Kos and effect

I understand why some don’t like Markos Moulitsas Zuniga—Kos, of Daily Kos. He’s very partisan, and a pretty harsh critic of those he doesn’t agree with. And as with any political site that has free and open forum, there are some zealots who post some pretty extreme things on his site.

But he’s also a very astute political analyst, and he doesn’t fall for the partisan spin and wishful thinking that permeates both sides of the blogosphere.

A post from today really illustrates this. Kos notes that despite all the character attacks on Obama, all the questioning of his character and patriotism, he is actually remarkably well-liked by the American people. Which is part of why he is not only ahead in the polls, but seems to be opening a bit more of lead in the last few days.

Kos notes that a new Time/CBS poll finds that Obama’s favorability is the highest for a presidential candidate running for a first term in the last 28 years.

Kos says:


“Think about what's happened in the last year -- a bruising primary, Jeremiah Wright, bittergate, Tony Rezko, PUMA b.s., hateful emails, months of non-stop Republican smears regarding Ayers, the spreading of rumors that he's a terrorist and Muslim.

… hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of smear emails later, and the best Republicans have been able to do is inch up his negatives?

Republicans tried to sell a patently false story -- that Obama was a secret Muslim Marxist terrorist -- and the public proved too smart for the GOP.

McCain didn't fare as well, but his numbers have still held up quite well. What we have here is an election that won't be decided on the worst smears, but on substance. And in such an environment, the GOP is ill-equipped to compete.

So as we see Jeremiah Wright make his comeback in the next 10 days, realize that Obama has weathered this guy and much more already. The American people are just not willing to believe the crap that Republicans say about Barack.”


I am disappointed that McCain still seems to think he has no choice but to try to drive Obama’s negatives up by using these smear tactics. But I have always felt that Obama is an unusually strong candidate; anyone with an open mind who watches the guy for five minutes is going to like him—even if they don’t agree with him. It’s just that some on the R side can’t stop themselves from grabbing a bucket of mud when confronted with someone they disagree with. This year, it looks like that’s not going to work.

(oh, here's the link!)