> Sam wrote: > But that wasn't my point. McCain is more to the left than most > conservatives are comfortable with and Obama more so. So thinking > that the middle is between Obama and McCain is off a bit
The problem with you analysis is that it assumes the George Bush governing model which says that, when elected, a candidate will push whatever he wants regardless of facts, the situation, or the politics. Neither of these candidates, in my opinion, are like that. Therefore you have to come up with a new risk model. I would propose something more individual like this: McCain ------------ He played to Jesus to get elected, but alienated the center and the left in doing it. Further Pelosi and Reid will be his foils if he's elected. Therefore the risk with McCain is that he's frozen. He can't stay in the holy land but he also can't move to the promised land. Thus his election drives us into a box canyon. Probability: 95% Why? Bible Spice has already glued in the bible base - that's her crowd and her future; she knows it and she won't break with them. McCain and Pelosi are already enemies and a larger majority in congress for dems is a certainty. Most Republicans are in open revolt against McCain as demonstrated by the economic crisis; they don't see him as a leader and they don't see him as helping them. The moderates he already lost. Nobody respects his leadership in economic matters and his Presidency will be on the weakest of margins. He'll have no mandate and it'll take months for the country to recover from the election. There will open revolt and riots and compromise will be at an all time low. The world wants Obama and will be in shock; he'll get no support or good will. McCain is a weak communicator and will find it difficult or impossible to convince the nation to unite. The entire House will run "home" to defend outraged constituents. McCain is a poor manager and his campaign shows it. He makes "gut" decisions and then fights them by quickly trying something else when he hears complaints. One day he's running one campaign, another day a different one. His management of the economic crisis shows the same problem: cancel the campaign, start it up, fire the SEC chairman, pass a bill, don't pass a bill, pass a bill, praise the bill, complain about the bill ... McCain's only base of support will be Bible Spice's people and he'll need them to build something to move forward on so he'll be forced to fight from religious right outward. * Obama ------------- His risk is that he triggers the transformation of both parties, but leaves nothing in its place. He has a top notch set of thinkers in place, but they have conflicting ideas and no direction is selected. The World's great hope and anticipation quickly crash and finger pointing begins. Dashed expectations and slow decisions drive us into a box canyon. Probability 10%. Why? We've already seen Obama in a crisis and he passed: stable, thoughtful, and purposeful. He listened to both sides, made a compromise decision and engineered a sale on both sides to pass it. You know it's a good bill when both sides complain about it but it passes. Further Obama has a decades long history of working with all ideas, finding the compromise, and managing it to a win. He taught constitutional law at the most conservative law school specifically because he wanted to challenge his ideas with libertarians and others. Those that have worked with him uniformly praise his pro-active solicitation of their opinion. Obama also has many conservatives who've back him, so he already has a working majority before day 1. His management skills can be seen in his top-notch campaign routinely praised by both sides. He has top minds already working in his campaign including Buffett, Volcker and others who have already drafted an economic recovery plan. In short, President Obama is ready to govern with a plan and a working majority on Nov 7th. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:277827 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
