McCain Beats Obama

So now we have narrowed the 2008 Presidential candidates to the final two. That's great as now it is clear that Clinton is out of the picture. Not because she is a woman, but because of her as a person. Now it is just a matter of getting to the election to elect McCain so that we don't have to suffer four years under a socialist-thinking Democrat.

For me it is easy to see that McCain will beat Obama. For starters McCain is much more popular than Bush. Sure Obama is very popular, but then again, so was John Kerry. But Kerry lost even though he was running against a 'globally-hated' George Bush. Obama is hardly likely to do much better than John Kerry. For starters, his is not likely to get much of any crossover voters sick of Bush, because try to paint McCain all they want, President Bush is not running for reelection.

Worse for Obama, His Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton, managed to carve out a good slice of support from her own party that has more in common with McCain than with Obama. So there is a god chance that a sizable number of her supporters, especially independents, will vote for McCain if they are not able to vote for her.

"They see and saw in Senator Clinton somebody they value experience in and, in many cases -- in terms of her personal characteristics -- her persistence and strength," the governor said of Clinton's backers. "Many of those same characteristics and more are in Senator McCain. So we think he's going to be able to compete for Senator Clinton's supporters to a significant degree when and if she terminates her campaign." - Politico

Then there is Iraq. As I said earlier:

...when people go to vote, they will be judging Iraq as is it is at the time that they vote, not at the time that the candidates have staked their position. - Link

Obama's Iraq problem is that he staked his position when Iraq appeared to be in chaos. That is no longer the case, but he has yet to adjust his position on Iraq. Now that he has won his party's nomination, it could be that his stance on Iraq might change, but that will cost him with some of his own supports, like Code Pink, since they are so hell-bent on getting the US out of Iraq, partly to ensure that the US does not win in Iraq. He needed their support before and now he needs to make sure they don't spike his campaign. But, not giving the Iraq mission the continued support it deserves will cost him in the upcoming debates as the current situation on the ground no longer supports the cut and run strategy of 18 months ago.

Given all the issues above, throw in possible problems due to race, possible inexperience, and other surprises such as a less-forgiving press, and it is hard to see Obama beating McCain, since McCain does not have to deal with the negatives that Bush had to overcome and Obama has some challenges that Kerry did not have to overcome.

Advantage McCain.