A difference between coverage and reality in race

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann:

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Never has the disjuncture between coverage and reality loomed quite so large as it does in this race. You get one image from the media and a totally different one from the polling.

Behind this gap between perception and reality lies the more fundamental reality: Voters are worried about Barack Obama. Recent national polls show Obama with just a 40% favorable ratio among white voters. He is clearly hitting up against some substantial sales resistance, particularly among middle aged and older white women.

Obama went to Europe as a steak seeking to recover his sizzle. The absence of weekly teleprompter victory speeches in primary contests has sapped some of the enthusiasm his candidacy generated all spring. But, for a more sustained bounce, he went abroad to hype his ratings as a potential commander-in-chief and his standing as a foreign policy expert.

But clearly Obama is a domestic policy candidate. Overall, he can only win if foreign issues do not intrude unduly in the election campaign. Any reminder of foreign concerns, the war on terror, Iraq, or Iran, serves to undermine his ability to win. Never has there been a clearer fact than that McCain is better able to handle a foreign policy crisis, just as Bush was more prepared in 1992 to do so than was Clinton. Then, as now, the Democrat could only win if foreign affairs stayed on the periphery of the campaign.

But will they? Will Iran remain on a back burner as rumors of an impending Israeli or American military strike mount? Will Iraq stay off the front pages even though more than 100,000 American troops are at risk there? Will al Qaeda remain off balance and off the front pages?

Lately, it has become fashionable for McCain backers to complain about his seeming lethargy and the weakness of his campaign. Some extrapolate into speculation about his ability to handle the job of president. But, as delighted as the media is to fan such speculation, the fact is that he's not running a bad race. He's basically still tied and he has Obama on the defensive on the Iraq war issue, quite an achievement in itself.

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I think Obama really hurt himself with his answers to questions about the surge. Those answers are going viral on YouTube and conservative blogs and will probably show up on ads this fall. McCain has been very effective at attacking him on the issue this week to the consternation of the Obama media.

He is also in deep trouble on energy and probably does not know it. The Democrats are on the wrong side of this issue and it is starting to hurt them int he polls. That is one reason why McCain has moved ahead of Obama in Colorado and is moving up in four other swing states.