The McCain Bounce #3: John McCain

John McCain

We left off talking about how the nomination of Sarah Palin changed the nature of the campaign by her identity and the way that the Media greeted her to the race. The net effect was to make the McCain ticket a point of interest to the electorate at large. However, I do not believe that Palin was enough to actually bounce McCain's numbers, people had to like what they saw.

The Conventions

During the conventions, Sarah Palin gave a great red-meat speech that was seen by roughly 37 million people in the US. Barack Obama gave a great red-meat speech that was seen by roughly 38 million people in the US. John McCain gave a so-so not very red-meat speech that was seen by roughly 39 million people in the US. And, McCain's numbers went up.

First, there's no way that without the Media's mania towards Palin that McCain would have beat Obama's numbers. However, the way that the Media reacted to the nomination and her speech made people tune in for the boss. Also, it's time that I recognize that I am not the average person. Polling data about McCain's speech shows that his was the most effective at swaying the independent non-ideological voter that will decide this election. Maybe that's because his speech was the least partisan, maybe it's because those people don't actually expect good speeches from presidents (god knows we haven't had many of them since Reagan) and they weren't disappointed. I'm not really sure why, but when the Palin-Media phenomena happened it spurred people to give McCain another look and they liked what they saw.

Change

McCain has had some success in taking the 'change' mantra from Obama. He's made himself the safe change, and the change that isn't so much pie in the sky. He's eroded the "throw the bums out" momentum that was helping Obama by NOT being GW. The Bush = McCain equation just isn't sticking because it's not true.

Palin has freed McCain from his base. With the right energized McCain can embrace the Maverick persona that made him so popular with independents in 2000. He's able to go back to those roots with credibility because people know McCain and don't believe he's disingenuous despite his pandering and flip flops.

Television

Finally, McCain wins the war of the ads. His ads are better! They're negative without being cruel and they hit at Obama effectively because his campaign is based on emotion. Because Obama has been so ambitious McCain need only to tarnish Obama's image to discredit his whole platform. It's, frankly, not fair, but it works.

Conclusions

All of this means that McCain has run a good campaign so far. But, none of it would matter if Obama kept himself on topic and stopped shooting himself in the foot. It's a huge democrat year, remember that McCain has run his campaign about as well as can be imagined and he's still only tied. More on how Obama is allowing McCain to stay close tomorrow....