We've seen accusations of racism and sexism thrown back and forth in the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  Lurking not far behind are charges of ageism made against some criticisms of John McCain.

But are not concerns about McCain's cognitive health valid, whether disease- or age-related?  Isn't it about McCain himself, rather than his general age group?

McCain has indeed lost a noticeable amount of mental acuity over the last four years.  I became convinced of that recently.

No, not because of his mandatory-voluntary emissions-cap gaffe.  He could slip that noose with something like, "No, caps are not mandatory.  If you buy carbon credits, you can exceed the cap."  The MSM wouldn't blink an eye.

Rather, it was the social-security bamboozlement video that Josh put together for TPMtv.  It contrasted McCain's current repudiation of SS privatization with his 2004 boosterism for exactly that.

Take a look at McCain's 2004 performance.  The clip occurs about 3:35 into the vid.

Doesn't McCain seem hugely more animated, alert, and mentally sharp than he does today?

I didn't form this conjecture and go looking for evidence.  It caught me by surprise.  The degree of difference between the McCains of four years ago and today is so striking that it kinda jolted me.

If you see it the same way as I did, you might wonder if McCain's senescence could really become an issue.  One factor to consider is the the strength of the P-C strictures that rule in many places.  (Others might phrase that less cynically.)

I'm inclined to recall the NY Senate race of 1980.  Alfonse D'Amato beat incumbent Jacob Javits in the Republican primary, due in large measure to Javits's affliction with Lou Gherig's disease -- a neurological disease that severely compromises cognitive function.  (Javits ran anyway on the Liberal Party line and split the liberal vote with Democrat Liz Holtzman, handing Senator Pothole the plurality win.)

Now, Javits's impairment was much greater than McCain's current rash of senior moments.  But it is a relevant precedent.

Dunno how all this is gonna play out.  (Duh!)  I think I'll keep watching.

After the 2004 elections, astrophysicists J. Richard Gott and Wes Colley found that the results matched almost exactly a new poll-based indicator they were looking at.  In their method, each state was assigned to either Kerry or Bush according to the number of polls each was leading in, irrespective of the size of the lead shown by any of the polls.  The only state that differed from their predictor was Hawaii.

Wes Colley now has a web page showing a tracking meta-poll of the Obama-McCain race.  You can find it here.

As of today (2008-06-25 Wed), it shows Obama ahead 355 electoral votes to 183 for McCain. States that are shown as flips from their 2004 results are CO, FL, IN, IA, MO, NM, OH, and VA for Obama, and none for McCain.

Of course, the general election is far too distant for this or any poll to be a useful predictor of what will happen in November.  So much can happen between now and then.  It can, however, serve either campaign as a guide to where to spend resources.  By clicking on one of the dates (e.g., 6/25), you can see for each state how many polls favor one candidate or the other.

Their method is described in a 6/6 NYT op-ed piece, and Dr. Gott can be heard discussing it in a Scientific American podcast.

Enjoy!  --jzap