Why McCain still has a shot
...The recent pols that show McCain within the margin of error and Obama at around 47 percent are the best news fro McCain in a month. I think Obama is in trouble as long as he is below 50 percent and the undecideds are enough to sway the race since they have been breaking against him for months. He has tended to under perform his poll numbers in most states. particularly the large industrial states.John McCain still can win. Yes, he's a long shot, and if he pulls it off, it would likely be by a very narrow margin in the Electoral College.
But McCain has a shot because, despite a fumbling campaign in a hostile environment for the GOP brand, he remains within striking distance in enough swing states. While Obama leads in nine of 12 battleground states identified by RealClearPolitics.com, his margin is generally under 6 points.
The tightness means McCain doesn't need a miracle or an Obama collapse. His fate largely is still in his own hands.
Reason No. 1 why McCain still has a chance is the tax issue. Joe the Plumber put a human face on the perennial hot button, and McCain has seized on Obama's glib "spread the wealth around" comment to give himself a second chance on the economic argument.
For nearly a month, McCain was stuck in a time warp, going after Obama on his connection to '60s terrorist Bill Ayers while most voters cared only about their dwindling finances. The disconnect gave Obama his first consistent lead over McCain.
But taxes are a potentially potent weapon against Obama because he, like nearly every Democratic nominee in the last 40 years, wants to hike them. That he wants to do it in a recession is more than an economic mistake. It's a revelation about Obama's instincts.
With both families and government feeling pinched, Obama sided with government. Coming when government is held in such low regard, the move can only rankle.
In truth, Obama's tax plans do involve a cut for lower-wage earners and grants for others who do not pay income taxes. But his vow to raise income, payroll and other taxes will hit millions of American families who, while better off, are far from rich.
The no-nonsense way Joe the Plumber expressed his resentment, and Obama's response to him that his planned hike wasn't much and would help others, could become a defining issue. If McCain can seize the opening to drive home the point over the next 16 days, he could sway some middle-class independent voters.
Reason No. 2 why McCain still has a chance is that there is a leadership vacuum created by the economic crisis. With Bush a discredited spectator, the public is looking for someone to emerge as big enough to match the moment, an FDR for our times. Neither man has yet, so the mantle of presidential stature remains up for grabs.
Obama benefits from his party's generic advantage on the economy, but he has not taken ownership in a way that forecloses a McCain comeback. Obama's tax plan is part of the problem, but a larger one is that he is almost too calm. In the debates and on the stump, Obama has not conveyed the "fierce urgency of now" that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. talked about during the civil rights era and that Obama has cited as a model of leadership.
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McCain's No. 3 ray of hope is out of his control. It runs the gamut from luck - every winner needs some - to whether Obama can motivate his first-time voters to show up on Election Day.
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