"Democrats are like Cubs fans -- they assume that something will go wrong until proven otherwise."

[ccharles000]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/morning-musings.html

So I've spent the past couple of days at meetings of various kinds in New York, and there was certainly a sense of impeding doom among many Democrats here. The cute analogy that I've come up with are that Democrats are like Cubs fans -- they assume that something will go wrong until proven otherwise.

With that said, people have become decidely more optimistic in the past 24-48 hours as the economy has returned to the center of the national debate. Obama's never going to be a Clintonesque natural out there on the stump in responding to the economy -- he might have to repeat a message three times where with Clinton it would have sunken in the first one.

But McCain seems to be struggling to come up with anything coherent to say about the issue, and his "fundamentals of our economy are strong" statement was a capital-G gaffe. When I saw McCain and Palin give successive speeches on MSNBC on Monday morning, and McCain repeated his "fundmentals" line and then Palin repeated her "thanks, but no thanks" line on the Bridge to Nowhere, I got the sense that maybe Steve Schmidt isn't quite the messaging genius that he's been made out to be.

[Curtland1015]

1. Haw! Cute... of course, it's hard to blame us.

What with the way things have gone for us the past several decades. But I still pretty much agree. We are very much a pessimistic bunch.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

2. No argument from this Cubs fan.

Big Z pitches a no-hitter and all we think about is how those 110 pitches he threw are going to haunt him next time out.

[zanne]

3. True. We're skeptical optimists.

I've been a skeptical optimist since I voted for the first time for George McGovern. I've grown up alot since then and I'm a little more realistic, but also more skeptical. I'm more skeptical than the young interns and volunteers I work with, but I'd never tell them that. And I support Barack Obama from the bottom of my heart. Every once in awhile, a little optimism leaks out of this battle weary old Democrat.

[BklynChick]

4. I'm in NY too and have found the same thing as you, but I agree the tide has been changing

the past few days. We gotta spread optimism because pessimism is known to suppress turnout.

Good analogy, but let's stop it!!!!