Presidential Race in a Dead Heat, and Who Would Want to Win This Year Anyway?

Despite all the upheaval in the financial sector this week that has apparently given Obama an edge on handling the economy, the latest George Washington University "Battleground Poll" puts the presidential race in a dead heat: McCain is leading Obama by only 47 percent to 45 percent among likely voters, a slight dip from his 48 percent to 44 percent lead two weeks ago.

But according to Gerard Baker at the Times Online this is the election you wouldn’t want to win anyway. Baker writes:

“Victorious Roman generals were reminded of the fickleness of their glory by a slave carefully positioned in earshot on the triumphal parade route.

‘“Memento mori, the hapless servant would whisper to the wreathed victor as his chariot rattled along Rome's jubilant streets: ‘Remember you are mortal.’

“They don't have slaves in America any more but perhaps the winner of November's presidential election should consider having one of his lower-paid deputy-assistants mutter something similar in his ear as he takes the tribute on Inauguration Day next January.

“It is highly probable that that moment, the very hour that he takes office, will be the high point of his presidency. Whoever wins on November 4 will be ascending to the job at one of the most difficult times for an American chief executive in at least half a century. When the votes are counted his people might ruefully conclude that the victor is not Barack Obama or John McCain. The real winner will be Hillary Clinton, or Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee, or some now happily anonymous figure whose star will rise in the next four turbulent years.
Background

“This sobering reality was startlingly underscored this week by none other than Tom Daschle, the former leader of the Senate Democrats, the national co-chairman of Mr Obama's presidential campaign, and the likely White House chief of staff in an Obama administration. He told a Washington power breakfast that he thought the winner of the election would have a 50 per cent chance at best - at best - of winning a second term in 2012.

“Consider the challenges.

“The financial crisis and Washington's response to it have transformed the economic and fiscal environment in which the new president will take office.”

Read more.

‘Yes we can'? Make that: ‘Oops, we may not'

Gerard Baker at the Times is right: “Barack Obama suddenly looks vulnerable. And the more the focus is on him, the less likely he is to become president.”

Baker writes:

“There's trouble in paradise. Cancel the coronation. Send back the commemorative medals. Put those “Yes We Can” T-shirts up on eBay. Keep the Change.

“Barack Obama's historic procession to the American presidency has been rudely interrupted. The global healing he promised is in jeopardy. If you're prone to emotional breakdown, you might want to take a seat before I say this. He might not win.

“How can it be, you ask? Didn't we see him just last month speaking to 200,000 adoring Germans in Berlin? Didn't he get the red carpet treatment in France - France of all places? Doesn't every British politician want to be seen clutching the hem of his garment?

“All true. But as cruel geography and the selfish designs of the American Founding Fathers would have it, Europeans don't get to choose the US president. Somewhere along the way to the Obama presidency, somebody forgot to ask the American people.”

Baker points out:

So we arrive this weekend at the true starting line of the US presidential race and the rituals that begin the real election campaign: the selection of the vice-presidential running-mates, and the back-to-back party nominating conventions. A year and a half after the warm-ups began, the two remaining candidates are more or less tied. Senator Obama's summer lead in the opinion polls has evaporated. John McCain, that grumpy, grisly, gnarled old Republican, that Gollum to Senator Obama's Bilbo Baggins, might, just might, actually win this thing.

“What happened?”

Baker concludes:

“The key to understanding the presidential campaign as it enters its phase of maximum intensity is this. The more the campaign is about the concerns of the American voter, especially the state of the economy but also the general anxiety about the direction of the country, the more likely they are to throw the Republicans out.

“But the uncomfortable truth for the many devoted fans of Senator Obama is that the more the race is about him, the less likely he is to win it.”

To read Baker’s thought-provoking analysis of the general election race in its entirety, go here.

And It Came to Pass: the Story of Obama’s Pilgrimage

Gerard Baker at the Times Online has gifted his readers with a fine piece of satire describing Barack Obama’s recent overseas tour. It begins:

“And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

“The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

‘“When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organisation with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: ‘Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?’”

To read the story in its entirety or better yet, watch Gerard Baker read it on video, go here.