Expect More "Hail Mary" Passes From McCain As Polls Shift
McCain's people are looking at the same poll numbers as we are - or worse. They know he needs a game-changer, especially when you see the distinct shifts in the electoral map towards Obama. McCain saw his troubles earlier this year and decided to turn things over to the Rove thugs (you could argue that his first real "adjustment" came in 2004, when he gambled on lurching towards the conservative base).
When the scorched earth strategy of the Rovians produced little real movement in the polls beyond a mild softening of Obama's favorable ratings, he decided to throw caution and vetting to the wind in favor of Alaska's Miss Petrol Congeniality.
These are a series of calculated gambles, much like "suspending" one's campaign and trying to cancel a debate. The gambles almost always have failed to pay dividends worth the damage inflicted. The one gamble that seems to have to paid off was keeping Palin away from reporters - clearly a better option than putting her near any microphones, while also effectively lowering the bar for Thursday's debate. As Dylan said, though, "there's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
Which brings us to last night. As mentioned, McCain at best tied on a night of foreign policy which his team negotiated to put out first in order to position him over Obama going into the next two debates. It's still early, but I'd say that gamble will work out like the rest of them. More importantly, time is growing short and those poll numbers are not looking good.
Keep in mind those Rovian thugs, who are 1) realistic, and 2) completely amoral. While McCain may prefer to fade away like an old soldier, my guess is that his campaign would rather burn out with all guns blazing. We will likely see a few major hail mary passes in the remaining weeks - and some of them may not look pretty. The Obama camp has been pretty savvy to date, and I just hope that they are prepared for this eventuality.
