Desperate Republicans Have No Intention of Going Down to Defeat With Either Dignity Or Honor
It has finally dawned on Republican Party leaders that they are in the middle of Desperationland. Easy enough to sneer and say they earned it-- and more-- but desperation is leading them down some unhealthy paths, unhealthy for all of us.
Republican office holders are aware that McCain's coattails are not just negative, but positively toxic. The three special election House candidates he campaigned for-- all in very Republican districts-- all lost in upset elections. GOP strategists are starting to whisper the word "landslide," and they mean a Democratic one that could leave the Republicans with impotent rump caucuses in both houses of Congress.
Everywhere, Party leaders are starting to finally realize the trouble they're in. Asked if McCain could win Wisconsin, former Republican Governor and McCain friend Tommy Thompson claimed it isn't impossible but when he was asked if he's happy with his friend's campaign, he said "No; I don't know who he is." And that's a feeling that people all over the country are having about McCain, who has tried to do everything he could to make Americans feel that he's someone they know and trust-- no one does-- and that Obama is "not one of us" and scary and different and unknown. It's almost funny when it comes from Sarah Palin who no one but Alaskans and a few religious extremists ever heard of before a month and a half ago.
Several party leaders said Mr. McCain needed to settle on a single message in the final weeks of the campaign and warned that his changing day-to-day dialogue � a welter of evolving economic proposals, mixed with on-again-off-again attacks on Mr. Obama’s character-- was not breaking through and was actually helping Mr. Obama in his effort to portray Mr. McCain as erratic.
Former McCain colleague and ex-Missouri Senator John Danforth said “This is a year where everything that could go in Obama’s favor is going in Obama’s favor. Everything that could go against McCain is against him. It’s absolutely the worst kind of perfect storm.�
