Presidential race remains undefined

With less than four months to go in the 2008 presidential election, the contest remains close and largely undefined as John McCain and Barack Obama look for ways to gain a significant and lasting advantage that so far has escaped them both.

For Obama, the freshman senator from Illinois who shook up the political world by beating Democratic royalty in a long and tense nomination battle, the goal is to successfully portray McCain as wedded to President Bush and his most unpopular policies.

But McCain (Ariz.), with his 22 years of Senate experience, has accused Obama of inexperience and poor judgment, questioning his commitment to ending the politics of old as his Republican Party tries to undercut Obama’s successful attempts to portray himself as the candidate of change.

Despite both campaigns’ endless efforts to make strides in those areas, the intense and protracted Democratic nomination fight has retarded the full-bore phase of the general election, and the narrative that will come to define the 2008 presidential election has yet to be written.

Even with the compressed general-election calendar, the cycle’s main events have yet to happen.

Neither candidate has named a running mate, and Washington is working itself into a tizzy trying to guess whom the Arizona Republican and the Illinois Democrat will tap to join them on the ticket.

Obama is planning to travel abroad, with a trip next week to Europe and the Middle East that seeks to bolster his foreign policy credentials amid ceaseless attacks from the McCain campaign about Obama’s constant opposition to the Iraq war.

As the war once again takes center stage in a presidential race, this race, despite its historic nature, is in many ways reminiscent of the 2004 campaign between Bush and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), as the term “flip-flopper” is bandied about with relish.

McCain argues that Obama is wavering on his stated pledge to withdraw all troops from Iraq, his opposition to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and his support for the White House’s 2005 energy bill all in order to run from a liberal record that served him well in the primaries but could potentially be a liability in a general election.

Obama has also accused McCain of flip-flops on everything from campaign finance reform to his support for extending the Bush tax cuts. At the heart of the Obama campaign’s criticisms is an attempt to exploit McCain’s most obvious and enduring vulnerabilities.

The Arizona senator has long been regarded as a maverick, eyed warily by some conservatives in his own party. As McCain has worked to assuage his base and firmly establish his conservative bona fides, the Democrats work to portray him as another Bush in an effort to strip McCain of his independent appeal.

The tightrope both men are walking in keeping their base coalitions intact while courting moderate and swing voters has been difficult, and the changing environment in Iraq, coupled with record-high energy prices, has only muddied the picture.

Obama and the Democrats have engaged in daily back-and-forths with their Republican rivals, but most observers have noted that Obama has struck the posture of a cautious front-runner, avoiding direct engagement as he did by declining to accept McCain’s offer of 10 town hall-style debates. The Obama campaign did agree to five, which iancludes the three debates already scheduled, but as often happens, the issue has become more about political jockeying than trying to agree to more forums.

And even though both candidates started out pledging to run a respectful campaign, free from the bitterness that is so often associated with partisan politics, the election has quickly settled into the familiar.

National polls have consistently shown Obama maintaining a lead just outside the margin of error — a good measure of the overall mood of the electorate but largely meaningless given the Electoral College system.

The RealClearPolitics average of national polls shows Obama maintaining a four-point lead over McCain, but recent individual polls show the race tightening.

In traditional swing states, Obama is also enjoying narrow leads, but the national trend is being mirrored on the state level. RealClearPolitics averages show Obama leading in the electoral vote count 238-163, with 137 labeled “toss-up.”

As Obama has looked to expand the electoral map, states like Virginia and North Carolina, which have in recent presidential elections trended Republican, now must be considered swing states.

Looking at the new map, with Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia and Iowa and much of the Southwest as the new battleground, Obama is maintaining a lead. Of the states listed, Obama is holding polling leads in four of the seven.

And even though Obama has shocked the political world with his astonishing fundraising, McCain has demonstrated recently that behind the strength of the Republican National Committee (RNC), and despite accepting public financing, his campaign will be well-funded.

So now, with just more than three months remaining and plenty of potential game-changers lying ahead, the race is close, fluid and yet to be truly defined.