I suppose it could be said, as Michael Gerson has alleged, that the Obama campaign's choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it's only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—"My friends"—to get him through the next 10 seconds. I haven't felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot's running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America's most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn't qualify him then and it doesn't qualify McCain now.
. . . I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.
This election year does look quite a bit like Hoover vs. Roosevelt (and given that choice, I'll take Hoover.
Presently, we show John McCain with a 5.9 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, a figure that will seem implausibly low to many of you.. . . There were 18 elections between 1936 and 2004, and in just one of those -- the 1980 race . . . -- did a trailing candidate come back from a deficit this large in mid-October to win the election. One divided into 18 is 5.6 percent, which almost exactly matches our 5.9 percent estimate for Mr. McCain.
If 1980 and 1968 do offer a couple of favorable precedents for McCain, they also come with some caveats. If 1980 is the template, it's not clear which candidate gets to play Ronald Reagan, who on the surface would seem to share more circumstances in common with Barack Obama. Although it's relatively uncommon for a candidate who is already ahead to further build his lead in late October (1936 and 1988 fit this definition, but only to a degree), there is nevertheless no guarantee that the next large momentum swing -- if there is one at all -- will favor McCain. And secondly, McCain could very easily come close without winning. The chances are significantly greater than 5.9 percent that McCain will come close enough to make Obama sweat, but like Ford or Humphrey, he might wind up a little short.
Ford, Humphrey, and Reagan, also, did not have to deal with early voting, whereas McCain is pushing back against the fact that Obama is banking votes every day with a substantial national lead. And McCain's deficit in the key battleground states exceeds that in the country as a whole.-- NATE SILVER
If you're a conservative looking at the odds, what should really scare you is not the 80 to 90 percent chance that Barack Obama is the next President. It's the very real chance that Democrats could get to 60 or tantalizingly close to it in the Senate. President Barack Obama is unfortunate. President Barack Obama with 60 votes in the Senate means a socialist America.
[A]ny second, I was expecting to receive a statement from John McCain, vowing to pursue ACORN to the gates of hell.
Two thoughts: (1) It is absolutely beyond dispute that some canvassers employed by ACORN – that’s the left-leaning Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now – have filed phony voter registration cards in key states such as Nevada and Missouri, and that ACORN at times has suffered from a lack of quality control, and (2) It is absolutely preposterous to think that McCain, in his growing desperation, can gain any serious traction in this presidential campaign by linking Obama to ACORN, or by painting ACORN as a clear and present danger to the republic.
Indeed, the sudden focus on ACORN is proof that the Republicans are running low on effective weaponry. They have lost control of the overarching campaign narrative.-- DICK POLMANVoters care too much about their homes and their retirement to be swayed by the McCain camp's desperate slurs.
-- GARY YOUNGE
John McCain wants you to think that his opponent called you a baby killer, which is pretty ridiculous from a couple of different angles.
Senator Obama was referring to a legitimate problem. That is, the problem of not having enough Soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan. When you don't have ground troops to do a job, you have to use other assets. Other assets would include Surface-to-Surface missiles, Specter Gunships, Predator and Reaper drones, and other methods of aerial assault. The problem there is that you cannot be as surgical in your attacks from the air as you can with ground troops; kind of like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Therefore, the area you affect ends up being much larger than if the objective had been assaulted using ground troops. This puts more civilians in harms way. No one wants that. Ground troops don't want it, pilots don't want it, Commanders don't want it, and I'm fairly certain that when pressed, Senator McCain would admit that he doesn't want it.
-- ROCKRICHARD
Hat tip to They Gave Us a Republic for the image
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