John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, a little over a month before the election. According to Michael Tomasky at the Guardian (a journalist who I like, but whose increasingly wild-eyed attacks on the McCain/Palin beast make me fear for his sanity if they end up winning) thinks this is a pretty big deal.
Obama has sustained a comfortable and stable lead in the polls for some time now, and the general thinking seems to be that the closer you get to the election, the less unlikely such a lead is to be overturned. (This combined with the fact that a bunch of states apparently allow early voting, so the effects of this lead should already be having an impact on the final result.)
A not-particularly-interesting debate last Friday did nothing great for McCain’s hopes – most of the talk has been about his apparent anger and refusal to look at his opponent. Not exactly the stuff of serious political discourse, but it’s the topic just the same. And tonight comes the vice-presidential debate, with the very real possibility of Sarah Palin cementing the idea that she is simply not in a position to lead her country as it needs to be lead.
The point is, it looks very bad for McCain, and in just a couple of hours time, it’s entirely possible that it’s going to get worse. Either of the toothy gaffesters could drop a bombshell in the debate (Biden has form) but if it’s Palin, the ship starts sinking faster. McCain knows this, and has obviously known for some time, or he wouldn’t have diverted his top campaign staff to train her up, or have been so ruthless in keeping Palin away from any and all reporters. (A situation that, mercilessly, he couldn’t maintain.)
And at the same time, he clearly knows things need to change, soon, if he’s to have any chance of turning things around. His fellow Republicans have been urging him to draw blood for a while.
So if he does have a magic bullet – or a wrecking ball – I think we’re going to see it very soon. Like, tomorrow soon, or the next day – soon enough that a disastrous performance by Palin will be forced out of the news cycle. If she pulls it off, great, but I can’t imagine that a campaign that’s clearly so worried about its VP pick will leave her to define the race for another week.
What could it be? Something nasty. I’ve been surprised by how relatively light the attacks on Obama have been over the past few months (the appalling “teaching sex ed to kindergarten” ad aside) – maybe they were feart of opening themselves up to charges of racism.
No longer, I think. His choice of Palin, his imaginary suspension of his campaign – even, if you’re to believe Mr. Tomasky, his love of high-stakes gambling – reveal a man who’s willing to make desperate plays in desperate times. I daren’t speculate as to what the next one might be, but have faith that a bullshit asteroid is already on its way: it’s on a direct collision course with Earth, and McCain’s frozen grin is emblazoned across its side.
In shit.
