So Where Do Things Stand?

Obama can't reach or break fifty percent consistently even with the media cheering him on and McCain is stuck in the forties somewhere. If America is looking for real leadership in 2008, I suspect many are still wondering where the hell it went.

Gawd! Would someone make this election stop? I have to believe much of America has had it by now. As far as where things stand, McCain remains a very long-shot to win. And the problem is, as usual, McCain.

With numbers in the low to mid-forties, he's never truly inspired or provided a rationale for a McCain presidency, other than don't vote for "that guy." That's rarely a winning strategy. Can it pay off? It could and even might, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Watching Goldfarb twist in the wind the other night because he dare not mention Jeremiah Wright was pathetic and emblematic of McCain's approach to the attack component of the campaign. We want to hit him hard, oh but not that hard. What a freaking joke. So once again McCain takes the high road and has the carpet pulled out from under him. If that's good judgment, then there's actually a conservative on the ballot this year. Fact is, there ain't - not in the top slot, anyway.

Peggy Noonan locks up her seat at State dinners and completes her decline into old age, irrelevancy and emotional tripe that does America no good and ultimately means nothing with this bit of meandering nonsense today. It's time for Noonan to retire and go west to roam the hallways of the Reagan Library as an inconvenient ghost from the past.

I expected a week of mounting attacks from McCain. It appears his campaign had a poor start way back when he drifted through the South doing townhalls instead of staking a claim. And I guess he never planned for a close. Monday was good, McCain won the news cycle. Since then, it's been nothing but the usual crap. The numbers haven't been closing, certainly not like they needed to for a McCain win. As of this moment, it looks like McCain has nothing left.

Are there enough undecideds and perhaps last minute switches to throw this thing to McCain? I can't rule it out. But a significant number of Americans don't really want to see either of these two guys become President. And that, more than anything else, might be the take away from this year's run.

Comments

[mary]

Does anyone know why he kicked the "journalists" to the curb? Not the we have to make room for the black media excuse that they are spoon feeding everyone but the real reason? Wonder what these three did to be unceremoniously dumped?

[North Dallas Thirty]

They refused to endorse the Obamamessiah.

You have to wonder what exactly these Obama freaks would recoil from doing. They've already endorsed illegal campaign financing. They've endorsed registration fraud. They've endorsed outright voter fraud. There literally is no crime that Obama can commit that they will not support.

[mark l.]

"Does anyone know why he kicked the "journalists" to the curb?"

does play into the whole marxist theory. don't try and govern by incrementalism, take control quickly and forcefully, but it would have required planning and consideration, and quite frankly, I don't see them risking an election on a question of letting conservtive outlets view the campaign at ground zero. (bodes ill for the liklihood of ubiased journalists getting into wh pressers. I'm sure obama didn't even come up with this idea on his, but I am really curious about who advised it.

If this was a snap decision, it means their internals are on fire, and they have panicked. Gvien his trip to Iowa, I think this is the most likely case. They know they are in deep s**t and can't let it slip out to the public.

[mary]

"Obama's distance, even from those who cover him every day, allows him to coldly calculate about who will be more valuable to him in the final days on the trail. Unsurprisingly, he stuffs the plane with hagiographers over skeptical reporters. Because the thumping he'll receive from the press for this move will be relatively minor compared with the one a Republican candidate might get, the calculation is likely a good one. If one ever has trouble pegging the real Obama, "opportunist" is usually a safe guess."
Posted by Mary Katharine Ham on October 31, 2008 10:30 AM
http://tinyurl.com/6ytsm7

This other passage is interesting. Doubt MKH did this unconsciously, but deliberately:

"In the waning days of this campaign, Obama seems to be succumbing to his worst tendencies. Lofty, presumptuous infomercials. Snarky campaign commercials that take aim at a female opponent in a condescending manner. And, now, the unceremonious dumping of longtime pool reporters. After reading Peter Nicholas' account of life in the robo-candidate's pool, it's not all that surprising that he cuts ties at such a crucial moment with not so much as a second thought:"

This is the phrase I find utterly fascinating:

"that take aim at a female opponent in a condescending manner"

[mary]

Maybe it is just me, but, Americans as a whole are usually nice people. We try to play fair so I'm wondering why he would do this. The ccomments I've heard about this are varied. The Kool Aid drinkers say "the reporters could not be trusted to view the final push, and , besides they can go on Senator Joe's plane. But, the regular people think it was a somewhat mean move. They feel sorry for the reporters and one even suggested that these reporters might be the ones most likely to report "monkey business".

Another friends said "he can do anything he wants, he's gonna be king"

[mark l.]

personal omen of good news:

ccr. everytime I hear it, by accident, not by design, something really good happens.
It was playing in the CVS where I just got candy, and I heard it on a car's passing radio.
a two-fer?!?

the down side is that the 'good' is not exactly an issue of what I want to happen...

[gimmeabreak]

wow, McCain is losing ARIZONA

[mark l.]

"wow, McCain is losing ARIZONA"

it is a poll, so it must be true.

got any feelings any the foxnews poll that has it within 3%, with 9% undecided?

[mark l.]

"wow, McCain is losing ARIZONA"

and Obama leads by 11pts in Iowa.
Guess where he is today...

the timing of barry chucking the press sounds like the early numbers were coming in bad(Iowa) and they couldn't afford to panic in front of real reporters.

[mark l.]

I can actualy explain his Iowa trip...

its the firewall against losing fl, oh, and VA.

numbers must not be good. When masoon dixon showed closing in PA, I have a feeling there is a similar trend forming in VA.

[gimmeabreak]

"palin is going to iowa on monday, why?"

Simple. Iowa is an absolute must have for McCain (along with ALL the other toss up states). It's either Iowa or Colorado. He needs 6 or more votes and there just aren't any more states in play. Regardless of Obama's lead, McCain has to be in Iowa. Obama is there because the best defense is a good offense...besides the two birds one stone MO affect.

[paul]

Some people need to learn more about who they are voting for obama is a joke a hamas supporter a racist same as his father get online and read the facts not what you see in the news. Obama is a liar about his whole life his dad was a drunk racist polygamist who killed himself. Vote for someone who cares for there country mcain is not any of these he loves his country.

What does obama have to offer except he is a liar, a racist oh he denies some comments at his church. He has no experience oh a couple years in the senate.Vote for the future not for the end of our future. Vote for a christain not a muslim that supports Hamas terroist.

[mary]

A friend of mine said today "maybe the Iraquis had the right idea, we should get out the bottles of blue ink". We were having coffee and discussing the concept that voter fraud could indeed rear its ugly head in this election.

[scarshapedstar]

I shudder to say this, but this is like the pot telling the kettle it's missing the forest.

Let's review a few of the claims I've read here.

Claim A: McCain is actually in the lead but biased pollsters tell us otherwise.

Claim B: McCain is actually losing but only because the librul media tells us he is.

(Which is it?)

Claim C: McCain is losing because he and his supporters don't have anything to offer besides kitchen-sink attack ads.

Claim D: B. HUSSEIN Obama is a terrorist communist womanizer and the son of Malcolm X, born in a Muslim madrassah and educated by a Christian nutjob, who's going to take away all your guns and give them to gay people. Vote McCain!

(Do I need to spell it out?)

[scarshapedstar]

"We were having coffee and discussing the concept that voter fraud could indeed rear its ugly head in this election."

You mean like sending out fake absentee ballot request forms?

http://current.com/items/89293206_misleading_absentee_ballots_being_sent_to_citizens_by_john_mccain

Or simply stealing absentee ballots?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/27/1144/3706/231/643532

" Three Hialeah voters say they had an unusual visitor at their homes last week: a man who called himself Juan, offering to help them fill out their absentee ballots and deliver them to the elections office.

The voters, all supporters of Democratic congressional candidate Raul Martinez, said they gave their ballots to the man after he told them he worked for Martinez. But the Martinez campaign said he doesn't work for them.

Juan ''told me not to worry, that they normally collected all the ballots and waited until they had a stack big enough to hand-deliver to the elections department,'' said voter Jesus Hernandez, 73. 'He said, `Don't worry. This is not going to pass through the mail to get lost.'''

Hernandez said he worries his ballot was stolen or destroyed. He and two other voters told The Miami Herald that the man was dispatched by a woman caller who also said she worked for Martinez. But the phone number cited by the voters traces back to a consultant working for Martinez's rival, Republican congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart.

Martinez's campaign manager, Jeff Garcia, has asked the Miami-Dade state attorney's office to investigate."

That would be most troubling.

Fun fact: According to the government, the number of actual incidents of voter fraud in a typical year - as opposed to registration fraud, which is obvious and without effect - is... drum roll...

5. Not 5,000. Not 5,000,000.

Five.