In 2004, Bob Beckel, Susan Estrich and other Democratic pundits told us that that year’s race was Kerry’s to lose. Shortly after starting blogging, I said that it’s a good thing that John Kerry, who fought in Vietnam, was more than up to the task. Along those same lines, Bob Beckel, Julian Epstein and other liberal pundits have predicted that it’s Sen. Obama’s race to lose. Based on the polling I’ve seen lately, it appears as though Sen. Obama is equally up to the task.

Based on Clive Crook’s Financial Times column, I’m not alone in that thinking:

If Barack Obama loses this election to John McCain, something which, for the first time, I regard as a real possibility, history will point to August 29 as the pivotal moment. That was when Mr McCain announced that Sarah Palin would be his running-mate, and when livid Democrats and their friends in the media voiced their feelings about her and much of the electorate, and gravely harmed their candidate’s prospects.

For Mr McCain to win the election against the odds that faced him pre-Palin, with the economy in the tank and the incumbent Republican president setting records for unpopularity, would be sensational enough. For this to happen because of his vice-presidential pick, a decision that is usually of next to no consequence, beggars belief. The Democrats had to bring all their resources to getting themselves into this fix. They proved equal to the task.

If Democrats lose this election, they’ll have themselves to blame for not vetting Sen. Obama better. Sen. Obama was an electrifying orator. He’s still an empty suit. He’s still the least qualified presidential candidate in my lifetime. By alot.

It isn’t just that Sen. Obama is vastly underqualified. It’s that he’s on the wrong side of the biggest domestic issue of the last five years. For that matter, the vast majority of Democrats are on the wrong side of the drilling issue. That’s because they’re afraid to take on the extremists in their party.

If John Breaux, Zell Miller and Daniel Patrick Moynihan were still in the Senate, they wouldn’t put up with MoveOn.org or the environutters that insist on not drilling.

The American people are screaming for Congress to open up the OCS and ANWR. Democrats won’t because that’d require a spine. Here’s how stupid Democrats have acted:

Certainly, the Democrats can see they are in a hole. Somehow, though, the word has gone out: “Keep digging.” Mr Obama is also urged to be less cool and lose his temper. Voters adore an angry candidate, you see. “Dig faster, and be more angry,” is the advice coming down from the political geniuses who decided it was a fine idea to laugh at Ms Palin in the first place. A recurring television image in the past few days has been the split-screen contrast between a serenely smiling Republican operative and a fulminating red-faced Democrat about to have a stroke.

That’s the easy way to lose an election. Just like the Democrats’ pool of competent presidential candidates is thin, they’re also thin in terms of intelligent political strategists. Their strategists are either bomb-throwing idiots like Paul Begala and Jim Carville or they’re shrill proven losers like Bob Shrum. That isn’t a great bench to choose from.

Technorati Tags: Obama, John Kerry, Paul Begala, James Carville, Bob Shrum, Bob Beckel, Susan Estrich, Julian Epstein, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. they have a lot of help of the old media.

   Comment by Ron K — September 15, 2008 @ 3:11 am