Wise Words

There's no pundit I trust more than Michael Barone. When the Baronester speaks, I listen. You should too: take a look at his latest column, concerning (what else?) Obama's victory. First, he pours a little cold water on the whole "landslide" idea:

Huge majorities believe the country is on the wrong track and disapprove of George W. Bush; voters prefer generic Democrats over Republicans by 10 percent or more. But Obama beat John McCain by (at this writing) just 52 to 46 percent, running 2 points ahead of Bush in 2004 and 1 point behind George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Indeed. Obama's win was more akin to G.H.W.B than L.B.J. And while I don't want this to sound too much like sour grapes, the fact is that Obama did underperform. A little. He won, but if there was a year when the Democrats could've nominated a block of moldy cheese and won, this was it.

What else can you tell us, Mr. Barone?

The decisive shift of public opinion came when the financial crisis hit. McCain approached it like a fighter pilot, denouncing Wall Street, suspending his campaign, threatening to skip the first debate. Obama approached it like a law professor, cool and detached. Voters preferred law professor to fighter pilot. This was a triumph of temperament, not policy.

The conventional wisdom is gelling hard and fast. Years from now, when they write tick-tocking books about the 2008 election, there'll always be a chapter set aside for "the financial crisis." Myself, I'm not sure how big a role McCain's reaction played. The collapsing stock market helped do him in, certainly, but his aborted "campaign suspension" seemed more like a passing thing than a real game-changer.