SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- In Denver this week, Barack Obama will make history by becoming the first African-American presidential nominee of a major political party.
It's a great moment for the country. But it could also be a hollow victory for Obama given the emerging consensus that the Democrat isn't doing as well as he should be with all his advantages -- robust fundraising, positive press, huge crowds, passionate supporters, etc. In fact, according to some recent polls, Obama isn't as popular as he was a few months ago. Democrats' worst fear is that this could translate to another defeat in November.
Three polls show the contest between Obama and John McCain as a virtual dead heat. A New York Times/CBS News poll and a Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey each found 45 percent for Obama and 42 percent for McCain. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll had nearly identical numbers, giving Obama 45 percent to McCain's 43 percent.
Pundits offer theories that are all over the board. Some say Obama remains a mystery to many voters, while others claim that the Russia-Georgia crisis highlighted concerns over his foreign policy gravitas.
In the L.A. Times/Bloomberg survey, 80 percent of respondents said McCain had the experience to be president. Only 44 percent said the same thing about Obama, while 48 percent said that he lacked the experience for the job. Also, there are still concerns about Obama's patriotism, an issue that his campaign probably hoped it had put to rest. Eighty-four percent considered McCain strongly patriotic, but only 55 percent could say that about Obama. In fact, more than a third -- 35 percent -- had doubts about Obama's patriotism. Finally, in the last two months, McCain's supporters have become more enthusiastic about their candidate while the enthusiasm level of Obama's supporters has remained static. So McCain seems to be closing the "passion gap."
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There promises to be plenty of passion in Denver this week, but not all of it beneficial to Obama. Some delegates are passionately committed to the idea that, if the goal is to beat McCain, the man for the job is a woman. Indeed, The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll found that Hillary Clinton would have a larger lead over McCain -- 49 percent to 43 percent -- if she were the Democratic nominee.
That finding caught my eye because it implies that there are Democrats out there who would vote for Clinton but, for whatever reason, aren't planning to vote for Obama.
I hadn't heard much about this group of dissatisfied Democrats, and I wanted to know more. So I spoke to a couple of them recently. One is a white male running for elective office for the first time, and the other is a Hispanic woman from a family of Democrats. These are people who might not go so far as to vote for McCain, but they could just skip the top of the ballot. Both supported Clinton in the primaries, and yet their concerns over Obama are more than just sour grapes. It boils down to this: They don't like him, don't trust him, don't relate to him, and don't think he's ready to be president.
The first-time politician said that he thought a lot of his fellow Democrats still have trouble connecting to Obama and that, with voters looking for assurances that leaders are listening to them and understand their concerns -- particularly about the economy -- Obama isn't quite there. The Hispanic female thinks that Obama isn't likable enough, doesn't have enough experience and that his supporters have been too cavalier about vanquishing Clinton's historic bid to become the first woman president.
There is the challenge for Obama going into the convention. A lot of his recent policy triangulations seem intended to help him reach out to independents and even moderate Republicans. But he has put the cart before the donkey. He still has problems closing the deal with the Democratic base, something he needs to do in Denver.
In the speech of his life, Obama needs to convince Democrats that he is likable, capable and approachable enough to get elected president. And he needs to convince them that, if elected, he'll wake up every day aware of the fact that -- as remarkable as his odyssey has been -- it was never really about him but about the American people and, as he has acknowledged a number of times, the country that made his story possible.
Ruben Navarrette's e-mail address is navarrette@wctrib.com .
