President Obama

You can smell it in the air: tonight was the unofficial end of the 2008 presidential race. For Obama it smells like victory. Meanwhile the McCain campaign is now unmistakably giving off the stench of defeat. Tonight’s debate once again proved how crucial optics and stylistic considerations are in the age of visual media. McCain did OK (not great, but OK) in terms of substance, while Obama seemed cool to the point of almost boredom. But in the end, McCain’s affect — his barely concealed rage at the indignities to which he was being subjected — killed him with the television audience, which once again gave the debate to Obama by huge margins.

Don’t be surprised if, after the next wave of polls come out between now and Sunday, the RNC starts putting money that was slated to go into the presidential race into close Senate and House races instead.

And don’t be surprised if Obama wins by a margin comparable to Reagan over Mondale, if not Nixon over McGovern and Johnson over Goldwater.

For Wingnuttia, the explanations for the disaster will be legion: McCain ran a terrible campaign, he wasn’t a real conservative, the Palin pick was ridiculous, the MSM was once again horribly horribly unfair, the Democrats made the stock market tank — in short every explanation but the real one, which is that, after a generation of success, the powers that be in the GOP have gotten sealed off in their own little fantasy world. It’s a world in which “real Americans” care deeply about things like Bill Ayers, and flag pins, and crypto-Muslim terrorists, and hockey moms, and the Incredible Success of the Surge ™, and activist courts spreading teh gay. Unfortunately “real Americans” now make up about 25% of the population, and the proportion is shrinking by the day.

President Obama — it has a nice ring to it.