I know this is a little late but I've been thinking quite a bit about
both Obama and Clinton supporters' claims that they'll vote for McCain
if their preferred candidate does not get the nomination. I'm hoping
that Josh is right and that people will calm down, eventually voting for
the Democrat when they realize the enormous differences between the Dem
and Teflon John.


But do you think, as that settles out, there might be another
reason to expect a second mini-surge toward the Democratic candidate?
Hear me out: From the beginning of the campaign, the Democratic race
has gotten FAR more media attention than the Republican race. Even as
we've narrowed the field down to two candidates, you can argue that
McCain has been playing second (third? fourth?) fiddle to the
Democratic contenders, thereby amplifying the media's tendency not to
focus on his blunders, misstatements, "plans," etc.


What happens when things settle down on the Democratic side though?

I
think that what we're seeing now is a symptom of the fact that most
voters don't follow this horse race every day. They remember McCain
from 2000, feel that in hindsight he would have been a better President
than Bush, have vague recollections of him being a bipartisan maverick
that truly represents the middle ground.  A lot of them don't realize
that, in the meantime, he's cozied up to the agents of intolerance, he
now supports tax cuts that he himself opposed, he was against torture
before he was for it, he freely admits to knowing nothing about
economics, and he offers a dangerous foreign policy that may indeed
make Bush's seem tolerable.


In short: are your "average" American voters, who are only starting
to tune into the campaign, going to turn on the debates this fall, hear
the words coming out of McCain's mouth, and ask themselves "What the
hell happened to this guy?" Are his approval ratings and competitive numbers due to
the fact that he's lost in the media narrative right now? And that as
soon as people start to look at him a bit more closely, they'll realize
that he's not who he once was?


Just a thought.