THE SAME DAMN ELECTION WE ALWAYS HAVE

To some extent, what's in the new ABC/Wasington Post poll is an understandable reaction to the two candidates' life histories. But that's not the full explanation. It also results from the fact that we're following the same script we follow just about every election year:

...Seventy-two percent of Americans -- even most Democrats -- say [McCain would] be a good commander-in-chief of the military.

By contrast, fewer than half, 48 percent, say Obama would be a good commander-in-chief, a significant weakness on this measure. (McCain's rating is much improved from his unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, when 56 percent said he'd be a good commander-in-chief -- no more than said so, at the time, about George W. Bush.)...

Did you follow that? McCain's C-in-C number now is much higher than it was during the 2000 Republican primaries, but even then his number was higher than Obama's is now -- and so was George W. Bush's! That's right: More people thought Bush was qualified to be commander-in-chief eight years ago than think Obama is now.

I think that's because we're back in the same swamp we're always in, one in which Republicans are always presumed to be steady, stable, normal people who have America's best interests in mind, while there's always a lingering suspicion that the Democrat is an elitist with freakish ideas and a desire to destroy America.

For eight years, of course, we've had a president who actually was an elitist with freakish ideas and who made significant progress toward the destruction of America, and now we have a Republican candidate who promises to Xerox that president's policies on nearly every important issue. Yet the cloud of suspicion hangs over Obama; Obama is the one who might take us beyond the pale.

No, it's not just because it's McCain. Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson wouldn't be at 72% on the C-in-C question, but they'd be over 50%, because they're never portrayed as anything but normal; theirs would be steady, manly hands on the tiller. And as for Giuliani -- if the GOP had gone for Rudy, he'd be the Messiah of this general election campaign (though Obama would still be the one accused of trying to be the Messiah), and his C-in-C number really might be as high as McCain's. (Yes, I know he became a punchline when he lost, but if he hadn't lost, he'd still be the hero on a white charger.)

And no, it's not just because it's Obama. It might seem as if Hillary Clinton would have gone into the general election looking like a potentially strong C-in-C, but what we saw in the last few months of the primaries was not what we would have seen if the Republicans thought she had a chance to win the nomination. Instead of actually enabling her candidacy, they would have been attacking her as the Tie-Dyed Barefoot Goddess of Woodstock -- which is precisely how John McCain was attacking her back when the primaries were just getting under way.

Of course, Clinton might have done somewhat better on this question because her primary opponent wasn't using the right's memes to bash her. But the GOP would have her on the defensive by now. And we'd be in the same Groundhog Day election cycle we're always in.

****

ON THE OTHER HAND: A new Quinnipiac poll has Obama up by 9 nationally. So maybe the fear factor really isn't working this year.