It seems they've run their course, though there is, no doubt, still a tough fight ahead. Mostly, though, it is beginning to look as though the majority of the remaining battle is to keep the last vestige of the Republican Old Guard from throwing up roadblocks to disenfranchise voters and setting the toilet seats on fire as they leave.
We just need to get past these last frenzied metamorphoses of the death plunge of Senator McCain's oft-refitted Ship Of State.
It's beginning to be a familiar sight.
We see Senator Obama running his campaign in a cool and decisive manner, made so by the fact that he obviously believes in what he is doing. It's unnerving, really, to see someone so profoundly calm in the midst of a media storm the likes of which we have not seen in years on the campaign trail.
This is a direct result of the Senator's clear and simple approach to the art of politics.
- Stay on message. Give a concise, clear and consistent vision of where we want to be and relate all things to this central core of belief.
- Respect your enemy. Know your enemy, certainly, but respect him. Leave the personal attacks to those with less imagination and heart, which gives your opponent few handholds to drag you down with.
- Eschew the divisions that have kept the nation apart for decades. Be inclusive and help everyone buy into the idea.
As in the primaries, this approach has been devastating. For a people hungry for transparency in their government and a shared vision articulated in a way they can understand, it gives the Obama campaign that aura that can always be found around someone who really knows what they are doing. He makes it look easy.
On the other had, there is Senator McCain's campaign, an effort that is rapidly dwindling to the climactic scene from 'Terminator II', when the T-1000 drops into the molten metal and undergoes a frenetic replay of all the 'organisms' it has mimicked along the way.
As with Senator Clinton's campaign, McCain is still, at this late date, desperately searching for a purpose and a message that will make the polls turn up again.
He was The American Hero, then The Cool Experienced Hand, then The Man Who Understood How Washington Works, then The Maverick Reformer and lately, The All American Anti-Domestic-Terrorist Candidate and The Populist Everyman.
In every instance, however, he has consistently mis-fired, whiffed, pulled a Merkle, come up short, rolled snake eyes, missed the cutoff man, had two left feet and, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed the pooch.
McCain version 7.5a is no exception. While the lead weights slowing the Senator down are legion, including a disastrous choice for a running mate, polls show that the campaign's Everyman hero has made little, if any difference to the voting public. The revelation that their Republican Average Joe Worker Man has feet of clay no doubt contributed to the thunderous apathy which Joe has been greeted. It appears that the only people talking about Joe are the Senator himself, his Vice Presidential candidate, and the media who are fascinated by the ploy's failure.
Also, like the Clinton campaign, it is getting painful to watch. Though I do not want Senator McCain to succeed in any way, shape or form, it would be a mercy to have one of his staffers lean out of the wings during his next speech and, in a loud stage whisper, say....