It will boil down to the very last debate. Obama will clobber McCain on style just like JFK clobbered Nixon back in 1960. Now, having said that, there are a couple of negative things working against Obama like:

1. When the Dems take serious control of Congress, and they will, a republican usually sits in the White House.

2. McCain is thanking Putin for reminding the average voter that the world is still a dangerous place.

3. Folks with incomes over 200K may not want to pay more taxes after all.

4. If McCain selects Lieberman, some Dems will cross over because he is seen as a decent guy.

5. The Iraq war moves off the front pages and nobody really cares who voted for what 6 years ago.

6. Obama can't move left or he will become the "black" candidate he is trying hard to avoid and he can't move to the center or the liberals will make noise. Thus far, he is willing to piss-off a few liberals but he cannot afford to lose MI or PA.

7. Obama may not realize it but the gentlemanly tactics that worked well in the primaries may not work as well, or at all, in the general election. The repubs will absolutely tear him to shreds after Labor day. We will find out how tough Obama really is.

8. Obama will make the mistake of saturating the airwaves with advertising instead of spending money on getting the minority vote out.

9. Bush's task is to lower gas prices even more to take that issue off the front pages.

10. And I haven't even gotten around to talking about race.

Your part about women reacting differently to a loss than men is interesting and should be explored in more detail by pollsters and the Obama campaign. McCain's people are probably already on it.

Joan,

At the bottom of your piece, you were very dismissive of people of faith, in general, and above all, with people who you don't agree with on abortion. That's a mistake. You should know: not all Catholics support abortion rights and some actually attend church. Obama chose Biden so he can spend the next 2 months campaigning in areas where he is most effective ranging from DE to PA to OH to IN to MI, so he can pick up the pieces left behind by HRC. That's where this election will be won or lost by pounding the lower to middle classes (Catholic, female, white and not so rich) who don't necessarily share your "sophisticated" SF views on abortion, drug-use, secularism, etc. SF liberals alone are not going to put Obama in the WH. McCain would be more than happy to entertain these folks all the way to the White House.

Obama should repeat the 1960 JFK strategy: liberals, Catholics, unions plus Texas, compliments of LBJ, that put him over the top by a hair.

Let's face it: Obama, Kerry and Gore are all intellectuals and at least 2 of them have lost, albeit close races. Clinton was not an intellectual and certainly neither of the Bushes or Reagan were. The only intellectuals that have gotten elected president in the past 100 years have been JFK, Wilson and maybe Carter.

If history is any indication, being bookish or intellectually inclined is not a plus personal quality when seeking the presidency. Look at Dukakis - came across as a wimp and was smacked around by GHWB.

Although JFK was bookish on the outside, he was also a major SOB behind the scenes and RFK was even less bookish and more brutal to enemies of the "JFK franchise".

Obama has an uphill battle on this point because he strikes a lot of people as book-smart but not much else. And this idea of major outdoor speech in front of a full stadium is almost freakish. Is he now the Pope?

Careful, careful, careful

I don't doubt for a second that Bill Clinton was really smart but he was not an intellectual, he was a politician who happened to be really smart.

To me, Obama is the college professor type who does not want to get his hands "dirty" with minor details like those with respect to his beloved universal healthcare:

a. will the American people warm-up to universal healthcare if it means you have to wait 30 days in line for that all-important MRI?

b. will American employers put up with employees taking the whole day off so they can see the doctor for a simple visit?

c. will American doctors accept the fact that they are now government employees making $80,000 per year? Yo dude, where's my overtime?

Will Obama attempt to convince the American people that universal healthcare is more than just expanding coverage to the uninsured. How is he going to communicate the cultural impact of all the changes he is now expected to make?

An intellectual does not ponder these details because he operates at "38,000 feet". A good politician "lives and breathes" the policy details.