Was Obama Going To Win From The Beginning?

[humder]

 With a incredibly unpopular President and an economic meltdown, was an Obama win allways invertible?

[Lunar]

No, campaigns are all about jockeying.

Obama had a strategically advantageous position, but that doesn't mean he as guaranteed to win.  I mean, you could lose your queen in the opening moves of a chess game and still win.

It was, overall, more Obama's to lose rather than McCain's to win, natch.

[Franzl]

I don't like these types of implications after elections.

With hindsight, everything seems clear and obvious. So no...an Obama win wasn't invertibale, as Lunar said, Obama had the advantage, but strange things can happen in politics.

[The Populist]

No; had the economy not collapsed, or had McCain handled the economy well, while Obama messed up, we could well be looking at President-Elect John S. McCain III right now.  Oh, and it wouldn't have hurt if McCain had selected, say, Mark Sanford of South Carolina instead of Sarah Palin.

[Stranger in a strange land]

No, McCain's bungled response to the economic collapse, coupled with the Palin implosion, took the race from being 50-50 odds of either winning to about 90-10 in Obama's favor (though Obama probably would have gotten back to about 60-40 anyway). Obama was leading in July, but McCain won the month of August. He won the first half of September. However, the second half of September was an unmitigated disaster for his campaign from which no candidate could have recovered, absent a major scandal or a huge external event.

[The Mikado]

No.  Determinism is bad.  Stop it.

[phk]

A Democrat was bound to win the 2008 election as early as late 2005.

[Beet]

I think a more interesting question might be would Obama have won if Hillary had taken it to the convention. I think this would have given McCain a commanding lead coming out of his own convention and he wouldn't have felt it necessary to engage in risky moves like suspending his campaign or bringing up Ayers.

[Bono]

Yes, the illuminati and the Rotschilds set it up from the beggining.

[auburntiger]

Yes. History says so!

The defeat could have and should have been less of a sting; however, Colorado, New Mexico, and Iowa  would have fallen to the Democrats regardless.

There is no excuse for any Republican candidate to EVER EVER lose ANYTHING in Nebraska, and the states of Indiana and North Carolina.

Florida could have been ours if we had spent more money rather than throwing it away in Pennsylvania. Everything else that changed hands from 2004 to 2008 was probably going to Obama anyway if he pulled away with a clear win.

[Padfoot]

No and the events leading to Obama's win were largely out of his control IMO.  Its true that Democrats had the advantage coming in due to Bush's dismal approval ratings.  Plus, they had momentum coming off their rout in 2006.  That set the stage for a Democrats to do well.  But here's the four things I think pushed it over to them definitively.

1. Hillary Clinton:  Clinton's refusal to quit enabled Obama to build a nationwide network of volunteers and donors while McCain sat around doing nothing backstage (out of sight out of mind).  This also gave Obama a bit of and edge because it gave him a better idea of which states he would be more likely to win against McCain.  I highly doubt Obama would have won North Carolina or Indiana in the general if Clinton had dropped out before those primaries.

2. Sarah Palin:  Palin turned out to be one of the worst vice presidential nominees ever.  Its true she motivated the so-called Republican "base" but she alienated almost everyone else.  Her views on abstinence and sex education made her look ridiculous for obvious reasons.  If the intent was to draw in the PUMAs then the plan totally backfired since any self-respecting female Democrat could see Palin was far from the kind of female candidate they were looking for.  Oh, and she turned out to be a complete moron and a lightweight on every issue that actually mattered. 

3. The Economy + McCain's reaction to it: McCain's self-admitted lack of knowledge about economic issues on day one should have kept him from even getting past the primaries.  So, when the economic meltdown happened McCain's reaction was tragically predictable.  He freaked out and that scared the crap out of people.  When the captain who is supposed to be leading you through troubled waters panics its a sign that he has no clue what to do.  That, plus the fact that Democrats typically have the advantage when the economy tanks, was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     No. It was always advantage Obama, but McCain had a decent chance of winning up until the credit crunch.

[Mr.Phips]

He likely would have won no matter what. 

[memphis]

All McCain had to do was oppose the bailout. It would have made the socialist label stick. It would have made McCain the candidate of change and small gov't.  Instead, we got Joe the Plumber and a massive Democratic landslide.

[MK]

There is no question the meltdown helped Obama, but other factors helped aswell.  The country had already rejected Bush and the republicans after Katrina. The Obama- Hillary battle kinda took the attention off of how bad the gop had failed the country for almost a year or 2.  Of course when the melt down took place people once again remembered how bad Bush and the neoconed republican party has hurt the country.   Who remembers the presidential address Bush did right after the meltdown and he mentioned the word "Recession" .. that pretty much cooked McCain's chances.


And Palin was also a serious drag.