Charlie Cook (The Cook Report at The National Journal writes:
Obama Swinging For The Fences
By every metric, the Democrat's presidential campaign looks as if it is headed for the upper deck.
As this campaign has shifted from a surprise-around-every-corner situation to one more akin to watching concrete set, many observers have begun playing "What if?" If McCain had picked someone other than Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, would he now be higher in the polls? If the senator from Arizona had waged this battle more as John McCain 1.0, the 2000-vintage candidate who was more of a maverick and less of a partisan than the 2008 version, could he have succeeded because he was less tied to his Republican Party and less joined at the hip with President Bush?
These are interesting questions, but they avoid one unmistakable fact: This is a toxic political environment for Republicans. That's why they will probably lose at least seven seats in the Senate and at least 20 in the House. Having former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former eBay CEO Meg Whitman or even Mother Teresa as McCain's running mate would not have changed that. And, with Bush's job-approval rating in a recent Gallup Poll at 25 percent, my National Journal colleague Ronald Brownstein has noted that McCain would need the support of one-third of all voters who disapprove of Bush's performance in order to reach 50 percent in a general election. With Republican Party identification down from parity four years ago to a 10-point deficit, this race would have been incredibly hard for the Republican nominee no matter what. ...
Of course, this election isn't over. Something could transform it from one focused on an economic recession to one obsessed with national security or some other topic that would give McCain a fighting chance. But with the growing popularity of early voting, that "something" would have to be very big and happen very soon to have the power to change the trajectory of Obama's campaign.
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The Overnight News Digest is posted and includes the story: Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan admits that widespread deregulation might have been a very bad idea..
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