Worried - Not Yet Panicked

The Democrat chances in November appear to be declining at a very rapid pace. Their numbers are falling off a cliff.

Democratic jitters about the US presidential race have spread to Capitol Hill, where some members of Congress are worried that Barack Obama’s faltering campaign could hurt their chances of re-election.

Party leaders have been hoping to strengthen Democratic control of the House and Senate in November, but John McCain’s jump in the polls has stoked fears of a Republican resurgence.

A Democratic fundraiser for Congressional candidates said some planned to distance themselves from Mr Obama and not attack Mr McCain.

“If people are voting for McCain it could help Republicans all the way down the ticket, even in a year when the Democrats should be sweeping all before us,” said the fundraiser, a former Hillary Clinton supporter.

“There is a growing sense of doom among Democrats I have spoken to . . . People are going crazy, telling the campaign ‘you’ve got to do something’.”

The problem with that attitude is that when people get panicked they often do the wrong thing.

Let's take a look at what Bill Whittle has to say about that in his piece Forty Second Boyd. He is discussing an engagement between two fighter pilots

Red and Blue are closing at 1000 miles an hour. Fight’s on!

Blue breaks left. Red does too. Both pilots observe, orient, decide, act. But Blue is faster. While Red is still orienting himself, building the situational awareness he needs to decide and plan his action, Blue has already chosen a maneuver and executed it. This renders Red’s previous orientation useless: Blue is no longer where he was a moment before.

Red must re-orient so he can make a new decision. Blue sees the confusion and delay. He’s already oriented. He decides and acts again. His advantage increases.

Now Red is confused and at 500kts he is flying pretty God-damned quickly into full-on fear. This confusion and fear cause him more hesitation. Out of rising panic he commits to an action that may have been appropriate two Blue cycles ago, but which is now – no other word for it – obsolete. Blue is now cycling so fast that he maneuvers for a position where any course of action Red may take will result in his fiery demise. He’s below and behind him – out of sight – not anywhere near where Red expected him because he has been observing, orienting, deciding and acting at a much faster pace.

And that is what is happening to the whole Democrat party. The fight is now so lopsided that they are no longer co-ordinating their efforts. They no longer have the power of unified action. They set themselves up for defeat in detail.

I expect big gains for the Republicans in the House and Senate despite the fact that the conventional wisdom in June was that the Democrats would be making gains.

And lets not forget that the fight over energy resources hasn't even begun. Their bad situation has come from skirmishes without the weight of unified action which has yet to come.

∅ has lost two or three days fighting over pigs and lipstick. He is off message. How does he get back on track? His only hope is to break contact and then come back with a new message. He has to stop his attacks on Palin and focus his attentions on his opponent, John McCain. Can he do that? I doubt it. It takes the ∅bama campaign days to respond to Republican attacks. Where he needs to be agile he is cumbersome. Because of that, even if he can retool he will be addressing a situation that no longer exists.

∅bama's position on the Russia/Georgia dust up is instructive. McCain came out with a position in hours. ∅bama came out with a position that did not help him electorally. Over a period of three days he modified his position and modified it again until at the end his position was the same as McCain's. Look at that again. Hours vs. days. As Bill Whittle would say: He is out of altitude, out of airspeed, out of ideas. Eject! Eject! Eject!

I think ∅bama and the Democrats are going to be ejected by the voters come November 4th. I don't think I have ever witnessed an election campaign where a candidate and a party has come from so far behind to whip the opposition so badly. Only 54 more days to go. This has got to be an eternity for the Democrats. From caviar to ashes. It will no doubt leave a bad taste in their mouths for a long time to come.

Cross Posted at Classical Values