told you the Iraq war was lost are the same people who want you to think this election is over, only this time, they’ve convinced some of the right’s stalwarts.
Those popularly cited double-digit polling numbers, currently giving Obama a 10-point lead, are based on polling of all registered voters. More conservative “likely voter” polls are tight. Four points, 6 points. As Zogby noted the other day, the race is at a statistical dead heat. Today, Zogby reports Obama is losing ground among independents. In Messianic terms, the Anointed One is treading water. He may yet walk on its surface, but if he does, it will be on McCain’s back.
That starts by bowing to panic and resignation to a loss. Not uncommon in the midst of storms and battles. Fortunately, McCain … mere mortal, but also, as Gerson suggested, a great man … has been in darker places and fought harder battles than this one.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:15 am on Wednesday, October 15, 2008
2 Responses to “Of Messiahs, Mere Mortals And Great Men”
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October 15th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Rather than history, I would say it was media narrative that intervened, turning an acute market correction into The Great Depression II. I’m holding onto hope that American voters are smart enough to see through it.
October 16th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Very fine writing, Jules, and thoughtfully analyzed. Though I must admit to a certain amount of despair in seeing this travesty averted by last minute heroics, I can assure you that I will not fail to vote my conscience for McCain. Whatever the outcome, at least my conscience will be clear. And that, I strongly believe, is very important.
That damn “electorate, or that small wavering portion of it that will decide this election, is terrified and not thinking very clearly, and may grasp for what it thinks is a safety line” are the cowardly chicken-shits I detest most of all, because they are obviously wavering between what they perceive to be good for them, as opposed to what’s best for the Nation.