Has McCain actually already LOST?(Yes he has)

[Stormbringer]

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. appears to be off limits after McCain condemned the North Carolina Republican Party in April for an ad that linked Obama to his former pastor, saying, "Unfortunately, all I can do is, in as visible a way as possible, disassociate myself from that kind of campaigning."

Which probably means his campaign leadership is hoping that a conservative 527 will pick it up and run with it.

Not necessarily. McCain has some skeletal pastors in his closet too as a result of chasing the evangelical vote. He can try to play that card, and he may well, but I think he can't blare it from the heavens. Wright is in some ways old news and voters are focused on what is going to happen to them. They're looking for a leader with a plan right now and trying to chip at Obama's support won't help him too much.

As RedImperator has said, McCain pretty much has to run negatively but he can't do as Bush did because the voters are more focused on the issues and he's got a much tougher and savvier opponent.

The vote fraud accusations in Ohio have three key pieces of evidence:

1) Some high-profile glitches in Diebold voting machines which always managed to award votes to Republicans.
2) A promise by Diebold CEO and top Republican fundraiser Walden O'Dell to deliver Ohio for Bush.
3) The discrepancy between the exit polls and the final tally in Ohio.

The third one, in my mind, is by far the most damning. I don't know if there ever was a serious investigation; certainly there wasn't right after the election, when the Republican Party controlled the Ohio state government.

I wouldn't necessarily consider that last so damning to be honest. I think it's more a monument to human duplicity in that people were voting Republican and lying about it. They knew they were going to play a very big part in deciding the course of the nation for the next four years. And they didn't want to admit they put a known idiot at the wheel.

Of course, there should have been a thorough investigation but the allegations remain simply allegations.

[Gil Hamilton]

I'd think the first two in combination would be the most damning. Making a foolproof voting machine is TRIVIAL from a computer science standpoint, it's a topic we've all been over, yet somehow a company that also makes ATMs for banks manages to screw it up. The fact that they not only screwed up, but screwed up in a completely lopsided manner after the guy who runs the company that makes them promised the state it happened in to a candidate is pretty damn suspicious.

[Tribun]

Ok, here's the reason why McCain pulled out of Michigan:
Link

Public funding limits pushed McCain out of Michigan

By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 10/04/08 10:39 AM [ET]

Barack Obama’s decision to forego public funding for his presidential campaign helped force John McCain to withdraw from Michigan, abandoning an important strategic objective, said a McCain adviser.

The withdrawal was a painful decision for Sen. McCain (Ariz.), the GOP presidential nominee, who spent nearly $8 million to advertise in the state.


McCain strategists decided, however, that they had to pull out of Michigan to keep up with Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee, who has been allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts on the general election because he opted out of public funds.

McCain has had to adhere to spending limits because he accepted public funds for his campaign after winning the GOP nomination in September.

“Part of it is they agreed to accept federal matching funds, which capped the money,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who has served as a regular adviser to McCain.

“Obama did not. Obama has access to a lot more money than we do,” stated the lawmaker.

Upton, who has backed McCain since the beginning of the primaries, and other lawmakers from battleground states have met with the McCain campaign often to discuss the race.

He received a heads-up from the campaign about its decision to pull out before the news broke Thursday, he stated.

“I understood,” said Upton. “You have to target resources now.”

“They’ve got to focus on states that will take us to 270 rather than take-away states,” he added, referring to the minimum number of electoral votes needed to capture the White House.

Upton said McCain focused on Michigan soon after clinching the nomination because he felt he could steal a state that traditionally has voted for Democratic presidential candidates. McCain believed such a coup would spell disaster for Obama.

“We always knew that, if we won Michigan, it was over for Obama,” said Upton.

Three polls in May showed McCain leading Obama in Michigan.

But Obama’s campaign and its allies also knew the importance of Michigan and made it a high priority.

Karen Ackerman, the political director of the AFL-CIO, told reporters in August that union strategists had made Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania their top priorities.

The AFL-CIO conducted a massive effort to introduce Obama as a friend of the working class to union households in Michigan.

Democrats and labor unions have also made it a central part of their strategy to claim that McCain represents a continuation of President Bush’s economic policies. That tack appears to have proved effective in Michigan.

Rep. Thad McCotter (R-Mich.) said McCain was hurt in Michigan by how its economy has fared under the Bush administration.

“We’ve had a very tough economy under Bush and Granholm,” he said in reference to Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D). “In Michigan, the 3rd term of Bush had more resonance than in other states.” Obama began to pull away from McCain in Michigan at the end of September after concerns about the national economy grew louder.

A Detroit Free Press poll at the end of last month gave Obama a 13-point lead.

Rep. Dave Hobson (R), who has represented an Ohio district for 18 years in Congress, said McCain’s lack of traction among working-class voters in Michigan did not mean he would have trouble in neighboring Ohio.

Hobson argued that while both states have large blocs of working-class voters, pro-Democratic unions are much stronger in Michigan.

“I didn’t think we were going to win Michigan anyway,” he said. “Michigan is a different deal [from Ohio]. Unions are much more dominant there. Ohio has a lot more rural population. It’s not as bad off economically as Michigan.”

Democratic nominees John Kerry and Al Gore both carried the state by three and five percentage points in 2004 and 2000, respectively.

Michigan has nearly 10 percent unemployment and Michigan voters have questioned McCain’s support of free trade agreements, which many in the state view as responsible for lost jobs.

Mike DuHaime, McCain’s political director, has told reporters the campaign will shift personnel and resources from Michigan to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Obama’s campaign reported $77.4 million in cash on hand at the end of August. McCain reported $26.9 million in the bank at the same time.

It looks like Obama's tactic of not getting any money from the government is starting to pay off, if he can outspend him so much.

[Scottish Ninja]

Never underestimate the stupidity of average people. I would not be surprised if Republicans won this. Not at all. These are the same voters who put Bush in the office in 2004.

I would point out to you that the margin of Bush's victory in 2004 was only 3% —and there is very good reason to suspect Diebold shennanigans at work in Ohio which may have turned that state and the entire election in his favour.

Has there ever actually been any evidence to suggest that
A) this did indeed happen
or
B) that the Democrats would simply let it slide if it did?

Yes, in fact, although American media don't like to report things like that. Greg Palast did, though, for the BBC. He goes into a lot more detail in his book, Armed Madhouse, including this quite interesting bit:

Sharp readers notice that I've avoided a lot of the talk about computer voting and evidence that those computer "black-box" machines were just plain fixed. That's because we have a less dramatic answer at hand for missing votes: "There's this Hollywood idea of stealing them [elections]... this sexual thing where, 'Ah, man! We caught 'em!' and they were switching votes on the computer and stuff like that," Santiago Juarez told me, frustrated that Anglo "reformers" cared more about the unknown dangers of touchscreen machines and couldn't give a rat's ass about IDs for low riders. "But actually, elections are stolen in ways that aren't elegant - they're not Hollywoodish - but they are real effective at suppressing the vote."

Computer voting was a distraction from the real issues with voting in the 2004 election, including massive spoilage of black and poor votes, insufficient machines in certain precincts, old and malfunctioning voting machines known to have problems left in place in minority areas, the trashing of provisional and absentee ballots, and so on. This is not to say that there weren't problems with computers:

A month after the election, I flew to Columbus, Ohio, and met with investigators Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman. Unlike the Mercury and the rest of the media's see-no-evil gang, Fitrakis and Wasserman thought they should actually get these basic documents that backed up the touch-screen tallies. As was their right under the states' Freedom of Information Law. They petitioned officials in the state to produce their voting-machine backup logs. The first reply was none too comforting.

The backup tapes have been destroyed so as not to conflict with the official tally and create confusion.

Huh? The computer logs were different than the "official" totals... so the county did the right thing: threw the evidence in the garbage.

Wasserman and Fitrakis were gob smacked - not just because the true vote was tossed out but because, as lawyers, they told me that chucking voting records is a crime.

So obviously nothing suspicious happened in the 2004 election, right? There's plenty more of this kind of stuff, and quite frankly it scares me. The US Census has the following footnote on a report on voter turnout:

The CPS estimate of overall turnout (125.7 million) differs from the “official” turnout, as reported by the Clerk of the House (122.3 million).

So the Census estimates that 3.3 million people voted but did not have their votes counted. Brilliant! That's a sure way to tell that nothing dishonest happened in an election. And surely it won't happen again.

(The Census report can be found here.)

[Stormbringer]

I don't buy the idea that McCain is that hard up for cash. Sure he's running on public funding but the Republicans have used the usual gamut of slush funds to help augment that significantly. The two aren't nearly as far apart when you take that into account as the Republicans would like you to believe. McCain and public funding has always been a smoke screen and a gamble rather than a real stand on principle. This line sounds to me more like a pretext or rationalization than the whole reason McCain got out of Michigan.

Rep. Thad McCotter (R-Mich.) said McCain was hurt in Michigan by how its economy has fared under the Bush administration.

“We’ve had a very tough economy under Bush and Granholm,” he said in reference to Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D). “In Michigan, the 3rd term of Bush had more resonance than in other states.” Obama began to pull away from McCain in Michigan at the end of September after concerns about the national economy grew louder.

To me that sounds a far more plausible reason. McCain is suffering because he's not looking sufficiently different from Bush to matter in a state wracked by a crumbling economy, decaying infrastructure, and spiraling cost of life. The state has a significant portion of Republicans but they're far friendlier to Democratic ideals, and definitely more hostile to the incestuous relationship with big business, than the south or other areas. The number of Democrats combined with Purple Republicans and he was facing an uphill battle from the day he started cozying up to big business. No doubt they were betting on his "maverick" credibility to draw in conservative Democrats while retaining their base. But his embrace of the Republican status quo in the primaries has scuttled that.

I dare say that if the Pennsylvania pull out is true, it's probably for similar reasons. And overall it seems like that's a microcosm of the problem McCain has had to date.

[The Original Nex]

The underlying point regarding is pull out of Michigan and possibly Pennsylvania is that, while it is tied to public financing, he has to pull out BECAUSE he now needs to defend what ought to be solid Republican states, like Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri. He can't compete in all the "traditional battleground states" or the Kerry states anymore because he has to defend Bush states.

Here's an editorial in the Boston Globe on the pullout of Michigan, and the changing winds:

Losing hope in Michigan

Losing hope in Michigan

By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | October 4, 2008

WYOMING, Mich.

IT IS NO WONDER John McCain pulled the plug on his Michigan campaign this week when you listen to Scott Laskey. The 42-year-old regional manager for a compressed gas company was laughing at himself at his Wednesday bowling night in this suburb of Grand Rapids. Laskey voted for President Bush both times. The war and the economy has him voting for Democrat Barack Obama.

"What was I thinking?" Laskey said. "How many times do I have to be hit over the head? Bush hasn't done anything."

He said that with gasoline prices and other belt tightning, he had to put one of his three cars in the garage to afford car insurance for his son, and now Laskey, his wife, and their son have to share two cars in the suburbs. "The whole economy is out of control," Laskey said. "I think my insurance was like $45 when I was a teenager."

Another bowler, Gerry Wojtaszek, a 49-year-old district manager for a furniture and appliance rental center, also voted both times for Bush. He, too, says he is voting for Obama.

"The first time, I felt that the economy would step up under him," Wojtaszek said. "The second time, I was supportive of the war. But the economy's a hell in a handbasket. The war is still going on. I thought about voting for McCain on experience, but with all the time he's been in office, what has he done?"

Michigan was assumed to be a battleground state after Democrat John Kerry won here in 2004 by only 165,000 votes out of 4.8 million cast. But with the nation's economic news being the gloomiest here, and September auto sales down over 30 percent at Ford and Chrysler, patience for McCain's experience is wearing thin. After a September where McCain had a small lead in two polls, now three polls show Obama with a double-digit lead for the first time.

The day that McCain's campaign confirmed it was abandoning Michigan, Obama worked this Republican part of the state with an outdoor rally of about 16,000 people in downtown Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids is in Kent County, which Bush handily won. While Obama voters chanted for change, McCain supporters at the bowling lanes and other places wondered how much enthusiasm there was for their candidate.

The Grand Rapids Press this week reported that compared with 2004, when Bush outraised Kerry in Kent County by four-and-a-half times, McCain has outraised Obama by only double.

Three of Laskey's bowling buddies - Tom Buckowing, a 47-year-old office chair maker, Dan Potts, a 53-year-old director of an office supplies distribution company, and Rob Houck, a 46-year-old self-employed painter - are still supporting McCain, but Houck and Buckowing said that could change depending on the economy. Houck said he is now painting two houses for every seven he painted a couple of years ago. Potts recently watched 70 fellow workers, including his son, lose their jobs as his company was swallowed up in a merger. Buckowing has been going back and forth and is leaning toward McCain for his experience, though he is bothered by McCain's choice of Sarah Palin because of her inexperience.

There were two other bowlers at the Laskey table. Scott Verhage, 23, bowls on the team in place of his father, who died four years ago. He is voting for Obama on the economy as he has watched his overtime be eliminated at his job as a gas station cashier. He has suffered many indignities of having people irate at the price of gasoline take it out on him verbally and knock merchandise at his feet. Ken Koster, a 50-year-old division supervisor for a food distributor, has not been a registered voter for 14 years. He says he's registering to vote for Obama.

"I'm tired of killing myself for nothing," he said. "The $700 billion bailout is the final straw. When are they going to bail US out?"

With that, it is easy to see why McCain bailed out of Michigan.

Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com.

A Daily Kos diarists (yes it's a lefty-blog I know) testimonial on the ground situation in Pennsylvania:

First Michigan, now Pennsylvania!? Why Can't McCain Close the Deal on "Hard Working Americans..."?
by Bob Sackamento
Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 05:26:03 AM PDT

The headline on Huffington Post reads: "McCain Could Be Forced Out of Pennsylvania." The story:

Many speculated that McCain would now turn his focus to Pennsylvania. But United Steelworkers International president Leo Gerard tells the Huffington Post that the state could soon go the way of Michigan.

"We're seeing -- from the several hundred of our people working every day, hand-billing at the plants -- the last two weeks have really been breaking Senator Obama's way," Gerard said over the phone from his office in Pittsburgh. "In particular, I think folks are sort of not taking John McCain as serious as they were, when they see his vacillation last week. 'I'm not going to debate. I'm going to whip House Republicans into shape. Not."

We shouldn't be surprised when it happens. We see it in the polls, you just saw its harbinger in Michigan, and I see it on the ground in Chester County. It's in my neighborhood, the other neighborhoods, my commute to work, at the grocery store, downtown...EVERYWHERE I look, Obama rules the day. I realize I live in Obama-friendly territory (Philly burbs), but you don't get 15-point Quinnipiac leads without the help of some of that proverbial Scranton "hard working American, white American" scrappiness and an assist from the Western portion of the state.

What I'm witnessing at my job, though, is the loud ringing of a bell tolling for McCain's chances in Pennsylvania. There, people have been fired over politics. It's forbidden. During the primaries, I would occasionally hear the Engineers on the east side of the office faintly discussing the latest news. But they were lucky enough to have a department unified in progressive values. My side of the building? Not so much.

On my side of the building, the typical water-cooler gossip during the primaries centered around Jeff Lewis's latest freak out, "Dancing with the Stars" or a colleague's latest, feeble attempt to perform a dog whisperer stunt. My side of the building loyally respected the "Politics strictly prohibited rule."

Not lately, though. Discussions about the latest political news--always flattering about Obama and bemused about McCain/Palin--have permeated the entire office.

My very own boss, a staunch Republican, has transformed into an Obama voter right before my eyes. It was a slow, painful process, but it's complete. It began early during the primaries, when I watched in horror as my boss mocked a colleague's daughter for supporting Obama. I remember her asking something to the effect of, "is her support informed, or is she just taken in by the rapture?"

After Obama clinched the nomination, she conceded to me that she hadn't really followed the substance of the primary campaign and was mostly paying attention to the superficial (e.g., the bitter, the clinging, America's chickens coming home to roost, Arugala, etc.). But now that she was paying attention, she admitted Obama was growing on her. At that point, her transformation became a rapid and visible process. Soon, she was probing me for details on his policy positions (e.g., "He doesn't really want to overturn the second Amendment, does he?"), worrying about his poll numbers and ridiculing the McCain/Palin ticket (often).

Yesterday, it came to a head. Our resident bitter, clingy small-towner, also a staunch Republican (and the mother of that Obama supporter mentioned earlier), overheard my boss skewering Palin's folksiness. Despite the A-B nature of the conversation, it caused the offended party to explode. She reacted by playing the Midwestern card, the "y'all" card, the small-town card and the "you're elitists, making fun of my religion and guns and blah, blah, blah" card. She even threatened to pull the HR card. But my boss wasn't parodying the Midwest, small-towns or the three G's; she was parodying stupid.

In brazen defiance of the employee handbook, Republican was pit against Republican over a Democratic Senator named Barack HUSSEIN Obama. And to think that these same two had teamed up to roast Obama and his "cult" following only a few months ago.

Maybe this kind of insanity and party flipping is normal here in PA (my family just moved here from Florida last year). Where I'm from, though, you are lucky if a Democrat votes democratic, let alone a Republican votes for our party. So I think the Huffington Post article is right, and I recommend you all (y'all) brace yourselves for news of McCain abandoning the state. Or throwing away his money here.

That said, I need to go get some coffee and register some voters...

It seems that the general attitude among voters is changing, and heading towards Obama.

[Gil Hamilton]

To me that sounds a far more plausible reason. McCain is suffering because he's not looking sufficiently different from Bush to matter in a state wracked by a crumbling economy, decaying infrastructure, and spiraling cost of life. The state has a significant portion of Republicans but they're far friendlier to Democratic ideals, and definitely more hostile to the incestuous relationship with big business, than the south or other areas. The number of Democrats combined with Purple Republicans and he was facing an uphill battle from the day he started cozying up to big business. No doubt they were betting on his "maverick" credibility to draw in conservative Democrats while retaining their base. But his embrace of the Republican status quo in the primaries has scuttled that.

I dare say that if the Pennsylvania pull out is true, it's probably for similar reasons. And overall it seems like that's a microcosm of the problem McCain has had to date.

I think Pennsylvania has a similar situation. In Western PA, at the very least, is full of people who are somewhat conservative, but have just been messed up by the economic downturns. As a result, you've got alot of people who might well have voted for McCain in better times or are tied to the Republican party via moral issues, but are starting to look closely at Obama (despite the significant amount of negative press he gets here*), because at least he seems somewhat different than what they've been getting. Too many people that I've talked to (and Edinboro is in ruralish PA) just don't see McCain as all that different from Bush, and the Bush Administration failed to take them to the Promised Land like they hoped. Instead, their brothers and cousins are getting yet more tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that puts a bit of strain on their enthusiasm for people promising more of the same.

(*The NRA and various Republican groups have been buying alot of commercial time going on about the "bitter" comment he made during the primaries with their "Defend Freedom/Defeat Obama" campaign, trying to appeal to the Guns and God crowd that exists in large numbers in rural and suburban PA).

[irishmick79]

I don't buy the idea that McCain is that hard up for cash. Sure he's running on public funding but the Republicans have used the usual gamut of slush funds to help augment that significantly. The two aren't nearly as far apart when you take that into account as the Republicans would like you to believe. McCain and public funding has always been a smoke screen and a gamble rather than a real stand on principle. This line sounds to me more like a pretext or rationalization than the whole reason McCain got out of Michigan.

Rep. Thad McCotter (R-Mich.) said McCain was hurt in Michigan by how its economy has fared under the Bush administration.

“We’ve had a very tough economy under Bush and Granholm,” he said in reference to Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D). “In Michigan, the 3rd term of Bush had more resonance than in other states.” Obama began to pull away from McCain in Michigan at the end of September after concerns about the national economy grew louder.

To me that sounds a far more plausible reason. McCain is suffering because he's not looking sufficiently different from Bush to matter in a state wracked by a crumbling economy, decaying infrastructure, and spiraling cost of life. The state has a significant portion of Republicans but they're far friendlier to Democratic ideals, and definitely more hostile to the incestuous relationship with big business, than the south or other areas. The number of Democrats combined with Purple Republicans and he was facing an uphill battle from the day he started cozying up to big business. No doubt they were betting on his "maverick" credibility to draw in conservative Democrats while retaining their base. But his embrace of the Republican status quo in the primaries has scuttled that.

I dare say that if the Pennsylvania pull out is true, it's probably for similar reasons. And overall it seems like that's a microcosm of the problem McCain has had to date.

I think that both of these problems are working against McCain, and they're tied together. He's been hammered on his ability to handle the issues well, especially the economic issue, and he doesn't have the resources to effectively challenge that impression of him across the board. So, he has to focus his resources on where they can make the most difference. He could overcome his deficiencies in his campaigns ground organization and advertising if he could convince voters to trust in his leadership qualities and experience, but so far his pitch to voters has not worked because Obama has successfully linked him to Bush and his response to the wall street crisis appears to have been a complete catastrophe. This is where Obama's financial edge is coming to play - it's allowing him to define the narrative on the ground for voters, and puts pressure on McCain to fight that much harder for every vote out there.

So let's see if we can put this into some perspective for the electoral map....the battleground states are currently MN, WI, MI, NV, CO, NM, NC, VA, FL, OH, NH, PA, ME, IA, IN, and MO (according to electoral-vote.com, cnnpolitics, fivethirtyeight.com)

Obama has polled very well in PA, NH, IA, NM and MI, so we can see what happens when we put those in Obama's column. That brings Obama's electoral vote total to 240 to McCain's 163. McCain has run ahead for most of the campaign in IN, MO and OH. They went red in 2004 and McCain has held a lead for most of the campaign, so let's try putting those in his column. That brings us to 240-205. That leaves MN, WI, NV, CO, VA, FL, and ME in play. Let's assume that Obama successfully defends the Kerry states, so that puts MN, WI, and ME in his column. Now, we're sitting at 264-205. If Obama wins any one of CO, VA, NC, or FL he wins the presidency. McCain would have to successfully defend all of them and pick off NV to win in this scenario. If Obama wins NV, then it's a 269-269 tie.

The real wrench in Obama's electoral map would be a failure to defend one of the Kerry states. I don't quite see that happening, since he's been running pretty strongly in the Kerry states until the race in MN and WI tightened a little bit recently. Still, stranger things have happened, and so I remain cautiously optimistic. McCain's campaign right now is getting attacked on multiple fronts on ground they have to defend to get to the white house. If Obama can outspend McCain by an almost 3 to 1 ratio, he has a lot more options available to him.

[Fire Fly]

What is most confusing about McCain's pullout in Michigan is why they're making such a big fuss over it anyways. You don't concede defeat and then make a public announcement about it. What I think is going on is that the McCain campaign sees consistent and unfavorable numbers (perhaps combined with limited time and resources) and they're trying to get more independent groups to attack Obama. Not only does this ease the burden from the central campaign but it also washes their hands clean of any dirt. I suspect in the next few days to weeks, Michigan will be awash in even more negative attack ads.

[Patrick Degan]

As for McCain going negative: he doesn't have much left. He can't argue foreign policy experience because 1) he picked Sarah Palin, and 2) Obama held his own at the debate. He can't argue executive experience because 1) Palin, despite doing better on Thursday, is still seen as an unqualified lightweight and 2) he doesn't have any, either. Obama crushed him on Iraq in the first debate. He mishandled the economic crisis from day one. His "suspend the campaign" gambit was a catastrophe; the whole thing got exposed as a sham by David Letterman, of all people, he went back on his promise to skip the debate, he took credit for the bailout's passage just before it failed, showed no leadership over the following three days, and claimed he would have vetoed it after he voted for it. McCain managed to do the impossible: he's tied to a bailout the voters hate even while he's criticized for showing no leadership in getting it passed and embarrassed by his own showboating. He has no credibility on the economy at all. In fact, his campaign has little credibility left, period: a summer's worth of ridiculous lies has caught up with them. He can't shake his connection to Bush. He's even used up most of his war hero cred by using it as a distraction every time he's backed into a corner. What's left besides smearing Obama?

And that is as likely to backfire on McCain as everything else has. Because Obama isn't going to just withdraw into a shell or whine. Trying to go the smear route against a Chicago politician? Obama can turn each and every one of McCain's lies, gaffes, and missteps back on him with ease, and for each smear, he can simply reply: "Why not? They can't talk experience, they can't talk judgement, they've stopped trying to talk issues and they haven't got a record they can possibly defend, so what's left for them but slander? There they go again."

[TithonusSyndrome]

What is most confusing about McCain's pullout in Michigan is why they're making such a big fuss over it anyways. You don't concede defeat and then make a public announcement about it. What I think is going on is that the McCain campaign sees consistent and unfavorable numbers (perhaps combined with limited time and resources) and they're trying to get more independent groups to attack Obama. Not only does this ease the burden from the central campaign but it also washes their hands clean of any dirt. I suspect in the next few days to weeks, Michigan will be awash in even more negative attack ads.

I can't see leaving your campaign in an entire freaking state to independent campaigners being worth the political cyanide that being seen publicly running with your tail between your legs is. There's not much any independent advertisement can say about Obama that will make him look worse in the public eye than the old one-note prune and his raisin sidekick will after this, and nobody wants to vote for a weak candidate who can't hold onto your state and stinks like a lost cause.

[irishmick79]

What is most confusing about McCain's pullout in Michigan is why they're making such a big fuss over it anyways. You don't concede defeat and then make a public announcement about it. What I think is going on is that the McCain campaign sees consistent and unfavorable numbers (perhaps combined with limited time and resources) and they're trying to get more independent groups to attack Obama. Not only does this ease the burden from the central campaign but it also washes their hands clean of any dirt. I suspect in the next few days to weeks, Michigan will be awash in even more negative attack ads.

A much smoother choice for McCain would have been to quietly remove people and leave behind only a skeleton staff to deal with congressional candidates. That way you're not completely burning your bridges to the state, and you're expending a minimal amount of resources. Instead, McCain gets the worst of both worlds - he's got no resources there they look like idiots since Palin apparently disagrees with McCain's decision to pull out. Great coordination, guys. The McCain campaign is beginning to resemble Hillary's campaign in its final weeks. Poor coordination, lousy mistakes being made, finger pointing, infighting, low morale. This is a campaign that seems to have lost a lot of confidence.

[D.Turtle]

One thing that has been largely ignored (and is not really reflected in polls) is the difference in the ground game between the two campaigns.

Sean Quinn from 538.com has been doing a road trip through the battleground states for some time now, looking at the ground game of both campaigns. He has until recently had access to both Obama and McCain campaign offices, talking to the people there (volunteers and paid staff) and blogging about his experience and his impressions in a relatively non-partisan way, as the focus was on showing what the ground game looks like, what it entails, etc. However, in Missouri, the McCain campaign suddenly told him to piss off and that he would not be allowed access to any McCain campaign offices in Missouri. After this happened, he took off the kid's gloves and told it like it is on the ground:

Let’s be clear. We've observed no comparison between these ground campaigns. To begin with, there’s a 4-1 ratio of offices in most states. We walk into McCain offices to find them closed, empty, one person, two people, sometimes three people making calls. Many times one person is calling while the other small clutch of volunteers are chatting amongst themselves. In one state, McCain’s state field director sat in one of these offices and, sotto voce, complained to us that only one man was making calls while the others were talking to each other about how much they didn't like Obama, which was true. But the field director made no effort to change this. This was the state field director.

Only for the first time the other day did we see a McCain organizer make a single phone call. So we've now seen that once. The McCain organizers seem to operate as maître Ds. Let me escort you to your phone, sir. Pick any one of this sea of empty chairs. I'll be sitting over here if you need any assistance.

...

The McCain offices are also calm, sedate. Little movement. No hustle. In the Obama offices, it's a whirlwind. People move. It's a dynamic bustle. You can feel it in our photos.

...

You could take every McCain volunteer we’ve seen doing actual work in the entire trip, over six states, and it would add up to the same as Obama’s single Thornton, CO office. Or his single Durango, CO office. These ground campaigns bear no relationship to each other.

You would have to be delusional to think that this huge difference in the ground game will not make a difference in the election.

[Tribun]

Brace youselves, this is the kind of shit we will hear for 30 days:

Palin Turns to NYT, Citing Article on Ayers

By Juliet Eilperin
It turns out GOP vice presidential nominee does like the mainstream media after all -- at least, when it's publishing unflattering stories about Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

At a fundraiser this morning in Englewood, Colo., Palin cited an article in today's New York Times as evidence that Obama "sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country." The Alaska governor was referring to William Ayers, one of the founding members of the Weathermen and someone who once served on a charitable board with Obama in Chicago. The group conducted bombings in the 1960s in protest of the Vietnam War; Obama has denounced Ayers' involvement in the group.

"Well, I was reading my copy of today's New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago," Palin told the crowd. "Turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man who, according to The New York Times was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.' These are the same guys who think patriotism is paying higher taxes. This is not a man who sees America as you and I do -- as the greatest force for good in the world. This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country. This, ladies and gentlemen, has nothing to do with the kind of change anyone can believe in -- not my kids and not your kids."

In fact, both a Washington Post article in April and today's New York Times piece revealed Obama and Ayers to have had only a casual association: the former radical hosted a coffee for Obama's first bid for state Senate, they served together on an educational charity board and both live in Chicago's Hyde Park.

Obama has taken pains to minimize their connection, calling Ayers "somebody who worked on education issues in Chicago that I know" and "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was eight."

Palin's comments come as aides to GOP presidential nominee John McCain are rolling out a series of negative attacks against Obama in an effort to make up some of the political ground McCain has lost in recent weeks.

The Obama campaign quickly countered Palin's comments by suggesting McCain's campaign was engaging in the same kind of negative attacks against Democrats that Bush's allies launched four years ago.

"Governor Palin's comments, while offensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign's statement this morning that they would be launching Swiftboat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation's economic ills," said Obama-Biden spokesman Hari Sevugan in a statement.

"In fact, the very newspaper story Governor Palin cited in hurling her shameless attack made clear that Senator Obama is not close to Bill Ayers, much less 'pals,' and that he has strongly condemned the despicable acts Ayers committed 40 years ago, when Obama was eight. What's clear is that John McCain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy."

[Cairber]

A friend sent this to me back when Obama was behind in the polls:

chill the fuck out!

I made it my background for a while



I think Obama has positioned himself well. McCain waited too long to do this negative push. He is too disliked now and going negative, IMO, will make it worse. As much as I disliked the long primary; I think that also ended up being a positive for Obama (or will be seen as one) because it makes these negative attacks all the more useless.

[Falkenhayn]

Well, how much time and energy did McCain's A-Team staff spend building up that Potemkin Village of a Vice President for the debates? Anecdotal evidence, live focus groups, post debate polling show that majorities say Biden Won. By and large, Palin accomplished absolutely nothing for John McCain with her performance, beside make conservative water carriers look even more hopless. She successfully convinced America that she can tie her shoes. That's about it. And that result in itself required weeks of preparation.

McCain's desperate mudslinging has already been anticpated and accounted for. The man's got no answer for the bread and butter issues of democratic politics, to the extent that practically every week we can tell Barack's attacks are telling. All the indicators are pointing to a Dole-esque wipeout with less than a month to go, I think we can stop being so damn snake bitten.

[ExarKun]

Stormbringer pretty much beat me to it. I'm tired of some people in this forum digging through four and five layers of data to present conclusions based on the best available evidence, and others mumbling "durr, 'Murricans r teh stoopidz" and thinking that counts as a substantive contribution to an N&P discussion. It would be like, in an OSF discussion about Star Trek versus nBSG, four or five people presented calculations and examples and screenshots, and then some boob waddles into the thread and goes, "Don't forget, Starfleet are morons! They'll lose somehow!". It contributes nothing; there's nobody laboring under the delusion that the American electorate, taken in aggregate, is properly educated, well informed, free of prejudice, and not prone to being panicked or stampeded by boogeymen. Everybody is already talking that into account, including, I'm sure, both campaigns. If you want to make the argument that it's going to impact the result in a way that's not already built in to the polling numbers, be my guess, but mindlessly repeating a tired meme is not what passes for an argument around here any more.

Are you seriously comparing politics to taking a screen shot and having variables like time, length, probable mass and density present, and easily plugging them into formulas to calculate a proof? If you think that the average people (who are majority of the electorate) are smart, despite the past 10 years, suit yourself. The burden of proof is on you to show me that they are smart, since there is no evidence of that, and you'll struggle to come up with anything.

[Tribun]

Hahahaha!
Read this, Obama clearly won't fall into McCains dirty game:
Obama calls McCain's shit

Exclusive: Obama to preempt McCain assault

Branding his opponent as “erratic in a crisis,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is preempting plans by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to portray him as having sinister connections to controversial Chicagoans.

Obama officials call it political jujitsu – turning the attacks back on the attacker.

McCain officials had said early in the weekend that they plan to begin advertising after Tuesday’s debate that will tie Obama to convicted money launderer Tony Rezko and former Weathermen radical William Ayers.

But Obama isn’t waiting to respond. His campaign is going up Monday on national cable stations with a scathing ad saying: “Three quarters of a million jobs lost this year. Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy. No wonder his campaign wants to change the subject.

“Turn the page on the financial crisis by launching dishonorable, dishonest ‘assaults’ against Barack Obama. Struggling families can't turn the page on this economy, and we can't afford another president who is this out of touch.”

Then Obama says: “I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message.”

McCain officials told Politico that the new offensive is likely to focus on Rezko and Ayers. The officials said the campaign will not bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s former pastor, because McCain has forbade them from using that as a weapon. Without being specific, the officials said outside groups may focus on Wright.

When word of the planned attacks leaked Saturday, Obama officials said within hours that it was an attempt by McCain to distract voters from the economy.

“We think the McCain campaign made a huge error by telling the press that their strategy was to distract from the most important issue facing voters,” a senior Obama official said. “Every attack going forward will be easy to characterize for what it is – an attempt to distract from the Bush-McCain economic record."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds hinted at the tough new line Saturday on “Fox & Friends.”

“There are associations that are important to who Barack Obama is as a candidate, who he’d be as president,” Bounds said.

Obama-Biden communications director Dan Pfeiffer said about the new ads: “If John McCain thinks he can ‘turn the page’ on the economic crisis facing American families, he is even more out of touch than we imagined. Now there may be no good answers for John McCain due to his erratic response to the financial crisis, but his desire to avoid discussing the economy is something we will remind voters of everyday for the next month.”

[RedImperator]

Stormbringer pretty much beat me to it. I'm tired of some people in this forum digging through four and five layers of data to present conclusions based on the best available evidence, and others mumbling "durr, 'Murricans r teh stoopidz" and thinking that counts as a substantive contribution to an N&P discussion. It would be like, in an OSF discussion about Star Trek versus nBSG, four or five people presented calculations and examples and screenshots, and then some boob waddles into the thread and goes, "Don't forget, Starfleet are morons! They'll lose somehow!". It contributes nothing; there's nobody laboring under the delusion that the American electorate, taken in aggregate, is properly educated, well informed, free of prejudice, and not prone to being panicked or stampeded by boogeymen. Everybody is already talking that into account, including, I'm sure, both campaigns. If you want to make the argument that it's going to impact the result in a way that's not already built in to the polling numbers, be my guess, but mindlessly repeating a tired meme is not what passes for an argument around here any more.

Are you seriously comparing politics to taking a screen shot and having variables like time, length, probable mass and density present, and easily plugging them into formulas to calculate a proof?

So political debates are inherently "fuzzier" than sci-fi debates, therefore there are no rules, repeating talking points is a contribution, and if someone asks you for evidence you're free to whine about it? Yes, to the extent that politics and sci-fi debating both have empirical evidence available for logical analysis, I am comparing the two.

If you think that the average people (who are majority of the electorate) are smart, despite the past 10 years, suit yourself. The burden of proof is on you to show me that they are smart, since there is no evidence of that, and you'll struggle to come up with anything.

First, nice strawman, douche--not only did I not make that argument, I conceded that the voting public is uneducated and prone to panic in the post you quoted. Can you even read? And second, no, the burden of proof isn't on me--I challenged you to back up your shit, and you pissed and moaned about it like the third-rate little bitch you are. You couldn't even be bothered to construct a plausible scenario by which the stupidity of the voting public alone could cause an 8-10 point swing in the polls between now and Election Day. Christ, if you're so sure, it shouldn't even be hard.

In fact, I'll do it for you: "Don't underestimate the stupidity of the American public. Gallup shows Gore with a 51-40 lead over Bush on this day in 2000. Gore had almost the exact same lead over Bush as Obama has over McCain, and it evaporated because Gore was 'mean' to Bush in the debates." Five minutes of Googling that took--probably less time than it took for you to cook up the two consecutive posts where you complained about being asked to provide evidence.

My issue isn't with your position, it's with your laziness. Every other forum on this board, even completely ridiculous ones like SWvST, nobody expects to be able to just stroll into a thread, repeat some tired talking point, and call it a contribution. But for some reason, people have gotten it into their heads that their unsubstantiated opinions actually count for anything in this forum. Well, they don't. You want to shoot off at the mouth and never answer questions, open up an account at Blogger and type to your heart's content. On this board, in this forum? Not a fucking chance, and if you don't like it, you're free to go fuck yourself. If I wanted to hear the same idiots repeating the same talking points over and over, I'd watch CNN.

[ExarKun]

Stormbringer pretty much beat me to it. I'm tired of some people in this forum digging through four and five layers of data to present conclusions based on the best available evidence, and others mumbling "durr, 'Murricans r teh stoopidz" and thinking that counts as a substantive contribution to an N&P discussion. It would be like, in an OSF discussion about Star Trek versus nBSG, four or five people presented calculations and examples and screenshots, and then some boob waddles into the thread and goes, "Don't forget, Starfleet are morons! They'll lose somehow!". It contributes nothing; there's nobody laboring under the delusion that the American electorate, taken in aggregate, is properly educated, well informed, free of prejudice, and not prone to being panicked or stampeded by boogeymen. Everybody is already talking that into account, including, I'm sure, both campaigns. If you want to make the argument that it's going to impact the result in a way that's not already built in to the polling numbers, be my guess, but mindlessly repeating a tired meme is not what passes for an argument around here any more.

Are you seriously comparing politics to taking a screen shot and having variables like time, length, probable mass and density present, and easily plugging them into formulas to calculate a proof?

So political debates are inherently "fuzzier" than sci-fi debates, therefore there are no rules, repeating talking points is a contribution, and if someone asks you for evidence you're free to whine about it? Yes, to the extent that politics and sci-fi debating both have empirical evidence available for logical analysis, I am comparing the two.

If you think that the average people (who are majority of the electorate) are smart, despite the past 10 years, suit yourself. The burden of proof is on you to show me that they are smart, since there is no evidence of that, and you'll struggle to come up with anything.

First, nice strawman, douche--not only did I not make that argument, I conceded that the voting public is uneducated and prone to panic in the post you quoted. Can you even read? And second, no, the burden of proof isn't on me--I challenged you to back up your shit, and you pissed and moaned about it like the third-rate little bitch you are. You couldn't even be bothered to construct a plausible scenario by which the stupidity of the voting public alone could cause an 8-10 point swing in the polls between now and Election Day. Christ, if you're so sure, it shouldn't even be hard.

In fact, I'll do it for you: "Don't underestimate the stupidity of the American public. Gallup shows Gore with a 51-40 lead over Bush on this day in 2000. Gore had almost the exact same lead over Bush as Obama has over McCain, and it evaporated because Gore was 'mean' to Bush in the debates." Five minutes of Googling that took--probably less time than it took for you to cook up the two consecutive posts where you complained about being asked to provide evidence.

My issue isn't with your position, it's with your laziness. Every other forum on this board, even completely ridiculous ones like SWvST, nobody expects to be able to just stroll into a thread, repeat some tired talking point, and call it a contribution. But for some reason, people have gotten it into their heads that their unsubstantiated opinions actually count for anything in this forum. Well, they don't. You want to shoot off at the mouth and never answer questions, open up an account at Blogger and type to your heart's content. On this board, in this forum? Not a fucking chance, and if you don't like it, you're free to go fuck yourself. If I wanted to hear the same idiots repeating the same talking points over and over, I'd watch CNN.

You are a very frustrated individual, aren't you?

[Durandal]

The best thing about McCain and the Keating Five scandal is that it's something that Obama can hit him on without making it into a personal attack on McCain's integrity. He can tie it directly to two key message points: that deregulation is responsible for the current financial mess and that leaders have to have more than experience; they must have judgment.

These two parts of the message dove-tail so nicely with the Keating Five scandal that I'm surprised Obama's campaign is holding it back. Maybe they're just trying to phrase the attack exactly correct.

McCain was criticized by the Senate Ethics committee for "poor judgment", he pushed a deregulation agenda during the height of the scandal and went to bat for Keating in a meeting with the regulators who were investigating Lincoln's impropriety. This points to McCain's poor judgment and his inherent mistrust of government regulation, that he was willing to go and put pressure on federal regulators. Even if McCain was as innocent as a newborn kitten in all of this, it still points to bad judgment, clouded by his love of the deregulation philosophy that got us in this current mess.

[Pablo Sanchez]

You are a very frustrated individual, aren't you?

Dear Newbie,
As a moderator who is not a party to this discussion, I'm going to take this opportunity to call your attention to the board policies, and to inform you that this kind of non-responsive bullshit is in violation of them. If you talk garbage, and somebody calls you on it, you can argue the point, concede, or in an extremity just fuck off out of the thread altogether. You can't post some snarky one-liner, unless you want to be punished. Consider this your warning.

[Patrick Degan]

The best thing about McCain and the Keating Five scandal is that it's something that Obama can hit him on without making it into a personal attack on McCain's integrity. He can tie it directly to two key message points: that deregulation is responsible for the current financial mess and that leaders have to have more than experience; they must have judgment.

These two parts of the message dove-tail so nicely with the Keating Five scandal that I'm surprised Obama's campaign is holding it back. Maybe they're just trying to phrase the attack exactly correct.

It's the gun Obama has ready to counter the knife McCain's brought to use against him. No need to pull it until necessary.

[The Yosemite Bear]

The only thing that has me worried is never underestimate stupid people in large numbers.

[Ubiquitous]

I will address the original post only:

This election is over. McCain has already lost and he lost the day Palin was unveiled with her less than savoury views and history. Even before that point there was only a fools hope for him.

I just wish that we could have the election tomorrow and be done with it, because nothing will change between now and November: BO will win and win big.