Originally Posted by francois60

Obama certainly is capable of beating McCain, but I don't think he will. If McCain wins more Hispanics, working class whites, and Jews than Bush did, he'll win the election handily. And these are groups that McCain is strong with while Obama is weak.

I also think McCain is a harder candidate to attack and Obama is really bad at negative campaigning. Howard Dean is worse, so Obama will get no help from the DNC.

Obama wins if he inspires. If he has to go negative or is constantly on the defensive, he'll lose.

McCain's goal is to be positive as well, stop making gaffes(he recently forgot that Czechoslovakia doesn't exist anymore), and flesh out his domestic policy proposals, which currently range from poorly thought out to incomplete. He really doesn't seem to have a platform as of yet.

VP selections will be unusually important this cycle, since Mccain is old and Obama is inexperienced.

The debates will also be more important than usual.

Then of course there's the general situation of the country and the world. If the economy doesn't go into recession and looks strong heading into the fall, that helps McCain. If Iraq continues to progress, that helps McCain. If things go to hell all around, that helps Obama.