According to today’s polls, the race between Barack Obama and John McCain is now a statistical tie. In polling parlance that means that the surveys showing the race 47-46 (such as this morning’s Washington Post/ABC poll) are within the “margin of error.” And so, with only 56 news cycles left before Election Day, America seems headed for another close presidential election. What happened amid such a fertile environment for Democrats? Actually, several things happened—this is a campaign with hundreds of moveable parts—but I went to a lunch hosted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life earlier today, and it is apparent to the brainy and non-partisan Pew pollsters and experts that the most immediate factor that has shaken up the 2008 presidential election is that evangelical Christians and religious Catholics have been reenergized by the Republican ticket. Exactly when, why, and how this happened is open to interpretation, but it seems to me after seeing the new Pew data that several factors came together.
Let’s take a look at three of them.
(I) Early in the year, rumors began circulating on the Internet that Obama is a closet Muslim. This is patent nonsense, but we live in the Age of Nonsense—sent around the world at warp speed on these powerful little computers that most of us use everyday. The antidote to this malicious cyber-blather was supposed to be the evidence that Obama is a committed Christian who attends a liberal and socially active church on Chicago’s Southside. But then, YouTube clips of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright surfaced. They put on display Wright’s off-putting vision of race relations, religion, and America itself. Suddenly, the Democratic candidate was put in a position, not of using Wright for cover, but of having to distance himself from the man who had baptized him and his children.
(II) McCain and Obama appeared at Saddleback Church where Rick Warren asked them about their world views and spiritual lives. Obama more easily discussed his faith than McCain, and seemed more conversant with biblical teaching. But on two questions, Obama disappointed many evangelicals and observant Catholics. The first was abortion. Conservative Christians didn’t expect Obama to agree with them. They did expect a more nuanced argument than his glib response that questions of when life begins are “above my pay grade.” The second turning point was Warren’s question about evil. “Does evil exist, and if it does, do we ignore it, do we negotiate with it, do we contain it, or do we defeat it?” the preacher asked.
Obama’s response: “Evil does exist. I mean, we see evil all the time. We see evil in Darfur. We see evil in parents who have viciously abused their children and I think it has to be confronted. It has to be confronted squarely and one of the things that I strongly believe is that, you know, we are not going to, as individuals, be able to erase evil from the world...Now, the one thing that I think is very important for us is to have humility in how we approach the issue of confronting evil, but, you know, a lot of evil has been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil...”
An hour later, Pastor Rick asked McCain the same question about evil, and what we should do about it. McCain began his answer with two words: “Defeat it!” The audience broke into loud applause. Obama's answer may have been theologically more sophisticated, but politically, it was tone deaf.
(III) McCain’s chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. So far, the surprise pick for Veep has helped McCain in several distinct ways. Let’s count them with yet another list: First of all, it solidified the support of religious conservatives; simply put, they see Sarah Palin as one of them. Second, it galvanized the Republican Party and a Republican convention that had feared McCain would choose yet another tired, old white male as a running mate, perhaps someone who wasn’t pro-life—or, worse, wasn’t even a Republican. Third, it energized McCain himself. “Sarah Palin is his Geritol,” quipped CBS’s Harry Smith this week. “She not only energized the base, she seemed to have energized him.” Fourth, the strangely personal attacks against Palin from the left-wing blogosphere and the mainstream press reminded Republicans who their real historical enemy is—at least in their minds: The media. Fifth, Palin appears to have connected Republicans to working-class whites who were still smarting over Obama’s comment about rural Americans “clinging” to guns and religion. (Palin doesn’t merely cling to them: She embraces religion, and brandishes firearms.) Sixth, it turns out that there were indeed female Hillary Clinton voters not yet ready to give up their dreams—a new ABC News poll shows a stunning 20-point shift among white women from the Obama-Biden ticket to the McCain-Palin ticket. Noted ABC’s Jake Tapper: “Sigmund Freud once asked, ‘What does a woman want?’ Apparently, they want a woman on the ticket.”
He ain’t kidding. Check this out: It’s a new CNN poll of preferences if you could vote for the vice presidential picks separately:
Sarah Palin: 53 percent
Joe Biden: 44 percent
Are such numbers ephemeral? Perhaps. For one thing, Sarah Palin is one gaffe away from disaster. She's untried and untested on a national stage--and plenty of people want to see her fail. So she must be flawless. That's a tall order. In addition, the polls are not definitive yet. There are more swing voters this year than in 2004, and what makes them independent is that they are prone to changing their minds. It's also worth mentioning that every horserace poll question begins with a premise that every respondent knows to be untrue: “If the election were held today, would you vote for…” Well, voters know the election is not being held today, and sometimes they use their answers to pollsters to send a message to the professional political chatterers. What could that message be this time around? How about: “Look, folks, lay off the lady from Alaska.” Or, “Hey, enough already with the personal attacks on her family.”
I think that lesson was learned fairly quickly in the last couple of weeks--and, to be fair, Obama himself always knew it. I also believe that this contest is going to settle into a 56-day war of attrition that may be settled by the upcoming presidential (and vice presidential) debates. That's as good a way as any...
Advertisement 
