I’ve spent most of the last 12 hours listening to various pundits predict this protracted Democrat campaign will weaken the eventual nominee in the fall. Some sort of voter fatigue will befall the electorate who will then be less inclined to vote for the Democrats in November. The Democrats, fractured by the race, will fail to coalesce around the nominee and help McCain win.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say for the record I think this is a bunch of crap.
First, people in this country have incredibly short attention spans. Any fatigue present in June is unlikely to carry until November. It’s just not like us to carry that baggage for five months. This whole notion stems from the fact that nobody has seen a race like this in generations. People are used to these fire-and-forget campaigns. The argument assumes that people prefer that and don’t want something more. I think there is ample evidence, just in the water cooler conversations, that people are engaged in this, have picked a candidate to back (regardless of their party) and want to see who wins.
That’s significantly different from an election plagued by fatigue.
Second, the Democrats will end up with a huge advantage coming out of this. Having been forced to compete in all 50 states, they will have a ground game in all 50 states. They will have built the machinery to compete in places the GOP has ignored for decades either because it was “safe” red territory or because the states simply weren’t on the radar.
Voters in these states will be intimately aware of the Democrat, will have seen countless ads for them, will have seen them in their state. The GOP, by comparison, will have no exposure, name ID solely based on their name, not their message, and no organizers. That’s going to make more states competitive.
I think hopes for Democrat burnout are overstated. I think pundits underestimate the people and the race. Hopefully, the GOP apparatus doesn’t make the same mistake.
I was on a similar track as you last month. However, McCain has done a fairly good job staying in the news cycle. Your ground game point makes a lot of sense. The Dems should have an advantage especially against a cash-strapped McCain operation–decentralized campaign or not.
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Has McCain done a good job staying in the news? I just don’t see it. His “tours” seem to have gone unnoticed by all but the most rabid partisans. Compared to the attention Obama and Hillary are getting, he may as well not exist.
Call random non-political friends back home and ask when the last time they heard something about McCain was. Now ask the last thing they heard about Obama or Clinton.
I concur largely on the fatigue and ground game arguments. In states that “haven’t mattered” in decades in the Presidential Primary process, Democratic state parties across the nation are in a sense ‘priming the engine’ for November.
However, I think you are overstating fatigue and sacrificing a much more primal emotion here: Anger. People don’t forget anger, especially in politics. They embrace it. They hang on to it; and so on.
If the GOP party apparatus and Team McCain are off their organizational game, which seems likely, anger from Democrats of not getting “their candidate or their choice” may be our side’s last saving grace from total meltdown on the Presidential race.
I see your point, but honestly, what would the disaffected do? If Obama’s not the candidate, are any Democrats actually likely to sit out (or vote McCain)? I just don’t see it. They may say they will in polling, but I can’t see them handing us the election simply because they didn’t get their guy.
Same for Hillary.
Now if the Democrats win, those factions may make governing very difficult, but I can’t see them simply giving us a President because “the wrong person” won.
Oh, I concur. Dems are too invested in getting back the White House to blow this opportunity. It’s just I’ve seen too many races (and this maybe largely due to Wisconsin’s late primary) where bitterness of “my guy or nobody” gave the other side the win.
Hell, I it likely gave us tall tale spinning allergists in Congress.