Why isn’t Obama creaming McCain?

I’m going to shamelessly steal an argument made by Fox News’ John Gibson.

If you look at an average of all the major polls out there, which includes, Gallup, Rasmussen, CNN, USA Today/Gallop, Democracy Corps, Fox News and the NBC News/WSJ polls, Barack Obama is only up by 2.6%.

The question is, if Obama is the messiah we’re perpetually told he is, who will, in Obama’s words “become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions,” why isn’t he up on McCain by double digits?

Even the Democracy Corps poll, run by former Bill Clinton campaign head James Carville — for crying out loud – has him only at +5. Even if we toss out the one poll that has John McCain ahead by +4, we’re only talking a 3.5 point lead for Obama. Given how polls seem to call those (1) at home, (2) or retired, that’s a virtual draw for McCain-Obama, or in other words, the exact same highly polarized electorate we’ve had since 2000.

Gibson and many others are citing arrogance. Obama’s actions in past few weeks mimic those of a guy who’s celebrating a little too much when there’s plenty of time left on the clock. People don’t like that.

With so much time, anything could happen, especially given how often pollsters get it wrong, and very wrong at that. But given how the McCain campaign has fumbled so many times, let alone all of the economic issues unfairly associated with him, they’ve got to feel good about not being down 10 or more on August 1.

Pollster.com has done some historical research:

With little in the way of new polling data–and the milestone of 100 days until Election Day passing–we decided to take a look at where the race stood at this time over the past five election cycles. While this was an unscientific review, we did try and choose the most representative polls (from reputable pollsters) that we could find. The trend from 1988 – 2004 shows that the GOP candidate tends to under-poll in the summer–with the exception, as you can see below, of the 2000 campaign. In each of the other four years, the Republican candidate had been polling significantly behind the Democrat at this point in the race. Each of those times, however, the Republican improved his position, gaining an average of 15 points relative to the Democrat.

We shall see, eh? I don’t have high hopes, though. Not so much because of McCain’s miscues, but because the Republican party in general hasn’t had it’s act together in a long time. When you’re perpetually battling a media slant that will cite names like “Ted Stephens” or “Jack Abramoff” on page one on a daily basis with only mention of “Tony Rezko,” “William Jefferson,” “Jim Johnson,” or “Chris ‘there went my VP spot’ Dodd” one time, if ever, and buried on page 14 at that, you have to have your act together. The Republicans just don’t yet, and they’ve alienated their base with eight years pork spending and little backbone.