One thing that I think a lot of folks have been missing in recent days regarding John McCain's chances in this election is that John McCain's campaign will not be even close to as organized, dedicated and systematic in GOTV operations as George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns.
Which brings me to this great piece of news from Josh Marshall at TPM:
From a friend in DC Republican circles ...
I think you may be missing a key element of McCain's strategy. Remember, he has NO national ground game to counter Obama's vaunted field organization. No Bush-style 72 hour GOTV operation, no large and disciplined staff -- just a small core staff and media operation. In order to win without a ground game he literally has to destroy Obama as a viable alternative -- it isn't enough to just get close. That means the ads will be harder edged, more plentiful and more relentless than we've ever seen. I think Mark McKinnon realized that early on, and didn't want to be the guy to do to Obama what has to be done to win, as that person will become a political scourge (a la Atwater) when all is said and done, even if it works.
Now, I don't want to treat some anonymous GOP insider as the authoritative source (when they may not be telling the truth, etc.), but if this is true, this is a major factor in this election, especially in those red states that have not been competitive for a long time, i.e. IN, MT, the Dakotas, Alaska and NC, not to mention in the perennial purple states.
But read again what McCain thinks will work:
In order to win without a ground game he literally has to destroy Obama as a viable alternative -- it isn't enough to just get close. That means the ads will be harder edged, more plentiful and more relentless than we've ever seen.
Folks, this is very telling. It isn't sufficient for the McCain camp to simply get close.
Let that sink in.
By election day, this means he has to be up significantly, or he won't win.
After all, it took a basically unopposed Rove/swiftboat smear campaign AND the greatest field operation in modern political history for Dubya to win OH, NM, and IA by such small margins. While GOP voters are historically slightly more likely to turn out, pre-Bush campaigns showed that the GOP had an inferior grassroots voter turnout presence.
This, of course, is also not to say that we should not fight like our lives depend on it in this election. Look at what happened to Hillary when her campaign merely assumed that things were academic, all taken care of.
But this is why Obama has been working so hard and spending so much money in the field: he knows it will be THE difference.
Not his "offense" in early August.
He knows that if he can fight McCain to a small lead for himself, a great field operation, nay, the greatest field operation since the Bush 2004 campaign, the field operation that beat the Clintons, is the best card he has up his sleeve.
So to all the doomsayers, say what you feel needs to be said. We would be a bad DKos if we didn't speak our minds. But remember, we are not up against the equivalent of the Bush campaign.