Panel Predicts Election Winner, But Race Not Over
More than a week before Election Day a group of journalists joined CNN anchor and host Wolf Blitzer at the Law Center on Oct. 22 to share thoughts on the 2008 presidential election. And whether liberal or conservative, those daring to make outright predictions at the start of the evening believed Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would most likely be living in the White House come January.
“The mathematics of this look as if it’s almost impossible for this race to go the other way, in the absence of an act of God,” Pulitzer-Prize-winning conservative columnist for The Washington Post Charles Krauthammer said when asked by Blitzer if he thought the race was over. “It looks as if at least this year, God is a Democrat.”
The “Decision 2008: November 4 and Beyond” forum, sponsored by the Law Center and the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI) also featured another Washington Post columnist, E.J. Dionne, who also serves as a GPPI professor. As someone who writes with a more liberal tenor than his Post colleague, Dionne boiled the election down to five quick factors: “Bush, McCain, Palin, Black September and Obama -- asserting that Obama was able to adopt a crisp economic message once the recent financial crisis hit.
Referring to President Bush and GOP candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Dionne said anyone running on a ticket where the current party leader has a 25 percent approval rating has an uphill battle. He believed that McCain’s “maverick” of old failed to surface during his campaign and has wound up costing him. And lastly, he described McCain’s selection of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a “catastrophic choice.”
Still, things could be complicated if McCain wins Pennsylvania, he noted.
“I think it is almost over, but you should keep watching Wolf Blitzer on CNN,” Dionne joked.
While the state of the economy has long been an issue in the presidential campaign, none of the panelists said they could have predicted its present state when Krauthammer and Dionne joined Blitzer for an earlier Law Center forum on Feb. 27. At that time, the hot-button topic in the Obama-McCain election race was foreseen to be the war in Iraq, and words such as “bailout” and “meltdown” were not yet common phrases.
“I often say that ‘it’s not just the economy, stupid,’ but as the head of the AFL-CIO said, ‘it’s the economy, moron,’” said pollster and Democratic political strategist Celinda Lake.
Nevertheless, there were other topics on the agenda, including whether Obama is ready to be commander in chief; the “cleanness” of the campaign in regards to the negative advertising; allegations of media bias; and whether the “Bradley effect” exists in this presidential campaign.
If there is such an effect, “I don’t think this election is going to settle it,” said syndicated columnist Clarence Page, one of the Chicago Tribune’s more liberal voices.
The Bradley effect, named for California’s 1982 African-American gubernatorial candidate, Tom Bradley is based on racial bias. The theory goes that some people vote differently from what they tell pollsters once they get to the polls behind closed curtains.
Yet, the panelists -- including Byron York, White House correspondent for the National Review -- reminded everyone at the end of the evening that even days from Election Day, nothing about a presidential race is certain.
“Now, all we can think about is this economic meltdown; a few months ago, all we could think about was the price of gas,” York said, noting that no one knows just what great test a president might be called upon to face. “Whether Obama can pass that test, I don’t know, but I have a sense that that decision has not been made by most voters.”
GPPI Interim Dean William Gormley said after the election forum that he was pleased to have media commentators with diverse and passionate points of view. “I like to think that Democrats learned something from the Republicans and vice versa,” he said.
(October 28, 2008)
