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Perhaps the downside to courting young voters with Facebook attention spans is that any polling gains made during the Obama World Tour '08 are quickly lost while your constituency goes back to tagging photos and poking people:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday
shows that Barack Obama’s Berlin bounce is gone. Obama now attracts 44%
of the vote while John McCain earns 42%. When "leaners" are included,
it’s Obama 47% and McCain 46%. Compared to a week ago, Obama has gained
a single percentage point.
The Gallup daily tracking showed a significant bounce, but the Gallup/USAToday was more Rasmussen-style in its findings, giving McCain a 4-point national lead.
The Washington Post supplied perhaps the best headline of the year for the McCain campaign when it desperately needed it:
So, what's the deal? There seems to be a slight souring, even for for those sweet on Obama, despite the 10-to-one news coverage of the week, and admittedly good optics for the Dem candidate next to some extraordinarily bad staging for the McCain Camp (they took a lot of razzing for the "Sausage Haus" event, but I found the press conference in front of the "Dairy Delights" section of the grocery store even less helpful).
If Washington Post liberal columnist Richard Cohen is any indication,
people are noticing the "empty suit" aspect of Obama that conservatives
have been talking about for months:
"Just tell me one thing Barack Obama
has done that you admire," I asked a prominent Democrat. He paused and
then said that he admired Obama's speech to the Democratic convention
in 2004. I agreed. It was a hell of a speech, but it was just a speech.On the other hand, I continued, I could cite four or five actions -- not speeches -- that John McCain
has taken that elicit my admiration, even my awe. First, of course, is
his decision as a Vietnam prisoner of war to refuse freedom out of
concern that he would be exploited for propaganda purposes. To
paraphrase what Kipling said about Gunga Din, John McCain is a better
man than most.But I would not stop there.
And Rightly So! calls it the perfect storm of platitudes:
I really, really, really want the left to come out and just tell the
truth. That they are voting for Obama because (besides being the
Democratic nominee and McCain is still to ‘conservative’ for their
tastes) he is “fresh and articulate” and promises “change and hope”.
They are voting for him because he is a ‘blank slate’. They love how he
flowers everyone with platitudes aplenty, nay it is more like a
tickertape parade of platitudes. He makes them FEEEEEEEL good about
themselves, he makes them FEEEEEEEL like something good can and will
happen because he is in the executive office.
For Sister Toldjah, it's not the vapidity that gets ya. It's the superiority:
A lot of us joke about how he’s treated like a “messiah” by the
mainstream press and many of his unquestioning supporters, but
sometimes you get the feeling that Obama isn’t too far off from
actually believing it himself.
Obama went big when he traveled overseas. He went big when he held a rally in a foreign country. He's a great speaker and certainly inspiring, as has been conceded by even most conservatives. But when you make the world your stage, you run the risk of ending up looking like a very small actor.
That's the fall-out we're seeing this week from his tour.
