Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Will the real McCain please stand up?

According to an article in the New York Times today Obama’s start just keeps on rising will McCain’s seems to be slowly fading. After months of campaigning, people are now able to form a more solid opinion on Obama. And so they did. According to a New York Times poll, more than 53 percent of the people now say they have a favorable impression of Obama against only 33 percent saying they have an unfavorable impression of him. McCain however, hasn’t seen a positive rise concerning his reputation. Now, only 36 percent of the voters say they view him favorably against 45 percent saying they view him unfavorably. According to the article even voters who are planning to vote for McCain say their enthusiasm has lowered. It also states that McCain and Palin have alienated their voters between the first and last debate. Palin for that matter has the highest negative ratings for a vice-presidential candidate as measured by The Times and CBS News. She even exceeds Dan Quale (VP candidate in 1988, someone who she has been compared to on several occasions because of her age and inexperience) was not viewed as negatively as her.

The most common heard reason for why people’s opinion of Obama has become increasingly favorable is because of his attitude and performance during the debates. His calm attitude and the way he handled the McCain campaign’s attacks have made Obama seem capable of ‘the job’. The people who say their opinion about McCain has changed not in his favor state that this has a lot to do with his negative campaigning and his attacks on Obama. They are also unhappy about Sarah Palin as his VP choice and his overall debate performance. To make it simpler: people don’t recognize the negative attitude that McCain and his campaign camp have adopted. McCain’s main advantage on Obama was that people, Americans, already knew him and had formed ‘solid’ opinions about him. Today, however, the political game seems to have gotten to McCain and he has lost himself on the way. Even people close to him say that lately they don’t recognize him anymore; they don’t see the McCain they were used to see.

If McCain still wants to have a shot at the presidency he has to stop, look in the mirror and ask himself: is this really who I am?