A Race of Issues

In the 24-hour period following Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, the Obama campaign reported that it had raised a staggering $10,000,000 – a one-day record for the campaign. A good sign, no doubt, but after choosing to run without public funding, the campaign has a lot of fund raising to do.

The McCain campaign, combining the $84,000,000 it opted to receive in public funding with the RNC’s bank account, claims to have about $300,000,000 at its disposal for the campaign. Although there are some limits to what McCain can do with that money (the McCain campaign only has control over the $84M – the RNC must spend the money independent of the McCain campaign or split the cost of hybrid ads that promote other Republicans further down the ticket as well), it still forces the Obama campaign to focus more on fund raising.

The unbelievably huge sums to be spent on these campaigns aside (and those numbers do not take primary spending into account), the Obama campaign starts off this campaign with a miniscule advantage in most polls (some polls show McCain with a slim lead).

In recent national campaigns an incredible amount of media attention is given to tracking various polls, and a scant amount of time is given to discussing each candidate’s social, economic, judicial, governing, etc. policy. I, for one, think that this is a crying shame.

Sure, it’s important for the public to gauge how well each candidate is doing within various groups of demographics, but wouldn’t it be more appropriate for the media to discuss the similarities and differences between the candidates on policy? To explain to the public the subtleties, nuances and potential pros and cons of each campaign’s proposals?

You probably think that the general public knows the differences between the candidates on various policy issues. I at least assume that many people do. But I might be completely wrong. Reuters released a poll on Sept. 9 showing a huge change in the preference of one particular demographic: white women.

Prior to the Republican Convention, Mr. Obama had an 8 point lead over Mr. McCain among white women. After the Convention, that number had shifted to a 12 point McCain lead.

Perhaps white women were swayed by new, fresh Republican policy revealed at the convention, but since I saw only Democrat-bashing and McCain-praising (as conventions are wont to display) this poll can only mean one thing: white women took their support away from Barack Obama and threw it to John McCain.

Many Hillary Clinton supporters expressed frustration at her both her loss and at the nomination of Joseph Biden as VP candidate, and subsequently threatened to support Mr. McCain over Mr. Obama.

It is understandable to be upset that your candidate did not win the primary. But it makes absolutely no sense to abandon her political and ideological (almost) match to support her political and ideological antithesis.

This shift may have occurred because Sarah Palin is a woman, and women want to see a woman become the second most powerful person in the world.

It may also be explained by the lack of media coverage given to policy and positions.

Sarah Palin is just about as opposite Hillary Clinton as you can get politically, and some people may not realize it.

Obama’s campaign has forever been talking about a new style of politics. What better way to back that up than by discussing policy for the entire campaign? Especially this campaign. A race that Rick Davis (McCain’s campaign manager) claims “is not about issues.”

The Democrats must make this race about issues. About change. About inspiration.

I know that this seems idealistic and perhaps not at all feasible, but in order to recruit independent voters and sway states into the blue, it seems to me that showing how starkly different John McCain’s policies and positions are from Barack Obama’s makes significantly more sense than letting this race be about sex and, well, race.

The debates should be incredibly interesting to watch, and if the Democrats want to display the inadequacies of their opponents, the debates are surely the venue to do so.

The Democrats must educate the public about the candidates and have some faith in the good judgment of people. Let the voters be swayed by policy discussion, not negative advertising and fear.

I just hope I’m right.

Thanks for reading,

Paul