This past week certainly appeared to be another in a string of good weeks for Obama and bad weeks for McCain, as summarized nicely in Kula2316's diary today. GOPers are publicly expressing their fears about McCain's prospects, putting their concern trolling into high gear, and new polls hold nothing but good news for Obama. Well, I've been around the block a few too many times to get too excited right now. Based on my many years of living on this earth, I think we need to brace ourselves for a final, Traditional Media-manufactured McCain "comeback." Before you flame me, jump down to see how I predict it will play out. It will probably sound familiar to many of you.
Folks, things are just going too well for Obama right now, and I know the Traditional Media don't like that. It means less viewers tuning in because everyone thinks they know what the ending to the story will be, which equals less advertising revenue. Gotta do something to shake-up the plot line!
The first thing that will happen is that reporters and pundits will soon start declaring that the "old" mavericky John McCain has returned! They will point to his performance last week in Minnesota, where he chided his supporters for the hate and anger that he created, and a few other such performances this week to declare that McCain has said to hell with his advisors, he's gonna do it his way, doggone it! I saw reporter Ana Marie Cox bring up this meme on Friday on the Rachel Maddow Show, of all places, and I expect this meme to pick up steam. "It's good to see the old John McCain back," many misty-eyed pols will say, remembering back to the good ol' days of stuffing down donuts with their pal Johnny in the back of the plane.
Next up, of course, race will be brought to the forefront, and we're already seeing the start of this one too. Images of Rev. Wright will fill the airwaves, and TV anchors will wring their hands and ask, over and over, is America REALLY ready, we mean REALLY REALLY ready, to elect a Black President? We're just asking.
Finally, the DC press corps will gush about McCain finally "hitting his stride." "Anderson, John seems to be back in his groove, doing what he does best," one pundit will say with gravitas, pointing to the fact that a new poll shows McCain actually taking back West Virginia! Suddenly, McCain has settled on the "right message" to appeal to all of those small-town, working-class white voters that the Traditional Media could never believe would vote for Obama anyway, despite all evidence to the contrary. "He really seems to be in his element now Wolf," another pundit will breathily observe.
But did McCain's comeback come too late to make up for all the ground he's lost? Or can he come from behind to pull it out? (And by the way, "Ayers!") Stay tuned to find out!
I don't think all of this will help John McCain win, but I do think we'll have to brace ourselves for some version of this in the last few weeks. I'm not concern trolling, I'm really really not. I've just lived too long, as I said earlier, to know what's coming. But I've also learned that the best way to fight this BS is to work as hard as you can for your candidate, work like there's no tomorrow. Because there really isn't.