McCain Can Still Win.

Back in early January, before the start of the primary season, I predicted that Obama would beat McCain in the presidential election because he is a better communicator. Unfortunately this appears to be correct. This is a position I've stuck to even when McCain was in the lead after Palin was announced and they had their convention.

However although Obama is the strong favourite at this point I still believe that McCain has a chance to win two weeks from now. Firstly with everyone now assuming that Obama has won turnout is likely to be lower, which normally favours the party of the right. Most polls are assuming that Obama's attractiveness to new voters means that turnout will be higher this year than in 2000 and 2004 but I am convinced that the opposite is true. It's noticeable that despite the fame of "Dewey Beats Truman" most examples of parties losing elections when they lead in the polls involve the right pipping the left to the post, the 1970 & 1992 UK elections or the 1994 Australian election are all cases in point.

Secondly the polls appear to have narrowed in the last few days, with the RCP tracker showing Obama's lead down from 7.3% to 4.8%. This 2.5% drop has occurred while the big talking point has been Obama's tax plan, thanks to Joe the Plumber. So if the McCain campaign can formulate a strong attack on Obamanomics and hammer it home for the next two weeks it is possible to eek out a win in unpromising circumstances.

Perhaps they should contact some of the leading economists who support McCain and ask them to make an estimate as to how many jobs Obama's proposed tax hikes on employers will cost and then run ads throughout the swing states repeating the message- "Experts say Obama's tax rises on employers will cost XXXXXX American jobs each year" or some pithier variant of that theme.

Whether McCain can take the opportunity is another matter because he always appears uncomfortable talking about the economy.