The Tortoise and the Hare

The Tortoise and the Hare

by P.H. Rolen

Now three days into the 2008 Democratic National Convention one is left with an overwhelming and resounding lack of wow. From Michelle Obama's heartfelt appeal for Americans to view her as Beaver Cleavers mom rather than Cornell West's Teachers aide, to Hillary Clinton's astonishing reminder to Democratic, fence leaning, females that they were part of history in the universal suffrage movement and that Barack Obama ended that history by not choosing her as his veep, the convention has now entered it's final phase without developing any form of cohesive theme or united message. Being from Montana I could not help but  notice when the DNC scrapped former Virginia governor Mark Warner at the last minute as the conventions keynote speaker and replaced him with sitting Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer because Schweitzer would attack McCain where Warner had refused. Without a doubt the Denver setting and the technological wow of the convention floor provided the Democrats with an excellent catalyst for creating serious momentum going into the fall. However, as the Warner/Schweitzer situation highlights all thematic referencing that team Obama might have hoped to generate momentum from at the convention has been replaced by the media narrative of disunity.

Vice Presidential Nominee Joe Biden is scheduled to make his big acceptance speech in prime time tonight however, he is being completely overshadowed in all media outlets by both the Bill Clinton speech as well as the continued divisiveness of former Hillary Clinton delegates who have been more than willing to flock to news cameras and express their dissatisfaction and sense of being disenfranchised. To make matters even worse for the Obama team, a number of polls that have been recently released suggest that Obama received absolutely no bounce from the Biden VP pick and in fact the campaign has lost standing in several polls since the convention began. Women are also turning out to be a potentially huge game changer with polls suggesting that Obama is running dead even if not slightly behind McCain among women polled; historically Democrats poll 10-15 points ahead of Republicans amongst Women.

The Obama campaign began earlier this year on the promise of change, unity, and providing a voice to the "Little man" but has since become stalled in the narrative of "Arrogance", "Celebrity", and "Messiah complex." This might explain the recent Obama ad blitz highlighting John McCain's "housing problem" and the McCain family's posh financial position. The first rule in rhetoric is to attack your opponent where you feel weakest and evidence of this weakness can be seen in the polling data after Obama's European tour and the McCain "Celebrity" ad campaign. Obama fell as many as 7 points in some polls to run even or slightly behind McCain as voters came to grips with the perceived arrogance and elitism of Obama (with the help of a few Charlton Heston in Ten Commandment ads from the McCain camp albeit). At the convention, many floor speakers including Governor Schweitzer of Montana have chosen to further exploit the McCain "Housing" gaffe however, this continued exploitation has produced little substantive data to suggest effectiveness. My guess is that voters do not have a hard time remembering back just 4 years ago when the Democratic party nominee was one John F. Kerry whose estimated net worth when combined with his wife's condiment empire reaches into the hundreds of millions. As well as the fact that it is simply difficult to paint the soft spoke and somewhat "hokey" McCain as elitist. 

Tonight concludes the "Clinton" portion of the convention and aside from the sour taste of buyers remorse, the task is now falls to Obama himself to salvage what is left of what pundits will surely come to remember as a disastrous convention. The matter will be complicated for Obama however, because just today photo's of the stage at Invesco field, where Obama will deliver his presidential acceptance speech in front of 75,000 gleaming followers, surfaced showing a large Pantheonesque stone efface that invokes images of Greek and Roman temples. Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer seized on this early Wednesday morning simply asking the question "Had Obama lost his mind?" With arrogance and messiah complex being two very exploitable Obama traits we are sure to see more Charlton Heston type ads and a flurry of Republican portrayals of Obama as overly grandiose and hyper arrogant .

Regardless of how the convention ends up one can reasonably project, from this point, that the quadrennial gala will lend little public support to the Obama camp. From an outsiders position I have often likened the current presidential race to a metaphor of the children's tale of the "Tortise and the Hare." The McCain "tortoise" has lended a slow steady proven style to the race while the Obama "Hare" and his organization's sense of hubris and messiah have jetted off to a thunderous beginning derailing the Clinton Juggernaut but now seem to be caught sleeping through their own convention. Regardless of what happens and even if team Obama ends up on top, vice presidential candidate Joe Biden will seem correct when he asserted that the presidency "does not lend it's self to on the job training." In this race the inexperienced Obamaites have in fact learned many lessons from the well oiled, seasoned, McCain camp. Only time will tell if that naivety will in fact cost Obama the presidency.