My Essay on the Election

[humder]

 I got an essay in my specialist area from school, I was very lucky! What do you think of it?

Analyse the Factors Which Influenced the Outcome of the 2008 Presidential Election
    
               In the 2008 Presidential election, Senator Obama won by 7% and took states not won by Democrats for over forty years. With the Republican George Bush with one of the worst Presidential approval ratings in history and a struggling economy, this election was always going to favour the Democrat. However, not long ago Barack Obama was very little known, there were many questions about his lack of experience and people were not sure how the electorate would react to a black candidate, so he did not have the victory locked in. But his long primary campaign with Hillary Clinton enabled him to set up a huge fundraising and ground operation and create an effective message of change that he sold to the voters.
    The Midterm elections of 2006 were a strong signal from the electorate that they were unhappy with the current Republican administration because of an increasingly unpopular war and the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina. President George Bush’s poll ratings kept on sliding down from there. For some periods of time Bush was less popular than Nixon in the middle of the Watergate scandal. Because of a very unpopular President, the electorate was looking for change. This made is very hard for John McCain because he was from the same party as the President, a Republican. This factor put him at a great disadvantage because many voters believed he would carry through with the same policies as George Bush. John McCain tried to counter this by portraying himself as a ‘maverick’ but he was not successful in separating himself from the President.
Meanwhile, Barack Obama embraced a message of change, which helped him argue in the Primaries that Hillary Clinton would mean looking to the past and it helped him argue in the general election that John McCain is just like George Bush. Obama had Bush frequently in his adverts to try to persuade the electorate John McCain was the same as Bush and he frequently referred to the link in his speeches. It was his most consistent attack of the campaign to make sure he communicated it with the voters and make it harder for McCain to separate himself. McCain found this hard because during the Republican Primaries, many conservatives were sceptical about McCain and feared he was too moderate. This meant that McCain had to go to the right during the Primaries but this also made him look like a more typical Republican, who were unpopular with the voters. This meant it was harder for McCain to move to the centre again in the General Election against Obama to move away from Bush.
    Barack Obama excited the country and made himself an iconic figure by representing himself as change and hope. Obama was able to create a clear image of what his candidacy represented by powerful oratory and celebrity endorsements to enthuse young people and drive up momentum. Obama did everything on a big scale, for example he moved his acceptance speech to a football stadium of 80,000 and he consistently attracted huge crowds. This strong image of hope and change helped him win the election by inspiring people. Without his name, his race, his history and charisma, Obama would not be the same, he created a very effective identity of a new kind of politics. The Obama campaign especially excited young and African American voters.
The Obama campaign was also very efficient and disciplined by being able to react to events in an effective manner, such as the economic crisis. This contrasts with John McCain who was more erratic in his message. He tried to create an image of being honourable through his Vietnam service and being a maverick through the times he stood up to George Bush. Whereas Obama consistently linked McCain to Bush, McCain never got a consistent line of attack. McCain tried calling Obama a ‘celebrity’, he tried calling him too inexperienced and he tried to call him too extreme but none of these labels managed to stick successfully. For example, John McCain tried to link Obama to a former domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers by saying he had past associations with him. But this turned off many voters, who were more concerned with the economy and just viewed it as a desperate political attack. Despite these extremist charges, Obama managed to blunt this, especially with the endorsement from Colin Powell who was the former Secretary of State under George Bush and is deeply respected across the electorate.
    There was also a massive enthusiasm gap in the two parties. Many Republicans were disaffected with the President, disaffected with McCain because they saw him as too moderate and they were disaffected because they knew it was going to be a hard election to win. This meant getting donations and volunteers very hard for McCain. He tried to excite the base more with his choice of Sarah Plain and this was partly successful but she only excited the base and not the important swing voters. Contrast this with Obama’s supporters who were extremely enthusiastic because of Obama’s charisma and the historic nature of the campaign. The Internet increased this enthusiasm with the creation of Youtube videos and blogs dedicated to Obama. There was so much excitement that Obama was mocked by the McCain campaign by calling him ‘the one’, ‘the messiah’ and labelling him as a ‘celebrity’. But these attacks were outweighed by the enthusiasm transferring itself into campaign volunteers, donations and a high turnout.

[humder]

            In the Primary campaign, many Obama supporters feared that the long Primary would damage the Democratic Party. However, this in fact may have helped Obama. During the Primary campaign Obama set up huge get out the vote operations in many states and he set up a massive fundraising advantage by using the Internet effectively. While the Democrats were fighting it out, McCain who had already secured his nomination was too slow to build up his ground operation and take advantage of the time by raising money. Barack Obama had raised so much money that he decided to not take public finance money but he decided to take donations privately. McCain was not able to raise enough money to do this and so he had to take public financing and this put him at a huge financial disadvantage. Barack Obama massively outspent McCain on television and on the get out the vote operation. In the campaign, Obama was able to contact many more undecided voters than McCain and did so by more direct means, such as door to door as opposed to robo calls. This advantage was so big that Obama was able to force McCain onto the defensive in many states and many were previously considered to be safely Republican, such as Indiana and Virginia.  By forcing McCain on the defensive, at the end of the campaign the candidates were almost only campaigning in states which were won by Bush four years earlier. The only state won by Kerry four years ago that McCain tried to target towards to end was Pennsylvania and Obama won there by a comfortable 10%. The electoral advantage Obama had by putting McCain on the defensive means that Obama could concentrate on adding onto John Kerry’s electoral votes.
    In early September, things were looking relatively quite good for the Republicans, they were closing in the polls after a successful convention but then the economy began to crumble. After Lehman Brothers collapsed, Obama surged in the polls. As the economy was made the focus of the campaign, Obama gained a comfortable lead in the polls that stayed steady till Election Day. The Democrats were more popular on economic policy than the Republicans because they supported more intervention to help people. Secondly, the state of the economy was blamed on George Bush and this made the Republican Party even more unpopular. The electorate was more eager to punish the Republicans because of how they handled the economy.
The reaction of the two campaigns was also very important. Obama appeared to stayed calm and looked like a leader and he again linked McCain to the failing economy of the unpopular Republican President. On the other hand, McCain made a gaffe by saying ‘the fundamentals of the economy are strong’, which he had said several times before and this made him look out of touch, which Obama took advantage of. McCain had also made previous comments that he did not know much about the economy and this lost him confidence with the public. When the bailout package was being arranged between the President and Congress, John McCain suspended his campaign and said he was not going to be in the upcoming debate. This made McCain look erratic and he got a lot of criticism for it. The debate went on and McCain was forced to continue his campaign after the debate even though the bailout package was still being negotiated. This made his previous action look political and erratic. Meanwhile, Obama successfully addressed the economy and got more confidence on the economy from the public. Barack Obama was lucky the economy was the most important issue for voters and not national security or foreign affairs. Despite the Iraq war being unpopular, many voters feared Obama was too inexperienced. If the election was focused on foreign affairs and especially national security instead of the economy, the election would have been much closer. But this was not the case and the economy was the central issue of the campaign.
    Another factor influencing the outcome of the election were the Vice President picks. Barack Obama chose Joe Biden and at first, public reaction was tepid because many Democrats were hoping for Hillary Clinton to be chosen. However, Joe Biden obtained a positive image with the public even if it was not very enthusiastic and Biden helped greatly with criticisms of inexperience because of Joe Biden’s long time as a Senator. Meanwhile, John McCain chose Sarah Palin. At first, she got a quite a good reaction, especially with conservatives who thought McCain was too moderate. But she had only been Governor of Alaska for two years and was accused of inexperience. McCain had spent months previously accusing Obama of being inexperienced and so to many voters this move looked political because Palin was also considered to be inexperienced. This factor also made it harder for McCain to attack Obama for being inexperienced because he was accused of having an inexperienced running mate. After some clumsy interviews, Sarah Palin was mocked further and did not look Presidential to the voters. John McCain was having enthusiasm problems with his base and Palin did succeed in exciting them but the plan to attract independents and former Clinton supporters failed badly. Despite at first having a largely positive reaction, by the end Palin was a net negative on the voters.
    The factors of the unpopular President and the poor economy meant that the Democrats were always likely to win barring a major upset. On top of this, Obama sealed his win by an unprecedented grass roots organization in fundraising and voter contact and with a finely crafted tone of hope and change. As well as the structural advantages for the Democrats, Obama successfully linked McCain to Bush and made him appear erratic and out of touch during the economic crisis. These were the factors that lead to his victory.

[paul718]

Nice job.  You seem to have hit all of the major points and managed to do it rather concisely.  Let us know of any feedback you receive from your teacher.  I'm sure it will be positive.

[Hatman 🍁]

Not properly sourced!

[Padfoot]

Perhaps its just because this is coming from across the pond, but the wording doesn't seem right to me at all.  There are also some grammatical errors.  I think you've hit all the major points correctly, but I also think you're in serious need of a proofreader to help you reword some portions and fix some of the grammar.