killer buffalo

Three months away from the presidential election and Senator McCain is already fated to lose. But the reason he will do so isn’t that Senator Obama has prevailed in media coverage, fundraising, and public polls or that Mr. McCain has lost handily in all three. Mr. McCain won’t lose because of any lack of resources or because of the backlash against his “celebrity” ad campaign, because of his age or his experience or his voting record. Mr. McCain will lose the 2008 election because of President Bush’s approval ratings.

Hovering around 28%, Mr. Bush’s approval ratings are among the lowest for any departing President; the closest others are President Truman’s 25% at the end of his 1948 term, President Carter’s 28% at the end of his 1976 term, and President Lynden Johnson’s 35% at the end of his 1964 term. All three of the elections following those terms resulted in a president of the opposing party even though, in Mr. Truman’s and Mr. Johnson’s case, the Democratic nominee was not the incumbent.

It all reestablishes the long held doctrine that voters are irrational. When the electorate perceives a lame duck president unfavorably, it looks to the opposition for a change, albeit sometimes only a partisan one. Whether the nominee of the lame duck’s party—Governor Stevenson following Mr. Truman and Vice President Humphrey following Mr. Johnson—bears resemblance to the incumbent president or not seems to have little influence on the outcome of the election; voters associate the two politicians based solely on their party.

Which means whether or not you believe Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush have much in common is irrelevant. What’s relevant is what matters to voters: that Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, is a Republican. And by consequence the future that history dictates is inevitable. It’s an Obama Presidency and a forgotten opposition that may, for a short while, bask in the false hope that fate is what you make of it.

-David Lamb

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