Laura Rozen gets a Republican strategist to predict the election

From an interview by Laura Rozen with Republican public relations strategist Marty Youssefiani:

1. Palin has shaken up the race, but McCain has peaked too early.
   
2. Obama needs to close the sale, but he can't personally afford to join in the nastiness of the campaign.
   
3. The "Bradley effect" is real. People are lying to the pollsters about whether they will vote against Obama because of his race. But in the end Obama's voter's registration drives will bring out enough new voters to swing the election his way.
   

I have felt that these three points are true, and I am glad to get some confirmation that someone else does also.

I think that points one and three above are clear now. McCain has peaked too early, and Obama's voter's registration drives are going to swamp the Bradley effect in the polls.

As for his point two, I agree that Obama has not yet made the sale to the American voters. But I have been amazed at the management that Obama has demonstrated in organizing first to win the primary and now towards winning the election. He has a great management team in place and they are aware of both what is happening right now and how the overall campaign is flowing.

I seriously doubt that they have been severely knocked off balance by McCain's choice of Palin as his running mate. I think the Obama campaign is set to build up to November 4th, much as the Democratic National Convention was set to build up to Obama's acceptance speech on that Thursday.

What this election is going to demonstrate is the superiority of a well-managed work team (Obama's) over a group of cronies gathered together by one man (McCain) based on his personal relationships with each individual working for him. This is why a well-organized and trained military force will almost always defeat an ad hoc feudal levy of similar size called up at the last minute to fight the battle. Obama has created a professional election campaign while McCain has been playing catchup since his first effort went bankrupt in the Summer of 2007 and Phil Gramm flew in at the last minute to save him.

The Sarah Palin choice as Veep is an example of McCain's hip pocket ad hoc management style, with its ability to surprise but also to overlook major flaws in the ad hoc decisions.

Since I'm getting all my information from the Internet and other media, I can't be sure I am right about Obama's management team. But from what I have seen if I had to bet on the election it would be for Obama to win.

And I guess I am betting, because the future of America as a democracy under the Constitution is riding on this election. Two recent failures confirm the Katrina and Rita FEMA disaster three years ago. This week we have seen both the FEMA flubs in Houston/Galveston occur essentially simultaneously with the failure to the Bush administration to use the six months that passed after the collapse of Bear Stearns to make plans to allow such failures to occur in an organized manner. FEMA's plans for distribution of supplies should have been coordinated with those of local agencies and tested in practice exercises.

It was federal government incompetence that the plans were not prepared and in place to enact. The long weekend in the Federal Reserve building in Manhattan should have been planned for. It should have been planned out in advance and even had enabling legislation passed.

Other than when each would happen, neither event was a surprise . Katrina was the warning for Ike and Bear Stearns was the warning for Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.

Both events demonstrate that the Republicans have nothing to offer America. They simply see the Presidency as a way to continue treating America as a giant ATM they can steal from without punishment, and they will fight unnecessary wars and eliminate the Rule of Law to be allowed to continue raiding the government along with their cronies.

McCain does not represent change. He is all-crony all-the-time just like George Bush and his friends currently in the White House. All McCaine represents is continued government incompetence and corruption in the face of largely self-inflicted disasters which a competently run government could have either prevented or alleviated. McCain's choice of the personally corrupt and largely incompetent Sarah Palin is one more example of what McCain represents. That's what makes the McCain campaign an offer of a third Bush/Cheney term.