The Obama Poll Drop

It's the Issues, Stupid

by Michael Colby

(September 11, Washington, Sri Lanka Guardian) Oh no, guess what? The liberals are nervous. Yep, the obedient lib-Dems are finally starting to realize that the little party they were having in the immediate aftermath of the Sarah Palin selection may have been a bit premature. Oops.Liberals never learn. Dems can’t seem to win. And the two phenomena are as connected as John McCain’s eyes have been connected to Palin’s ass.

Drunk on their Obama Kool-aid, the lib-Dems have been putting together their fantasy cabinet selections, planning their election-night party plans, and trying to figure out whom to meet or whom to give money to in order to get some prized inaugural dance tickets. In their minds, this presidential race was over before they could even dismantle the faux-stage at their faux-convention.

Cue screeching car sound – as in: The rubber hitting the road.

Because the polling news hasn’t been good. While the lib-Dems have been blogging and pontificating themselves into a stupor over all the stupid stuff about Palin, the American people have been moving away from Obama and toward – say what? – the McCain/Palin ticket. And the movement has been significant enough for the likes of Kos, AmericaBlog and Talking Points Memo – three leading liberal blogs – to use words like “panic,” “worried” and “overestimated” while describing the current state of affairs.

Worse, the lib-Dems are refusing to look in the mirror while trying to come up with a reason for the Obama/Biden slip in the polls and the near-derailment in its messaging. Instead, they keep hitting the whining button and doing what they hate most in their conservative counterparts: Blaming the media and getting slimier and slimier with their personal attacks. Anything, in fact, but face the fact that their candidates and their party have all but abandoned “the issues” at the very moment when voters are beginning to ponder them.

If, as political scientists like to tell us, this is the time when voters start to pay attention, consider what they’re hearing from Obama and the Democratic Party:

On the Iraq War, Obama was pushed into saying that the “surge worked beyond anyone’s wildest expectations” to the Fox News blowhard, Bill O’Reilly. Despite being an inaccurate – if not completely spineless – position, it effectively handed what was the number one issue directly over to Mr. Surge himself, John McCain.

On energy issues, the Dems are in the middle of doing an about-face on offshore drilling. Instead of showing some spine and sanity in the face of the Republican’s new – and scary – hit chant of “drill baby, drill,” the Dems are flip-flopping like McCain on the issue and, according to The Hill, preparing to help pass new offshore drilling allowances.

* On health care, the Obama campaign continues to muddy and muddle through a confusing and all-but-impossible to understand “solution” that will allow the insurance companies and “the market” to remain in control. If it sounds a lot like the Hilary plan of 1993, well, it is. And we all know how that ended up – 15 long years ago. Thanks Dems. Sorry, but any health care plan from the Dems that doesn’t include the words “universal” or “single-payer” is just a pale imitation of the Republicans’ plan. In other words, not much change there.

And that’s what the lib-Dems don’t get: When you talk the talk of change, you’ve also got to walk the walk. Otherwise, you look like John Kerry or Al Gore. You know, two guys who took the voting public for fools by refusing to stand firm on their issues, changed issue-horses in mid-stream and, as a result, were both L.O.S.E.R.S.

Earth to the lib-Dems: This is no time to silence yourselves when it comes to the issues. This is the time to stand firm, talk tough and demand that your beloved Obama/Biden ticket listen to you. You know, kind of like the Christian right threatened to stay home unless one of their own was put on the McCain ticket. And then down came Palin.

Sadly – if not completely predictable – this election is starting to look like a rerun, complete with the liberal “shock, shock, shock!”

Yes, indeed: It’s the issues, stupid.

- Michael Colby is the editor of Broadsides.org. He can be reached via email at mcolby@broadsides.org.
- Sri Lanka Guardian