The Occasional Observer

You can see it on virtually every MSM outlet right now. It is the Obama trip to the Middle East, which, along with al-Maliki backing Obama's timeline, has been an absolute game-changer in our Presidential campaign.

This overseas trip has been a huge boon to Obama. Gallup shows a huge jump in Obama's polling in their daily tracking poll. I don't think it will be a short-term thing. In a few months, we'll look back on this trip as the catalyst that took a narrow 3 point race and expanded it to a 7 to 9 point race.

All the MSM coverage of the Chosen One meeting with foreign leaders gives him a gravitas that he can't get from whooping it up in front of Democrats. At the same time, the al-Maliki statement is a big deal (sorry Kavon), and its ramifications are being reflected in these poll numbers. Let me explain why.

As Dick Morris pointed out about a week ago, McCain had a big issue with Iraq. Not because of the past, but because of the future. When looking at the past, McCain was right and Obama was wrong about the surge. But most Americans think Obama was right and McCain wrong about the authorization to use force in the first place (never mind the merits, the polls bear out that is what most folks think). The argument over whose judgment was better in the past is not fruitful for McCain, b/c it's at best a draw, politically speaking.

But as Morris said, McCain had leverage, big leverage, on the issue of Iraq's future. If Obama stuck to a rigid timeline, McCain would say that Obama was assuring al-Qaeda space to regroup and train. As a result, Obama would increase the likelihood of prolonging the war on terror, and the chance of a future military engagement in Iraq. McCain, on the other hand, was the candidate of finishing the job and obtaining peace, and victory, and soon(er).

On the other hand, if Obama reversed course, it would show that his revered "judgment" is basically a lagging indicator--not exactly what you want in a leader.

Al-Maliki has destroyed that narrative. He has wrested the future out of McCain's hands by saying that Obama's judgment over timing is appropriate, and that an immediate drawdown lasting 16 months won't jeopardize our gains in Iraq.

McCain can yell about being right about the surge until he's blue in the face. He was, after all, right about the surge. But Obama's judgment about the future has been validated, and McCain's fears about an immediate drawdown made to look like Bush-ian, alarmist politics.

It absolutely kills me, but His Hopeness* needs to fall on his face at this point.


*credit to Joshua Lawson at R 4 '08.