I don't know why it took me this long to have the election crystallize in my mind - but it hit me when watching Obama's infomercial last night. Obama only wins if he can convince people that things are horrible in this country. I know he has been calling for change this whole time, and I always thought it was based on an idea that people seem to think the country is headed on the wrong track.
But watching the infomercial, I realized that he's not just trying to tap into the national mood. he is actively trying to convince people that things in this country are horrible.
Look at all of the clips he had of Americans and the struggles they were facing. It was one long ad for how bad things are.
But I can't believe that things are as bad as Obama wants us to believe they are. First, if they were, Obama wouldn't have to sell it so hard. Second, if they were, Apple wouldn't have sold 11 million iPods and six million iPhones in the last quarter, the GDP wouldn't be up 3.3% in the last quarter and home sales in California, for example, wouldn't be up 60% in the last year.
In truth, the economy isn't as bad as Obama would have us believe. But he loses if he can't convince more than half of America that things are downright horrible and we need significant and lasting change in this country.
The fact that he spent $4 million dollars selling the fact that all Americans face such difficult times is evidence of his goal. It only really worked in the last month when the economy "tanked" and everyone became focused on the bailout and the state of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
But those worries are now easing - the Dow seems to have hit bottom and rebounded a bit, the credit freeze is lifting, and things are, by-and-large, getting back to normal. So the only way Obama maintains his lead is to continue to tell people how bad things are. This will probably work for people who are struggling right now. The question is how much it will work with people who aren't. Five days to go, with a tightening race means we won't know how well Obama has succeeded until the last minute.
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In my mind, I've already come to terms with the likely outcome of the election. I know, I know, it's not over. I just think three things are happening here:
1)Obama has convinced a lot of people that he's the one to bring change. What they don't realize is that the change we can count on will be what's left of our paychecks after Obama passes all of his socialist programs.
2) McCain has a bunch of ground still to make up and just not enough time to do it. If there was even one more week, he could probably do it, but too many people are voting for their candidate for all the wrong reasons and it's hard to make that up in a matter of a few days.
3) A lot of people are voting for change for the sake of change. They don't really look at what those changes will be. The last time this country voted for change's sake, we got Jimmy Carter and double digit interest rates and inflation, a horrible economy, a gas crisis, a hostage crisis, and a recession. It's really too bad that more voters don't remember 1976.
These next four years will be a disaster. And, unlike 9/11, in many ways, we deserve this.
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