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In order for John McCain to win, the Republicans will have to both 1) force voters to lose passion for Obama (very possible) and 2) inject new voter passion for McCain (a near impossibility)

So Bush's military experience trumps Kerry's military experience? Where did Bush see combat again? I can't remember.

The point is -- which quel surprise , you ignored -- is that in the first election, the person with less executive experience beat a person with more executive experience. And in the second election, the person with less military experience beat the person with more military experience. And did so by solidifying a passionate base electorate. Bush himself diminished the strength those alleged presidential qualities were supposed to have in an election by appealing to people in other ways.

If you pull back further, a person with less executive AND military experience won in 1992. In that case, too, like Dubya, Clinton energized a passionate following. You can go back to 1980 to find another person who so energized a base of voters. But Reagan obviously did trump Carter in military experience, and Carter's executive experience turned out not to mean so much.

So Obama shares this key bolstering trait with Reagan, Clinton and Bush. And what do they have in common? McCain meanwhile looks, acts, and talks like a Kerry and a Dole, rolled into one.