Conditions on the Ground

So, it begins. "Flip-Flopping," "Stay the Course," "Voted with George W. Bush 95% of the time." It's as if Presidential Elections are an elaborate game of Uno, with each candidate being dealt a hand of cards and carefully playing them one by one. As the surrogates get disowned and the melodramatic music gets played over deceptively presented voting records between innings of baseball games, we are beginning to see that even the two most unconventional candidates presidential politics have ever seen will still be running fairly conventional campaigns. I miss Hillary.

But before opinions really start to be formed about these two candidates, summer provides a testing ground to experiment with nuanced messages, to reposition, to venture into hostile waters, to present bios. But before the dreams of Montana and Michigan fade and tens of millions of dollars worth of media buys are made in Cleveland, the summer duldrums really do present some fascinating twists and turns, leading up to the late-August conventions, when the independents will finally start to sway.

And the candidates have been busy. Today John McCain addressed the NAACP, while Obama spoke at Purdue University about the threats of the 21st century. First McCain.

McCain, of course, has guts. No one has any illusions about how hard it will be to sway black voters. But by going to the NAACP -- an invitation he snubbed last year -- McCain showed some grace. Quoting MLK and addressing education and small business issues, McCain made a reasonable argument for why the Republican domestic agenda -- at least with the maverick at the helm -- may be better for the struggling economy than what he labels as Democratic tax hikes. And Obama will hike taxes. While income taxes for most Americans (about 99%) would go down, McCain rightfully points out that under the Obama plan, the 100's of millions of Americans who hold stocks and bonds would see their taxes go up under Obama's capital-gains regime, while estate taxes could change by a margin of 30%. Those are big differences. As McCain says, when people are struggling with gas and food prices, the last thing they want to do is pay higher taxes. Obama says that if McCain wants to have a debate on taxes, he looks forward to it. But can he really win?

Obama, introduced by possible-VP (and UVA law grad) Evan Bayh, spoke about the fascinating issues of cyber-security and nonproliferation. Obama has developed this really interesting two-tone personality. At night, he grandstands, but his day job is that of weary warrior. He speaks in dulcet tones about global annihilation, but not with the sweeping grandeur we're usually expecting. Often times, he talks with his head down, as if pleading, and instead of delving into specifics, stresses that the details will come so long as there is confident and inspired leadership at top--his leadership. Its an interesting argument, and not one that's lost on the electorate. Hardly a wonk, Obama can get bogged down when talking about important but non-principled issues, and he rightly avoids explaining how exactly America can prevent cyper-espionage and limit the creation of fissile material, and instead stresses that what is important is vision and boldness to conquer the new problems facing the country, to work with allies, to make the hard choices.

At this point, most prognosticators have their money on Obama, and for good reason. The political situation is bad for Republicans, McCain has failed to rally his base, Bob Barr may get 4%, and the state-by-state make up seems to have Obama playing offense all across the country. But I don't underestimate McCain. His biography is remarkably compelling, his manner of speaking comforting and convincing, his stance on domestic policy more in line with mainstream (read: heartland) American opinion and his foreign policy, if a liability in itself, at least principled and knowledgeable. Can McCain steal a mid-western state? or PA? He has the money, and somewhere in there he's got the message. The debates will be key here. Summer is just too far away from November.