Obama vs. McCain
May 16, 2008
An analyst and a onetime McCain insider weigh the last chances for a Clinton victory, and look ahead to an Obama-McCain face-off.
“We Republicans have learned over the years to never, ever underestimate anyone whose last name is Clinton,” says Dan Schnur of the USC Annenberg School, who served as McCain’s communications director in 2000. “But it looks like it would take a huge Obama revelation or meltdown to save Clinton at this point.”
If Clinton has any chance, it will come not from her campaign or Obama’s, but from some outside event, says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development.
“I’ve learned to never say never in politics, but the arithmetic at this point appears to be against her,” Jeffe adds.
Anticipating the race between McCain and Obama, Schnur predicts: “Obama will still be running on change, and McCain will still be running on experience. But while ‘change’ worked in a Democratic primary, experience might be more important to a general election audience.”
“McCain’s strength is his character, his experience in foreign affairs and the reputation he has gained through his service, particularly in the military. Obama’s strength is the fact that people are looking for change,” Jeffe notes. “McCain’s weakness is that, though he’s trying very hard to separate himself from George W. Bush, he’s connected to Bush in the eyes of voters.”
“Obama’s weakness is that he’s still unknown to many people, and that he’s had trouble in the primaries — as Clinton points out as often as she can — with lower-income whites," Jeffe says. “Whites tend to support Clinton and blacks Obama. Obama has to reach out and move Anglo voters to him.”
Dan Schnur, adjunct faculty member at the USC Annenberg School and part-time lecturer at the USC College, is an expert in political campaign strategy, presidential elections and Republican politics.
Contact him at (213) 740-2215 or uscnews@usc.edu.
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, senior scholar at the USC School of Policy, Planning, and Development, is an expert on campaigns and elections, the media and politics, and American government.
Contact her at (213) 740-2075 (office), (310) 641-7472 (home) or sbjcgs@aol.com.