Obama stumples on way to coronation

Gerard Baker:

There's trouble in paradise. Cancel the coronation. Send back the commemorative medals. Put those “Yes We Can” T-shirts up on eBay. Keep the Change.

Barack Obama's historic procession to the American presidency has been rudely interrupted. The global healing he promised is in jeopardy. If you're prone to emotional breakdown, you might want to take a seat before I say this. He might not win.

How can it be, you ask? Didn't we see him just last month speaking to 200,000 adoring Germans in Berlin? Didn't he get the red carpet treatment in France - France of all places? Doesn't every British politician want to be seen clutching the hem of his garment?

All true. But as cruel geography and the selfish designs of the American Founding Fathers would have it, Europeans don't get to choose the US president. Somewhere along the way to the Obama presidency, somebody forgot to ask the American people.

And wouldn't you know it, they insist on looking this gift thoroughbred in the mouth. Who'd have thought it? You present them with the man who deigns to deliver them from their plight and they want to sit around and ask hard questions about who he is and what he believes and where he might actually take the country. The ingrates!

So we arrive this weekend at the true starting line of the US presidential race and the rituals that begin the real election campaign: the selection of the vice-presidential running-mates, and the back-to-back party nominating conventions. A year and a half after the warm-ups began, the two remaining candidates are more or less tied. Senator Obama's summer lead in the opinion polls has evaporated. John McCain, that grumpy, grisly, gnarled old Republican, that Gollum to Senator Obama's Bilbo Baggins, might, just might, actually win this thing.

What happened?

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In the reality-based community the rest of us inhabit, the first thing to be said about the current state of the race is that the actual shift in the campaign's dynamics is not quite as dramatic as the pundit class would have you believe. A month ago, according to an average of polls for Real ClearPolitics.com, Senator Obama had about a four-point lead over Senator McCain. This week the tally suggests the lead is about one percentage point.

The bigger change has occurred in perceptions about the race. A month ago the prevailing view among the wise was that Senator Obama would steadily increase his lead and by the time his convention concluded next week, it would be insurmountable.

But instead, it looks as though, even if he has a really good convention in Denver next week, and Hillary and Bill Clinton play the unlikely role of loyal followers, the race will still be close when the Republicans start their gathering in a week's time. Whatever happens, in other words. it looks like yet another close election.

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The irony for Senator Obama is that he has built a campaign on a pledge to put an end to cynicism in the political system, but the more he offers only vague promises of hope, the greater the danger that he increases voter cynicism about politicians in general and him in particular.

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Obama's problem is that he is weakest on the three things that are the big issues in this race.

While he would like to make the race about the economy, his stand on energy is rejected by nearly 75 percent of the voters and energy is what drives this economy and is what is hurting it right now. He and the Democrats just don't get it when it comes to energy. They want to drive up the cost of energy so people will conserve and buy more expensive alternatives, but that is clearly not good for the economy and will not solve our current difficulties.

He is wrong on taxes. While he is trying to buy the votes of the middle class with the dollars of the top one percent his tax plan would ruin the economy in the name of fairness and mean less revenue for the programs he wants. Hatred of the rich can choke off the investments needed to grow the economy and jobs.

Finally on national security the events in Iraq have demonstrated his judgment is disastrous. He would have lost the Iraq war if given a chance and he still want acknowledge that he was wrong about the surge. He showed weakness in the face of Russian aggression in Georgia.

It should also be noted that he is not that good a campaigner when he is not on the teleprompter. He stumbles around with uhs and ahs between snarky responses to charges by McCain.