One other note thought generated by my conversation with my mentor Obi-Wan. I had suggested that in this final week, McCain needed to seize on Obama’s comments about “redistributive change” from the 2001 radio interview, but my mentor was less certain that it, or any other message trying to define Obama, would make a difference (or be necessary). He suggests that the voters are largely finished with the process of learning about the candidates; the remaining undecideds will be starting, around Thursday or Friday, to contemplate the choice before them. In other words, they’re past the data collection, and now they’re in the analysis or digestion stage. The comments in the radio interview, eye-openingly blunt to those of us in the political world, only reinforce what the casual voter already senses about Obama – he’s an academic and a lawyer, at home in abstract theory, who believes that the greatest problem facing America in the past generation is that certain people are earning too much money, and that the government hasn’t done enough to take it from them and give it to other people they deem more deserving.

Obi-Wan noted that in the final days of the 1980 race, many Reagan advisers wanted one last ad hammering Carter. But the campaign resisted that, and their final ad (to watch the video of the ad, click on the icon of Reagan taking the oath of office at the bottom of the screen) featured Reagan’s signature accomplishment as governor.

“Reagan’s Record,” Reagan, 1980
MALE NARRATOR: This is a man whose time has come. A strong leader with a proven record. In 1966, answering the call of his party, Ronald Reagan was elected Governor of California – next to President, the biggest job in the nation. What the new Governor inherited was a state of crisis. California was faced with a $194 million deficit and was spending a million dollars a day more than it was taking in. The state was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Governor Reagan became the greatest tax reformer in the state’s history. When Governor Reagan left office, the $194 million deficit had been transformed into a $550 million dollar surplus. The San Francisco Chronicle said Governor Reagon has saved the state from bankruptcy.
[TEXT: “We exaggerate very little when we say that [Reagan] has saved the state from bankruptcy.” -San Francisco Chronicle]
The time is now for strong leadership. [with TEXT] Reagan for President.

The undecided voters’ instincts were inclined towards Reagan, but needed to be reassured that he was a safe choice. Despite the widespread perception that the country is inclined to elect Obama, Obi Wan posits that the undecideds are undecided because they don’t see what everyone else sees in Obama, and want to make sure their nagging doubts aren’t misplaced.