(This turned out to be longer than I supposed it would at the beginning. Even if you don't read it, do me a favor and think about the question for a few seconds before voting! )


I was just thinking about it, and the obvious answer (the general) no longer seemed as obvious to me.

Note that I'm not suggesting that the general will be *easy* - I'm just asking about which will be *harder*.

I'm perfectly well aware of what difficulties the general will introduce, and I'm sure responses will mention them too, so I won't.

But think about just what an incredible feat it was for Obama to win the primary:

At the start of the primary:

1) Who the hell's Obama?
2) Obama's policies are almost identical to Clinton's
3) Clinton is well-known
4) Clinton is far, far ahead in every single poll
5) Clinton has The Democratic Machine working for her
6) Obama is black (yes, people - that makes things more challenging)
7) Obama had to beat 2-5 other people (depending on how you count - but he had to at least worry about Clinton and Edwards)
8) Clinton is very smart


In the general:

1) false - Everybody knows Obama
2) false - Obama's policies are WAY different from McCain's
3) true - McCain is well-known
4) false - McCain is ahead in *some* polls, but not by much in those. And in some polls he's not even ahead at all
5) false - McCain doesn't have The Democratic Machine working for him
6) true - Obama will still be black
7) false - Obama can devote his full, scarily impressive mind to beating JUST ONE PERSON
8) false - McCain is very stupid, so stupid that he's a republican, in fact

A note about the black thing, since it's certainly people's biggest worry, even if they're too scared to say it outright. Stipulated: that a bunch of white folks won't vote for Obama simply because he's black (whether or not they admit it). But while it hurts, it's not THAT big of a deal: 3/4 or more of them weren't going to vote for the Democrat *anyway*. We're certain to lose a *few*, but it seems more likely than not that those losses will be more than offset by the various "new" groups that Obama has a *decisive* lock on.

Additionally, by shining campaign light on the west, Obama lessens the impact of his blackness. "Ooga booga a black guy!" just doesn't work as well in the west as it does in the east (i.e., the south, Appalachia, etc.). Combine that with a canny choice of VP, and the losses due to racism are more than made up.


This all occurred to me while thinking about Obama ripping McCain a new asshole for the 2nd time in as many weeks:

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_05_25_arc...

It's not *hard* to campaign against McCain: The whole country hates Bush, Bush = McCain, ergo the whole country hates McCain - in a nutshell. But when you add on to the equation that McCain is *stupid* per the link, as just one example, then it seems like the ONLY thing Obama has to deal with is the inevitable smears. And that's all.

So I'm no longer convinced that Obama's general election campaign will require as much ingenuity as his primary campaign did. Not that it'll be easy, just that it won't be as hard.

I'm not suggesting that an *electoral* landslide is the most likely outcome. Rather, I'm suggesting that a victory (by however many electorals) might well be the result of an *easier* general election campaign than the one he had to put together for the primary. Not easy, just easIER.


What do you think?



EDIT: Ugh - Now I *really* see how long this was. Sorry, folks.