In my opinion, conservatives are starting to sweat BIG time. It started with a trickle - David Brooks, and then George Will, and then Kathleen Parker - but now less than 40 days before the election, can McCain afford to lose any more conservative support? Today Bill Kristol and Frank Barnes are both out with new articles where they actually acknowledge McCain's dire straits.
Kristol also finds the most ridiculous reasoning for starting the Wright conversation again (seriously, you won't believe this one).
And, further bad news for the GOP - McCain is going to have to play some defense in North Carolina and Indiana. And a local Kentucky poll shows the race tightening there as well (not that McCain probably has to worry much about this state) but voter support for Palin seems to be dropping. In Kentucky of all places!!
William Kristol optimistically details How McCain wins in the New York Times. But Kristol's admission that McCain is losing at this point is stunning coming from someone who spins to the point of ridiculousness:
John McCain is on course to lose the presidential election to Barack Obama. Can he turn it around, and surge to victory?
He has a chance. But only if he overrules those of his aides who are trapped by conventional wisdom, huddled in a defensive crouch and overcome by ideological timidity.
Sometimes I think that conservatives truly believe that there is an "old" John McCain circa 2000 and if he would just reemerge he would look this thing up. What they don't realize is that this IS John McCain... they blame his advisors as if they have held him hostage and forced him to make bad decisions. Even if that were true, what does it say about you if you are constrained by the people who work for you? Sorry guys, there is only one McCain and what you see is what you get.
If you guessed that Republicans would try to bring up Wright again, you are absolutely right. Kristol goes there and finds the weakest possible reason for highlighting the connection again - Wright's church once wrote a brochure called "A Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness," so that means that Obama is anti-middle class. I'm not going to put Kristol's whole quote here because it is just too dumb, but it provides an insight into how Republicans will try to bring this issue up again. And trust me, they will bring it up again.
Fred Barnes does his worrying in the Wall Street Journal, imploring John McCain not to count on the next two debates to change any of the fundamentals of the race (and in this case, John, the fundamentals for you are decidedly NOT strong!):
The fundamentals of the race remain. And while they aren't nearly as daunting as those facing Mr. Mondale in 1984, they certainly favor Mr. Obama. The economy is weak. The president is unpopular. It's a change, not a status quo, election. The surge has worked, but the war in Iraq is hardly a campaign plus. The political cycle points to a Democratic takeover. Democratic voter registration is up. Republican registration is down. Republicans trail Democrats in party identification.
All of these factors put a drag on Mr. McCain's bid to win the White House. But the largest drag is the crisis in financial markets that erupted six weeks before Election Day. As the crisis has lingered, Mr. Obama's lead over Mr. McCain has grown almost daily in polls. Mr. McCain's decision to briefly suspend his campaign last week and play a role in Washington's rescue effort didn't appear to help his cause significantly.
Given the fact that even McCain diehards Kristol and Barnes believe he is losing - and are not even trying to spin their way out of this one - should be noteworthy. Combine that with the conservative reaction from George Will and Kathleen Parker last week, and McCain looks to be in a dire situation. What a better way for McCain to forget his sorrows than to settle in and watch Sarah Palin talk for 90 minutes on Thursday!
McCain can't even get a break in Arkansas. John Brummett of the Arkansas News Bureau calls out McCain's Cynicism Express:
McCain's campaign has been uncommonly brazen in its cynicism, claiming a mantle of change because of the running mate selection of an unqualified Alaskan neophyte, then decrying insider influence while McCain's own campaign manager has a lobbying firm that, until a month ago, was on retainer from Freddie Mac, one of the bailed-out mortgage guarantors.
Another indication things are not going well in McPalin land? Chris Cillizza and Paul Kane at the Washington Post report that North Carolina is increasingly looking like a swing state, with implications for the NC Senate race as well:
Once considered safe ground for Republicans -- especially at the federal level -- the Tar Heel State has played host to a Democratic resurgence in the past two years. New polls in the state show Barack Obama and John McCain in a dead heat, and Republicans are worried about Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who finds herself in a tough race against state Sen. Kay Hagan. The key to victory for Democrats in North Carolina? Maximizing black turnout -- African Americans account for one in five residents, according to the 2000 census -- while finding a way to win downscale white voters across the center of the state.
Not only is there concern amongst Republicans about North Carolina, but Indiana as well. Seth Slabaugh at the Muncie Star Press (IN) reports that the GOP admits presidential race in Indiana 'closer than we'd like':
There are several trends that gives Obama's campaign hope in Indiana. For example, after the 2006 mid-term election, Indiana's Congressional delegation shifted from seven Republicans and two Democrats to five Democrats and four Republicans.
This year, Indiana's Democratic primary turnout -- 1.3 million -- exceeded the number of Indiana votes John Kerry received in 2004 by more than 300,000 and came within 25,000 votes of what Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels received in the 2004 general election. More than 500,000 voters have registered in 2008 through Sept. 3, and a record turnout is expected in November.
Indiana is ready for change, according to the Obama campaign, because of high gasoline prices, low home values and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs as the result of the failed economic policies of George Bush and McCain. Obama has more than 30 offices in Indiana, compared to none for McCain, who has visited Indiana only once since the primary.
There's been a lot of talk this week about whether John McCain would dump Sarah Palin from the ticket if the reviews keep getting worse. Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight (one of my must-read sites) argues that it won't happen for a number of reasons, all related to the fact that it won't help McCain to get rid of her:
McCain already runs the risk of his campaign appearing to be something of a three-ring circus, with Britney Spears in one ring, Palin in another, and the "suspension" of his campaign in a third. To replace Palin now might make his campaign seem like a farce. And when was the last time the candidate who was the butt of more jokes won the election?
Palin is even getting bad poll numbers in Kentucky of all places. James Carroll of the Louisville Courier-Journal reports:
Although they solidly support Republican John McCain for president, more Kentucky voters are less confident in the leadership abilities of his vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, according to the latest Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll.
In fact, 47 percent of likely Kentucky voters said the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, was more qualified to lead, compared with 36 percent for Palin.
So, let me get this straight. Only 36% of likely Kentucky voters think Palin is qualified to lead. Yet they will solidly support McCain for President. Does that make ANY sense? That same poll also gives McCain a +10 point lead over Obama, 49% to 39% in Kentucky - which is down from his leads of 18-20 points in previous polls.
Well, it will be interesting to see what this week brings. What do you think about Obama's chances for North Carolina or Indiana? Will there be even more public conservative grief this week? And, while we shouldn't underestimate Palin's ability to perhaps be able to form coherent sentences at the debate, what will the McCain campaign do if she bombs?