Being on the road, you get a newspaper at your hotel room door every morning. Yesterday, I was reading USA Today, and they have a fascinating story about Barack Obama's fundraising appeal even to executives in some industries who four years ago donated to the Bush campaign rather to John Kerry. This story explains why John McCain is struggling even with traditional Republicans in big business.
Occasionally, I come across a quote that sums up the state of the race so succinctly that it just stands out. Four years ago, it was when my father said that he didn't want Bush to win but couldn't bring himself to vote for John Kerry. Even Democrats I've spoken to on this trip talk about how John Kerry's campaign was ineffectual and the candidate uninspiring.
Folks in the UK always ask me how Americans could vote for Bush. There's your answer. You may not agree with it, but to put it bluntly, John Kerry sucked as a candidate. I'm sure that you've had Labour candidates that you had to force yourself to vote for even if the thought of voting for a Conservative made you ill. Democrats didn't vote for John Kerry. They voted against George Bush, and the ABB (Anybody but Bush) crowd wasn't big enough to win that election. If the election would have been held even six months later, it might have been.
But let's return to 2008. In this election, this story really explains the uphill battle that McCain is fighting in the closing days of this election, a defensive battle to win back traditional Republican voters, even on issues such as taxes.
They interviewed Bob Clark, the CEO of Clayco, a large real estate development firm in St Louis. Clark raised thousands of dollars for George Bush in 2000 but has raised half a million dollars for Obama in this election. They also spoke to Victor Hammel, the CEO of a pest-control company in Pennsylvania, another key swing state. The killer quotes?
"Barack is definitely more liberal than I am," Clark said. "But I'm willing to compromise on some of those issues for what I think is the greater good."
Hammel said, "I would rather pay a little higher tax on a higher profit than a lower tax rate on lower profits."
This shows you the shift in this election from four years ago. If John McCain can't win on taxes with CEOs, then he's running out of arguments that will sway voters with less than a week to go from the election.
