From the McCain website 10/23/08
"Americans will again have confidence in their economic future.
America will adopt an "all of the above" energy solution.
Health care will become more accessible to more Americans than at any other time in history. "

?

John and Sarah have no substance, therefore how can we expect them to have a strategy?

I can't predict the outcome of the election, but at this point in time, it does seem more folks are
not buying the gloss and fluff that is the McCain/Palin-drone.

Hallo General Custer - Nice ta meetcha

I've heard from a very reliable source that McCain has been in secret negotiations with the Iranians to not free the hostages until the day of his inauguration, in exchange for illegal weapons and a fresh batch of high quality porn.

He figured if it worked once, that'd be one more time than any of his ideas worked.

McCain's stratergery:

1. Cut spending on advertising and cut some misleading robocalls.
2. ?????
4. Profit.

I'm expecting to see A LOT more of Mr McCain and Mrs Palin on the cable teevee in the coming days. I don't think it'll change a damn thing, but free advertising is all they got left.

(Oh! And let's not forget some truly sleazy "ads" that they release only to the media. That's a surefire way to get free press. Still, it won't change a damn thing. Like that Mudcat guy said on Maddow last week - you can only go negative for so long before you have to return to the nice. And they're running out of time to get to get back to nice.)

"For McCain, time, resources, and options appear to be dwindling."

I just hate it when that happens.

What Tracey was saying is that Sen. Obama's campaign has, in Senate-speak, "filled up the tree" by using its massive advantage of available cash to buy up pre-election air time -- a finite resource -- in Ohio and North Carolina. Spending on local races, such as the expensive Senate contest in North Carolina, is a factor also, but the key variable is the huge financial advantage of the Obama campaign.

Look for Sarah Palin to start crying a river on November 2nd, in an attempt to get a "Hillary-style" sympathy bump. I'm sure she'll find some horrible thing someone says to justify her outrage, and the media will play her emotional stagecraft nonstop without asking if it's designed to manipulate anyone, because asking that would be sexist.

Well, I still worry about some polls that are very close, now trumpeted of course by Drudge:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081022/D93VPI9O0.html
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/Polls.aspx?id=309546869309178
Drudge is also going all-out with gruesome stories of McCain supporters having "B" carved into them, homes shot up, etc.

In any case, it is never time for anything near to complacency when facing the moneyed right-wing/theocratic interests.

BTW, as for the "redistribution" spin: Note that having or reducing cap gains, dividends, corporate income rates lower than for regular income is also a form of relative redistribution. It's regressive to boot most of the time. The media and BHO supporters should say that more often.

To folks who don't follow politics and political blogs to the extent we do, it must seem at times that McCain is virtually nowhere to be found.

@doubtful

OMG you're right, McCain's campaign is being run by the Underpants Knomes. Who also appear to have written his economic policy:

1 - Massive tax cuts, increased spending, more wars.
2 - ??????
3 - Balanced budget in four years.

McCain is giving up.

Two days ago, PA was his hail mary. Now he's cutting his ad buys there.

This is why FOX News is going all "liberal media" all the time. It's their fallback position.
.

This is a classic repeat of R.E.Lee's final campaign. It's the end of March, 1865; Lee breaks off from the defense of Richmond and tries to link what's left of the NAoV with other Confederate forces. he ends up in a little place called Appomattox Courthouse, and when he tries to break out of the bottle he's in, he finds himself surrounded by a sea of blue---just as McCain now finds himself surrounded by a synonymous sea of blue.

The only difference between the two scenarios is that Lee was an honorable gentleman; even in defeat, most of the Union troops engaged against him had a lot of respect for the old man. John McCain does not have that; he'll never have it now, and what little is left of his reputation will wither away in bitterness, false analogies, and hatred.

To this day, R.E. Lee is held in high esteem by historians and the military, and he's still recognized as one of the greatest generals of all time. John McCain will be remembered as "just a cranky old coot with an axe to grind...."

Look for Sarah Palin to start crying a river on November 2nd, in an attempt to get a "Hillary-style" sympathy bump.

Crying from the "pitbull in lipstick?" Won't work.

"But Tracey says he thinks these shifts are not about McCain confidence in those states as much as they are about the shortage in available ad time in them that's been created by Obama's massive spending and the ad buying done in local races. "

In other words that uppiter ni**er done took all the ad time, we can't get ourselves none, so we're giving up? No attempt to pay extra to bump other non-election ads, no attempt at last-minute buys (which most network affiliates will often wind up having throughout the course of an evening, if only a few)?

I smell the delicate aroma of bullsh*ttery in the wind.

McCain has to win two of the following CO, MN and VA.

And he's got to win everything close, including OH, IN and FL.

Doubling down on PA is batshit crazy. But I suppose what some consider batshit crazy is what John McCain considers being a maverick.

Neil B,

You'd be doing yourself a favor to stay away from Drudge.

Steve has already discussed the AP poll here. Here's a debunking of the IBD/TIPP poll.

That poll has the 18-24 demo going 74% for McCain, 22% for Obama.

If you believe that, I've got some stock in American companies to sell you.

Let them trumpet those flawed polls. Whatever motivates Obama supporters to get to the polls, I say.

As for the other story, a woman was robbed at an ATM and supposedly a 'B' was carved into her face because of her McCain bumpber sticker, but conveniently it all happened off camera *and* she refused medical treatment. She's saying the assailant was a 6' 4" black man. I'm not going to claim she's outright lying, but it smells fishy. It's just the kind of a story an unhinged McCain supporter would fabricate, in my humble opinion.

Plus, what does that matter? Some dipshit assaults someone and that's relevant to the presidential race, how?

Do your, and our, sanity a favor. Stay away from Drudge.

Doubtful, I don't trust Drudge, I just fret some about his influence over the SCLM (that "drive the narrative" gushing from some assholes out there) and much of the public. However, a recent post here linked to a story saying his influence is waning.

I think McCain now realizes he is going to lose, and is trying to avoid complete Dole-like humiliation. He probably hopes to keep Obama under 300 EVs at this point.

Wow... I thought all along that McSame's only chance to 'win' was to keep the results close enough in enough swing states to allow for yet another election theft. If the GOP steals this election, it will be so obvious that even their obedient lapdogs in the press won't believe it.

It took serious effort, but McSame just may have run the worst Presidential campaign in recent memory. And considering that this list includes Gore '00, that's no small feat.

-Z

That's ok -- Fox gives him hours and hours of advertising every day.