Race Is In Holding Pattern For Now
But After the Games Come the Conventions

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 10, 2008; A06

The opening round of the general-election campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain has produced memorable images, negative ads, snarling e-mails and pointed exchanges over war, the economy and energy. What it has not done is begin to resolve questions among voters that both candidates must address to win in November.

Amid a profusion of polls and a war of words and television commercials, the underlying dynamics of the election appear little changed in the two months since the primaries ended. Democrat Obama still faces reservations among voters about his background and readiness. Republican McCain still faces questions about whether he has a governing vision that represents a clear break from the policies of President Bush.

With the opening of the Olympic Games on Friday, the campaign has entered a two-week doldrums. But once the Beijing Games are over, Obama and McCain will retake center stage. In rapid succession, they will announce running mates, choreograph their nominating conventions and deliver acceptance speeches to what are likely to be the largest audiences they will reach until the fall debates.

Those events will dwarf what has happened to date. But they will play out against the backdrop of preliminaries that, in the estimation of the two campaigns, have positioned their candidates well for the real battle ahead.

McCain advisers believe they effectively blunted any boost Obama may have gained from his overseas trip, seized an advantage on the debate over energy policy and have begun to restore the "maverick" appeal that distinguishes their candidate from Bush. They also say they have corrected many of the operational weaknesses that plagued their campaign earlier in the summer and drew sharp criticism from others in the Republican Party.

"We are on offense on the most important domestic issue before the country, which is the energy crisis," Steve Schmidt, who runs the campaign's day-to-day operations, said in an interview. "We have blunted Obama's momentum both nationally and in the key states, where we're ahead, even or just slightly behind in a horrific political year."

Obama advisers think that they have laid the foundation for a fall campaign in which voters will gradually gain confidence in their candidate's capacity to serve as president. They also believe they have pinned the Bush label on McCain and enjoy a significant advantage in the intensity of their support, something they think will translate into bigger turnout in battleground states.

David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, said his team is acutely focused on two elemental objectives: winning the battle for swing voters and winning the battle over turnout. "The most underappreciated dynamic of the race is the intensity advantage," he said. "That's why George Bush won in 2004. . . . They had an intensity gap, and we have it now."

Over the past month, polls have suggested a fluctuating race, with Obama leading at one point by as much as eight or nine points, losing virtually all of it to McCain after returning from overseas and then again pulling ahead. The past month also has been notable for the intensity of the engagement between the two campaigns.

But experienced political strategists say what comes next will be far more important in determining the outcome in November than anything that has happened to date. They heavily discount any supposed movement in the polls, saying it has little relevance, and are convinced that most persuadable voters are paying scant attention to the daily dialogue.

"Beware the polls," said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. "People are very mediocre predictors of their own behavior. What they tell you in June and July will not necessarily comport well with what they do in November."

Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for Bush's 2004 reelection campaign and now an independent analyst, said little has changed over the summer, despite Obama's overseas trip, an array of television ads and extensive cable news coverage of the race.

"The race has been pretty stagnant," he said. "Obama had as good a trip overseas as you could possibly have, and nothing moved. Obama is sitting on a four-to-six-point lead, but he is underperforming where he should be" in the race, given the overall political climate.

Who has used the past two months most effectively? On that question, there is predictable partisan disagreement.

Democrat Geoff Garin, who finished the primaries as one of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief strategists, argued that Obama has put down a stronger foundation for the fall campaign than McCain has.

"The Obama campaign has always been extremely disciplined and focused, and in this period they have been extremely purposeful about filling in the blanks on Obama in a way that will serve him well in September and October," he said. "In order to do that, they've been willing to take a few dings from McCain. But my sense is it's nothing more than a few dings, rather than a deep and permanent definition of Obama that will haunt him throughout the campaign."

Those "dings" have included McCain's efforts to call into question whether Obama should have visited wounded service members in Germany after Pentagon officials indicated that he could not bring along an adviser from his campaign, and McCain's ads focusing on Obama as an international celebrity -- spots designed to raise doubts that the Democrat is ready to be president and question whether he and voters share the same values.

Schmidt summed up the case this way: "The American people now have a window into how to evaluate his candidacy, based on his unprecedented celebrity, that can help them process the decision in tough economic times and tough national security times, particularly with regard to Obama's lack of experience and his ability to change positions on any issue at any moment given what is politically expediency at that moment."

But Plouffe argued that McCain's efforts to portray Obama as a mere celebrity who is not ready to serve as president may be more likely to create enthusiasm among core Republicans than to persuade swing voters. He said the campaign's research has shown that swing voters were turned off by the celebrity ad that featured Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

"We have been covered at high-intensity levels for 19 months," Plouffe said, adding, "I don't think people believe Barack Obama is an empty suit."

Garin did not discount the challenges Obama faces. "Voters have question marks about Obama," he said. "The Obama campaign in June and July and now into August has been consistently focused on trying to address those question marks, not in a way that will win him the election in August but that will put him in a better position to win the election in November."

But McCain advisers think their candidate matches up well against those potential vulnerabilities in Obama. "This guy's . . . weaknesses are all John's strengths," said one McCain adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to talk candidly about strategy.

Until recently, some Republicans had strongly criticized McCain over the conduct of his campaign. But, given his new, aggressive attacks on Obama and other signs of change within his campaign, those complaints have been muted.

Terry Nelson, who served as McCain's campaign manager until July 2007, said McCain was right to engage Obama and argued that the change in strategy has put the Republican in a stronger position heading toward the conventions.

"I think the McCain campaign has done a good job of laying out some battle lines," he said. "The Obama campaign seems to be not dominating the agenda of the campaign in the way that it was for some time. The question in my mind is, after the conventions are over, who is going to dominate the debate? The Obama campaign was able to do that for a while, but the McCain campaign is doing it now."

But Democratic strategists argued that McCain has done less than Obama to address his problems. "John McCain at this point is identified with four more years of George Bush," Mellman said. "That's exactly the way Obama wanted to paint him, and it is the way people see him. If he's going to win, he's going to have to go around fundamental perceptions that have been set."

One challenge both candidates share is their struggle to gain an edge on the economy. "The dominant issue in this election is what you broadly call pocketbook and the economy, and both candidates for some reason don't have a voice on it and they don't seem comfortable," Dowd said. "They talk about it and move off of it quickly. . . . The first one to get a voice on it will have an advantage."