I read it in today's Political Memo at the New York Times
As Mr. McCain enters this closing stretch, his aides — as well as some outside Republicans and even a few Democrats — argue that he still has a viable path to victory.
"The McCain campaign is roughly in the position where Vice President Gore was running against President Bush one week before the election of 2000," said Steve Schmidt, Mr. McCain’s chief strategist. "We have ground to make up, but we believe we can make it up."
Wait, hold it-- back the truck up. Did a Republican operative just invoke Al Gore as a path to victory?
Just two years ago, they'd never allow the name "Vice President Gore" to slip from their lips, much less tacitly admit that Gore, in fact, won the 2000 election.
And not only that, but they're inspired about it?
I think I get their thinking... and it's bad news.
I want to pause a moment, before I get into the meat of the post, to let that quote sink in again:
"The McCain campaign is roughly in the position where Vice President Gore was running against President Bush one week before the election of 2000"
Feels good to hear a right-winger acknowledge Gore has the come-back kid of 2000, doesn't it? Like sweet revenge, to hear him hang his hopes on thoughts of Al Gore. Sweet, sweet irony.
That said, this could mean two things: a) that they think they have as much chance as Gore to come back and gain victory-- this time, without the SCOTUS to snatch it from their grasp or b) that they will come back from this up to ten point deficit and tie up the electoral college... giving their base a chance to cry foul.
You're already hearing, after all. The "Obama is stealing the election" narrative grows among the zealots like fungus. They point to ACORN, over and over-- never acknowledging that registration fraud, even if true, could not steal actual votes.
Doesn't matter. They're setting up the narrative anyway.
Perhaps they remember Gore too well-- less Gore the candidate than Gore the Martyr.
I'm sure many of you, if not driven to sites like Kos and MoveOn by President Bush, came here by way of the 2000 elections and the bitterness of seeing the true theft of an election.
It energized progressives, even as conservatives poo'h poo'hd and told folks to "get over it."
I don't see these heated up right wing zealots "getting over it." I see them taking the Palin "Anti-American" rhetoric, gripping it and running with it-- swearing that the Evil Black Man stole their election, that they'll come back in four years, that the old man McCain is a Martyr and the Liberals have become the terrorists.
They already believe it right now-- anti-American, Country First, ACORN, Obama the Muslim.... I can see these people believing, sincerely, that they'd just had their country stolen from them, thanks to the McCain/Palin rhetoric.
There's a bright spot-- McCain is no Al Gore. And this is NOT the year 2000. His policies are empty and/or Bushesque. The nation is in tatters-- the glow of the Clinton years CANNOT be compare to the stench of the Bush legacy.
This isn't the set-up for a tie-- this is the set-up for landslide.
Let's see them cry foul when the congress takes 20 seats for the Democrats, when the Senate picks up 4 more and when Barack Obama clears the board on John McCain, in both popular and electoral college votes. I know they live in their own little worlds, but even the most unhinged of conservatives couldn't pretend they'd had something stolen from them-- when it was clearly never theirs to begin with.