In the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, Barack Obama leads John McCain by eight points. This is the second consecutive day that Obama has held an eight point lead, and it marks an unhappy departure from the happy days of yore (like ten days ago) when McCain held a five point lead. First, the bad news: McCain’s losing by eight points. You’d rather be winning than losing. As an additional point of bad news, McCain to date has been unable to do anything that resonates with the public. Let’s face it – the biggest and pretty much only issue in the campaign since Obama became the presumptive nominee several weeks ago has been Obama. McCain has been relegated to the role of the other guy. The fact that he got the Republican nomination based largely on that strength should not confuse his champions that it will be a winning platform in the general election. At the risk of stating the mind-numbingly obvious, Barack Obama is a much stronger candidate than any of the guys McCain beat over the winter. Now, the good news: If Obama’s post-victory bounce has indeed plateaued with an eight point lead, that’s not as bad a scenario as one could have imagined. Besides, in addition to last week being a good one for Obama, it was an awful one for McCain. His Tuesday night speech was roundly panned even by his friends, and his campaign appeared an unfortunate combination of irrelevant and pathetic talking about changing backdrops while his opponent was talking about healing the earth and tending to the lame. If eight points is Obama’s baseline lead, that’s a manageable figure. Truth be told, I figured Obama’s baseline lead would have been well into double digits, and the Republican nominee would have to begin chucking Hail Marys early and often. It’s the Republican party’s great good fortune that it has the nominee least associated with the party’s tattered brand and with the best shot at winning. You add it all up, McCain actually has a decent chance if he runs a good campaign and he and his surrogates give people not just reasons to vote against Obama but reasons to vote for the Maverick.
