Down to the Wire

Just three weeks to go!

In the few days since the long, holiday weekend began, several new fascinating items have come to light.

• More and more political observers are predicting something resembling a landslide.

• Obama now leads in three of four key bellwether counties that President George W. Bush won handily in 2000 and 2004. Each resides in a crucial battleground state through which the path to the White House has historically run — Nevada, North Carolina, and McCain’s do-or-die state, Florida (where, ironically, Obama commands the largest lead of the three by six points). McCain still leads in Colorado’s Jefferson Country, but only by a hairsbreadth. Meanwhile, the rest of Colorado continues its slide toward the Democrat. According to a myriad of authoritative polls, Obama now leads in Colorado by nine, in Michigan by 16, in Minnesota by 11, and in Wisconsin by 17! Obama is approaching a double-digit lead in Missouri, where McCain has held a solid advantage for much of the campaign. He is also edging out McCain in North Dakota.

• According to a new Post/ABC poll, only eight percent of Americans think the country is on the right track. This as more and more Americans think Obama has come across as the more collected, intelligent, steady and even more mature leader during the bailout crisis.

• The GOP is abandoning new House and Senate recruits in order to not siphon money from embattled incumbents. Facing a potential bloodbath, Democrats have shifted to triage mode. They’re even considering loaning themselves $5 million dollars to augment the depleted political coffers. This is the great, under-the-radar story of the 2008 campaign. While everyone is preoccupied with the White House, the numbers are looking increasingly catastrophic for Republican hopes in Congress.

• This weekend, half a dozen major papers endorsed Barack Obama. Not a single one endorsed John McCain.

• More and more conservative pundits are jumping ship. The son of conservative standard bearer William F. Buckley has come out for Obama. As Peggy Noonan bemoans the state of McCain’s ridiculous campaign, columnist David Brooks recently called his running mate, Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”

• The most damming item of all, however, occurred on Friday when an independent legislative panel found that Palin, while not guilty of breaking any laws, should be cited for “dishonesty,” “abuse of power” and several ethics violations. The investigation is ongoing.

When John McCain first paraded Sarah Palin before the country, I wrote that she would either be an explosive game-changer or an explosive game-ender. As McCain’s numbers spiked after the Republican convention and the ticket finally caught traction, I urged caution. It was far too early to tell whether Sarah Palin was good for McCain or not. Did she have longevity? Conservative friends encouraged me to continue assaulting her, insisting that in doing so, I was poisoning my own well and feeding theirs.

What a difference a month and a half and a couple of disastrous interviews makes.

Sarah Palin, once the darling of the Republican Party has become more of a liability than a boon. Set loose as the Republican attack dog, Palin’s recent rallies have more in common with KKK meetings than political revelry. Barnstorming the country, Palin’s been using increasingly incendiary language to incite the GOP’s shock troops.

When she says, “Our opponent is someone who sees America…as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” she is not simply trying to jab at Obama’s perceived weaknesses, she is fear-mongering, exploiting post-9/11 anxieties by suggesting Obama is an alien who supports those who attack America. It is an accusation all the more supported by her continued endorsement of guest speakers using Obama’s full name — including his middle name “Hussein” — at her rallies. The not-so-subtle innuendo: Obama is a radical Muslim terrorist.

Republican strategists have even begun telling canvassers to remind those they speak to that Obama and Osama (love that alliteration) “both have friends that bombed the Pentagon.”

And how do the GOP party faithful respond? They cry “traitor,” “terrorist,” “off with his head,” “kill him,” and hurl racial epithets at African-American cameramen.

Palin’s actions are not only sleazy and dishonest, they are morally repugnant and perhaps even worthy of legal censure for endangering a candidate already racially vulnerable.

Still, I have to give credit where credit is due. Whether it is because he realizes his attacks are backfiring (so much for Swift Boat tactics this season!) or because he is reclaiming some part of his lost, honorable self, John McCain, of late, is hitting back at some of his own fanatical supporters.

When a man at a recent rally told McCain he was “scared of an Obama presidency,” McCain told him he had nothing to fear.

“Senator Obama is a decent person and a person you don’t have to be scared of as president of the United States,” he said. He got only boos for his trouble.

When a woman at a recent town hall said she didn’t trust Obama because he was “an Arab,” McCain quickly cut her off.

“No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man and citizen,” he said.

McCain has pledged to be respectful from here on out. We’ll see. Will such honorability help his campaign? Probably not. But it’s good to see.

To be sure, McCain has made the comeback something of a cottage industry. Who would have thought, after the disastrous early months of his primary battle, that we’d even be discussing McCain’s chances for the White House? If McCain has proven anything, it’s not to count him out until the very end.

However, with that end now firmly in sight, does he have the time, much less the momentum to turn things around?

Reimagining himself as a scrappy fighter up against a guy who is already “measuring the drapes” for the Oval Office, and set to finally reveal a belated economic stimulus strategy, McCain’s aides are dubbing this last ditch effort, “hitting the reset button.” More like hitting the panic button others have said.

McCain is now in exactly the same place Hillary Clinton was at the end of the bitterly fought Democratic primary. If McCain had more time, he might be able to even the gap. But the fact is, while he’s down only six to eight points nationwide, those numbers are actually deceptive. They don’t indicate a fixed fissure, but rather an ever expanding chasm that grows with each new poll. McCain simply does not have the time to stop Obama’s snowballing momentum.

Though they try to sound optimistic when claiming that three weeks is plenty of time to turn things around, many conservatives continue to hope for the ever elusive, but nearly always potent October surprise.

I’m sorry guys, but we already had an October surprise. It was in September.