It has been two weeks since Obama declared victory over Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primary, twelve days since she endorsed him after the two met privately in Senator Feinstein's D.C. home, and about a week since Obama's "bounce" from Clinton supporters who had previously refused to support him took him from a 2-3 point deficit in the polls to an 8 point advantage. See
www.rasmussenreports.com for past daily averages. Today, however, Rasmussen - perhaps the most historically reliable polling outfit since they began operations, has Obama's lead down to 3 points. For about a dozen reasons, I think that lead is about to evaporate over the next week or two.
First, today Obama officially declined to take public funds, making him the first Presidential candidate to do so for the general election since Watergate. See
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/06/19/republicans-hammer-obama-for-sidestepping-public-funds/. Back in November, Obama unilaterally stated he would hold both parties to a public fundraising truce where each would have to take public financing. He then rendered his now infamous quote:
“Senator John McCain has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge,” Obama wrote. “If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.”
A few months later, McCain won the GOP primary and agreed to Obama's proposal to take public financing. McCain called on Obama to do the same. Obama, however, raised eyebrows at the time stating only that he would look forward to a conversation with McCain on the subject. McCain stated he wanted Obama to keep his word, plain and simple. Obama's decision was precipitated by his experiencing an unanticipated, record-breaking fundraising success streak. The reason public financing was called for originally by Obama and then also by McCain was that it is supposed to protect the integrity of the political process as a check and balance against the special interest groups (that both candidates decry) that dominate American politics. If a candidate takes public financing, they do not have to rely on lobbyists who can raise huge sums from special interest groups. That independence allows for elected representatives to be statesmen rather than politicians, so to speak. Bush was heavily criticized for raising unprecedented sums breaking previous records that left "no special interest group behind." Now, Obama is in Bush's old position.
Obama will be able to use that fundraising advantage to run attack ads on McCain that he will not possibly be able to counter in swing states with the lower amount of money that public financing limits him to, which also enables (though not necessarily ensuring) that Obama could distort McCain's record/statements with relative impunity.
Obama's team has generated two justifications for this complete 180. One, they note and criticize McCain for the 527s that could run attack ads on his behalf. While it is true that 527s can raise their own money and run ads independent from a campaign, thus far Obama supportive 527s have outspent McCain supportive 527s by more than a 4:1 margin, so I'm not sure that really makes up the difference for McCain. Two, Obama's team has claimed they have created in effect a "parallel public financing" system. That argument relies on the fact the campaing has a record number of small donors, who typically have less influence on a candidate. They also, however, have a record number of special interest group donors from many special interest sectors that are unprecedented, so the small donors are more of an "in addition to" and not "instead of" the special interest influence that public financing is meant to protect against.
Second, equally disappointing is Obama's refusal to engage in the proposed weekly series of ten town hall debates across the country to showcase the candidates directly to the people without the media filtered questions. Obama has agreed to only 1 town hall, and suggested the usual three standard media controlled debates. He debated Clinton, according to his own stated number, 22 times. This refusal to engage McCain will also magnify the importance of Obama's now superior funding base for the general election.
Third, the candidates have sparred over energy policy, which is front and center in most every voter's mind who drives a car at this period where gas prices are $4 a gallon and rising. McCain (and Clinton) jumped in front initially by calling for a gas tax vacation to ease the traditionally higher gas prices of the summertime, which would save us all 20-25 cents per gallon. Obama opposed the measure, stating the amount was insignificant and unlikely to result in permanent solutions to the problem, and might even increase the price of gas eventually if demand were to increase, (at this point though, U.S. gas consumption is down 3% from this time last year).
Obama then called for a windfall profits tax against the oil industry. This would be punitive in nature, blaming the oil companies for making record profits during the time when we are suffering at the gas pumps. McCain noted that the oil companies are making less profit per gallon than they used to during this time and opposed the plan as a "tried and failed" method that did not work under the Carter administration and the 1970s gas lines and skyrocketing energy prices that resulted the last time this policy was tried. Besides the immediate hit on 40% of all American stockholders who have a stake in oil companies, the disincentive for oil companies to generate more oil by capping their profits would increase America's dependence on foreign oil, and would increase the price of gas, McCain charged.
McCain then put forth a rather comprehensive approach to the problem, which may win him points on this issue down the line. In short, he would want to:
1. Increase off-shore drilling. Each state would decide for itself whether to conduct offshore drilling. Obama has criticized and rejected this part of the proposed solution on environmental grounds (environmentalists won on the issue of offshore drilling prevention 30 years ago) and because it would not significantly increase our domestic oil for at least 5 years.
2. Increase domestic drilling, including in Alaska. Again, Obama rejected this portion of the proposed solution on environmental grounds.
3. Creation of tax incentives for entrepreneurial innovations in alternative energy sources, including solar, wind, and clean coal energy. Again, Obama has opposed this measure of tax incentives, but has stated he supports development of these alternative energy sources.
4. Development of 100 new nuclear generators, utilizing existing American technology to generate a wealth of more environmentally friendly and safe energy. Obama has rejected this measure as well, but called McCain "soft" on nuclear energy.
Dick Morris, a former (President) Clinton advisor, notes that the contrast between these two is likely to hurt Obama.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_dick_morris/mccain_scores_with_offshore_drilling_proposal
Fourth, the Iraq war of course remains the predominant issue of the campaign, even though it did not receive the most attention this week. Obama has now promised to visit Iraq and Afghanistan before the election, another significant change from his previous declarations that he did not need to visit those countries to understand what was happening there. A few weeks ago, he rejected McCain's invitation for the two of them to go to Iraq to meet with General Petraeus and other military commanders, as well Ambassador Crocker and other American and allied political leaders there to show American unity on foreign soil and to see the events on the ground. Obama dismissed and rejected that invitation as a political stunt. He later stated he might go to Iraq, then upgraded that to would probably go to Iraq, and now has promised it.
Conservatives have sharply criticized Obama for the fact that he has not been to Iraq and Afghanistan since long before the surge, in fact, over two years. He also has not held a single meeting in his capacity as Chairman of the subcommittee in the Senate on Afghanistan despite the war there. On top of that, Obama's statements of what he would do in Iraq have also been criticized as a series of flip-flops. First he stated he would immediately pull all American troops out of Iraq. Then he stated he would pull them out in phases, within 6 months, then he would pull them out according to the recommendations of our military commanders, then clarified that he would pull them all out within 1 year, then clarified that if al Qaeda were to establish a base of operations in Iraq or Iraq were to become unstable then he would send the troops back in. He has also stated he would utilize an "infusion" or "surge" of diplomacy, capture bin Laden, invade Pakistan (although they are our ally), and send farming aid to Afghanistan to help resolve that conflict. A good example of the criticisms of Obama's lack of plan specifics is here -
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06192008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/obama_vs__osama_116128.htm?page=0.
McCain has also criticized Obama for missing the Senate vote on designating certain groups as "terrorist groups" that have been proven to be killing American soldiers in Iraq, showing a lack of care about the issue. He further attacks Obama's willingness to meet with Ahmadinejad as a "spectacle" which would embolden the terrorists, and sustain a failing regime in Iran that could enable the country to go nuclear, endangering both U.S. and regional allies (Israel, Iraq) security.
Obama has stated he supports Israel's bombing of Syria, and wishes to see Israel divided between the Jews and Palestinians in order to achieve peace, cut off weapons flow through Egypt to Gaza, pressure Israel to ease freedom of movement for Palestinians (Israel has many restrictions related to their stated security needs that effectively reduced the number of suicide bombings), improve economic conditions in the West Bank, and pressure Israel to refrain from continuing to build settlements in the West Bank. Hamas in turn should be isolated under his plan until they renounce violence and terror and recognize Israel's right to exist (something Hamas will never do) and abide by past agreements. There is "no room at the table for terrorist organizations" according to Obama. Of course, if he can successfully get Israel to do all he has stated he intends to then there does not appear to be any reason for Hamas to want to come to a negotiating table anyways.
Fifth, also in the news this week was the candidates' spars over trade policy. McCain has repeatedly called Obama a protectionist who is anti-free trade while Obama continues to state that he is against protectionism. Nevertheless, Obama has called in the past for unilaterally changing NAFTA, an issue on which he flanked Clinton's left to gain union support during the primary, calling NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake." He added that unilaterally invoking opt-out tactics would create a negotiating "hammer" with which we could forward American values and interests in renegotiating the deal. His chief economic advisor at the time was exposed to the media as assuring Canadians that Obama did not mean what he was saying and that it was purely political posturing. This week, Obama stated that like all politicians, he was "guilty" of "overheated" or "amplified rhetoric" when it came to this topic. Other Democrats had distanced themselves from him on the issue and the international community expressed concerns over their own free trade agreements, (America has several dozen right now), and what Obama might do to them. Obama has repeatedly criticized free trade as not being "fair trade" and noted he is concerned with finding deals that help "all parties" (as opposed to just America). Specifically, he has noted he wants labor and environmental standards to be part of these deals, which is laudable, though, as McCain and other critics note, this would likely cause many American jobs as the inherent tradeoff.
Sixth, the candidates sparred over tax policy. Although there has been significant discussion on this topic, this post is getting too long to go into the depth that would do the topic justice, so I will reserve that for another post.
Seventh, the Supreme Court rang in on granting terrorist suspects due process rights like American citizens in a 5-4 decision that Obama praised and McCain criticized as endangering America. The right to habeas corpus and other due process rights that make it difficult to put U.S. citizens behind jails (and, in all fairness, prevent unjust convictions) now apply to captured enemy combatants during a time of war.
In other miscellaneous items:
8 - McCain has announced he will visit the flood devastated regions in the midwest, and was in Iowa today.
9 - Obama has been meeting lately with the AFL-CIO and will garner that endorsement shortly, which may create another fundraising and volunteer upswing for his campaign, though most of them are already on board as individual unions made endorsements prior to the federation.
10 - Obama's team fired two volunteers for telling two different women that they could not be seated behind Obama where they might be in press pictures because of the head scarves they were wearing. This was reminiscent of the event at Penn State a few months ago where Obama campaign volunteers stated they needed more white people in the background for the press pictures. The campaign has condemned these acts and stated it was not their policy.
11 - Obama's V.P. search committee co-chairman (1 of 3 members) Jim Johnson resolved over an alleged scandal in which he received a $21,000,000 golden parachute and was involved in the Countrywide subprime mortgage fiasco, an issue for which Obama went after Clinton surrogates and attacked Countrywide's fault in the mortgage crisis on the stump. It may be problematic not only that Obama's team did not call this to light and disclose it but dismissed it under these circumstances as irrelevant, despite having Johnson resign. (In fact, this may be a blessing disguise for Obama, since Johnson also helped select V.P.'s for the not so successful 1984 Mondale campaign and 2004 Kerry campaign, including Geraldine Ferraro - an outspoken critic of Obama).
12 - McCain broke party ranks again and defied President Bush by joining Democrats on their unemployment policy extension plan.
13 - Obama has called for more regulation on credit card company rates and policies.
14 - Had Obama agree to McCain's proposal for weekly town halls, they would have had their second one yesterday probably.
