RCP’s Tom Bevan notes the unusual agreement between New York Times columnist Bob Herbert and National Review (syndicated) columnist Rich Lowry that Barack Obama’s has been lurching for more centrist poses with what herbert calls “the kind of reckless abandon that’s guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash.”
Bevan observes that this crossfire is either proof that Obama is hitting the political bulls-eye, or a warning sign that he is damaging his brand of Hopeyness and Changitude. HotAir’s Ed Morrissey writes that Herbert “is as likely to vote against Barack Obama as … Michelle Obama,” but concedes that a shrinking of the “enthusiasm gap” discussed a couple of weeks ago could be damaging.
Lowry concludes that Obama knows whet he is doing:
Obama is calculating shrewdly now  just as shrewdly as back when he was attacking calculation. His left-wing base won’t abandon him, and all the dewy-eyed new voters attracted by him will stay that way, so long as he continues to look and sound good. His task is to win over general-election voters in a center-right country who value hardheadedness and practicality in their presidents.
Lowry’s estimate — and Obama’s — contains a rather substantial caveat about those “dewy-eyed new voters.” Although we inherently have little hard data about new voters, a look at the aggregated weekly Gallup poll data shows that Obama’s small but persistent lead is due largely to his 57%-34% lead among registered voters who are 18-29 years old. All of the other age groups fall within the margin of error.
Obama thus has to be concerned that if young would-be voters lose enthusiasm for the Hope and Change, they might slack back into their historical trend of being under-represented on Election Day. Any support he loses among the disaffected youth by moderating his stated positions has to be offset from older voters content with less changitude, along the lines Lowry suggests. This generally gibes with my prior analysis of the youth vote in this cycle:
In theory, the youth vote is Obama’s best bet for increasing turnout, given that the young historically have lagged in voter participation, relative to the general population. Yet this also means that even a large percentage increase in youth turnout will not change their overall share of the vote by more than a percentage point or two.  The youth vote increased in 2004  but that was driven by an increase in voting among black youths, and Obama does not get to double-count voters within his coalition. Moreover, the past peaks in youth turnout happen to be 1964, 1968 and 1972, years when charismatic figures like Barry Goldwater, RFK, and George McGovern energized youthful activism  but failed to win a general election. Indeed, McGovern ultimately lost the youth vote in 1972. The Democrats had high turnout in the primaries this year, but did not break the record set in 1972.
Fortunately for Obama, this year seems to be shaping up more like 1976 than 1972. At the end of May 1972, McGovern was already down 19% to Nixon, whereas Obama is statistically tied with McCain at the moment. Nevertheless, even accounting for Obama’s powerful social networking tools, Obama may have a greater chance of winning by expanding his appeal beyond his core constituencies than by trying to drive up turnout of those core constituencies.
That also appears to be Obama’s current calculation.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
Well, if O! pulls it off, it’ll be a teaching moment for all the Earnest Young People.
Pricier than dropping off the car at the campus mechanic shop and telling them “fix it”, and on so many, MANY, levels, though.
I’d like to play poker with Obama. But only one on one and with witnesses. I react poorly to cheats. And that’s what he’s bet his star on. It’s Three Card Monte, with the fate of western civ on the line.
We do live in interesting times.
I noted this a while back in a comment somewhere: it’s not like these power hungry fucks are going to vote for a Republican, so what’s he got to lose but the undies of a few groupies being casually tossed on stage.
Hell, he can afford some high price talent once he’s got the big gig.
He played his gullible base. Useful idiots used by a Chicago Machine pol with a paper thing resume who was cagey enough to tap into the BDS. The only people who didn’t see this coming were…well, nobody, actually. Some just blinded themselves to the obvious.
thOr!
I wasn’t going to mention his recent absence.
When does that Myan calendar run out again?
Baracky is a joke with an expiration date I think. Somewhere around fifteen minutes into his first debate with McCain is when he expires I think. At this point that’s just the expectations math, and that’s before his hopeychangey airyfairy policies get contrasted with an actual adult’s.
You know, the end of the Mayan calander in 2012 doesnt translate as an apocalypse…It’s not an ‘end-of-the-world’ thing.. It translates as a great change…
“The Hopi and Mayan elders do not prophesy that everything will come to an end. Rather, this is a time of transition from one World Age into another. The message they give concerns our making a choice of how we enter the future ahead. Our moving through with either resistance or acceptance will determine whether the transition will happen with cataclysmic changes or gradual peace and tranquility.
I’m thinkin a second term for O! … That and a lot of new Toyota Prius’ with solar panels..
Let’s not forget the effect the non-partisan group Votergasm had on the yoot vote in 2004.
link: http://www.votergasm.org/
Votergasm seeks to send 100,000 first-time 18-to-25-year-old voters to polls for the 2004 elections, and to catalyze 250,000 orgasms by the morning of November 3.
2.5 orgasms per first time voter?
Sure. if Superman were a first time voter
–
I agree that Sen. Obama knows what he is doing – but that does not mean that what he is doing will be effective. Very smart people have miscalculated often when it comes to predicting the reactions of others, and that includes electorates.
In this case the build up and the crash may be too much to control. Ah, we will see.
Somewhere around fifteen minutes into his first debate with McCain is when he expires I think.
I think it will be when folks realize McCain has pet turtles.
http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-pets-and-politics
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/8 @ 2:29 pm #
You know, the end of the Mayan calander in 2012 doesnt translate as an apocalypse…It’s not an ‘end-of-the-world’ thing.. It translates as a great change…
“The Hopi and Mayan elders do not prophesy that everything will come to an end. Rather, this is a time of transition from one World Age into another. The message they give concerns our making a choice of how we enter the future ahead. Our moving through with either resistance or acceptance will determine whether the transition will happen with cataclysmic changes or gradual peace and tranquility.”
Whatever. You guys are fucked. Me? I have a spaceship.
“Somewhere around fifteen minutes into his first debate with McCain is when he expires I think.”
Only if Johnny Mac pulls the gloves off. He’s not going to out-charisma the poseur for the South Side.
I was kinda counting on the 2012 end of the world scenario, really. Oh well.
From B Moes link:
He has a veritable menagerie, including Sam the English springer spaniel, Coco the mutt, turtles Cuff and Link, Oreo the black and white cat, a ferret, three parakeets and a bunch of saltwater fish.
This will be bad for McCain I think. It’s like a subconscious statement that he owns Obama.
Not a good position for someone running against a half black man.
Sounds like something Frank Rich or Maureen Dowd would come up with, lee.
I wonder if he can tell Cuff and Link apart. I can only tell mine apart by watching them for awhile. Gapagus is the alpha turtle and darwins is more cautious. If I pick them up I can tell right away cause darwins gets all huddled up in his shell to where he can’t even see out sometimes. Gapagus hardly ever does the huddling thing. He’s pretty scrappy really. I swear he snapped at me once but I might have imagined it.
Ferrets are interesting pets but they kind of smell. Well their cage does anyway, and it’s a lot of work to change the bedding all the time. Cute little monkeys though. If you don’t raise then yourself it’s hard to trust that they’re not going to bite the crap out of you with their razor sharp ferret fangs any second though.
raise *them* yourself is what I meant.
McCain also has a lawn jockey named “Uncle Remus.”
But, in fairness, it was a gift from Senator Byrd and he only puts it out when Byrd comes over.
Which isn’t often because Byrd tends to get drunk on moonshine, raid the house for white linens, and then set fire to the cross shaped trellis in the McCains’ back yard.
The trumpet vines just won’t grow back when you do that.
Who, exactly, are his “online social networking tools?” Thor?
I don’t get owning a ferret. Okay, if you’re a German, “Sprockets” type nihilist bent on freaking out old hippies in bathtubs then fine. But other than that?
They’re very hoppy and bouncey.
I like that in a woman hf, but not in a footlong rat with sharp teeth.
My cunning plan to hold down the Obama “YOOT VOTE”:
Have the GOP announce that on the day before Election Day 2008 it will host a “Free Kegger Day” in every major city and college campus within the United States.
I modestly guarantee that if this idea doesn’t work, nothing will.
[…] the trail in Powder Springs today, Barack Obama responded to those — from Bob Herbert to Rich Lowry to Rick Ellensburg to just about everyone — who think he has been lurching rightward to pose […]