Post-Modern Election Talk: When Does a Campaign Go Beyond a Joke?

Seventy-two hours after Barack McCain dropped a 30-minute political "info-merical" on the US public, John McCain responded in the fashion appropriate to this 2008 Presidential election: he appeared on Saturday Night Live, the comedy programme that converted his campaign into a running joke.

Gotta hand it to Big John, who never winced as he appeared along the comic masterpiece Fey-Palin, the one that he inadvertently created with his Hockey Mom gamble in August. But, as a reader notes, "OK, this is just surreal... Lucky this campaign is over in three days or I seriously struggle to imagine what comes next."

John McCain and Fey-Palin Sell Their Campaign on QVC

48 Hours to Go: Amidst the Scare Tactics, Obama is Secure

It's a sign of the new politics that 72 hours away from a computer offers not only an old-fashioned but distorted view of the Presidential campaign.

Relying in a Dublin flat on Sky News's rolling Saturday morning news-loop, I could reduce the race to The Terminator Comes Out for McCain. That dramatic headline was followed by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rallying the GOP faithful, and probably more than a few star-spotters, with: "I played an action hero. But John McCain is a real American action hero." (And, oh yes, Barack Obama is a girly-man, or something to that effect)

Like a DVD that will never eject, Arnie repeated the theatrics every 30 minutes. So did the Sky reporters, preferring screengrabs like "Lipstick Chicks for Palin" and keeping any meaningful analysis in check. For example, why didn't Schwarzenegger come out in California weeks ago for Big John McCain instead of popping up as a last-minute guest in Ohio? Could it be that the Governor, even in his second term, wasn't going to risk his political image at home, linking himself for more than a moment with a struggling campaign? And what does it say for the Republicans when their Presidential candidate becomes no more than a flailing second-string actor --- "Senator Obama is going to take more than a trillion dollars from you in taxes" --- behind the star introducing him?

Most importantly, take note of the guide to political and property success: Location, Location, Location. The Republican star event was in Ohio, as Obama was whipping up the crowds in Indiana. Translation? While McCain was having to play for a must-win state for the GOP, his opponent had the luxury of trying to snare a swing state that is far from critical for Democratic hopes.

So, even in this analytic backwater, a bit of insight was possible. Sky kept trying to whip up the drama for its coverage --- they have their own "White House" in Florida for Election Night! --- with the headline reading that McCain was now slightly ahead in Indiana and Missouri. In this race, that's the equivalent of a 90th-minute goal when you're 4-0 down (or, for my brother-in-law, the 4th-quarter touchdown for the University of Georgia so it only lost 49-10 rather than 49-3 to arch-rvial Florida).

Safe in cyber-land this morning, I can confirm: for all the Schwarzenegger-aided attempt at sound and fury, little has changed. McCain-Palin are still around seven points down (and no closer than four points in any poll) in their Hail Mary target of Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, here's the checklist on the states, held by the Republicans in 2004, that the Democrats could take --- Obama-Biden need only a maximum of three of these and, in some cases, one to get to the White House:

Florida: Democrats up 2.5
Ohio: Democrats up 5.1
Virginia: Democrats up 6.5
North Carolina: Democrats up 1.9
Indiana: Republicans up 0.2
Missouri: Democrats up 0.6
Colorado: Democrats up 7.0
Nevada: Democrats up 4.9
New Mexico: Democrats up 11.6

And that doesn't even count the real surprises that have come into play: RealClearPolitics --- which seems more intent than FiveThirtyEight on hedging its bets has added to the toss-up column McCain's home state of Arizona to Montana, North Dakota, and Georgia (my devout Republican brother-in-law is having a very bad weekend) and has moved Arkansas --- deep redneck Arkansas! --- into the "leaning" rather than "solid" Republican category.

I think those new supposed battlegrounds are just a bit of bonus news for the Democrats. Indeed, I'm still playing the conservative hand of McCain-Palin holding Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina. But that's no change on Obama 338, Big John 200 in the final electoral count. (For what it's worth, RealClearPolitics is tapping into Enduring America's oracle powers --- with the exception of giving North Carolina to Obama-Palin, it's in line with this projection.)

Here's the latest smoke signals of Republicans burning in desperation. Once their charge that Obama-Biden were Marxists was rebuffed by Barack's classic, "According to Senator McCain, I must be a Communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten", they reached for a last handful of mud with Obama-hangs-out-with-extremists. The bad guy in this scenario was Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi, author of numerous books on the Middle East and US foreign policy.

I've had the fortune of not only reading but listening to Khalidi's academic presentations. He is engaging, challenging, and forthright. He is critical of US policy towards the Middle East and Washington's support for Israel. Twinning that with the fact that Khalidi is Palestinian to make the charge of "anti-Semitic" is a slur and no more.

However, even granting Khalidi as an imminent danger to mankind and thus making Obama --- who has supported Khalidi's work in Palestine --- an appeaser of anti-Semitism, the Republican strategy has a couple of flaws. Such as forgetting that the International Republican Institute, led by one John McCain, gave more than $400,000 to Khalidi's group. Such as putting up this McCain campaign worker to prove that Obama hung out with devoted enemies of Israel (hat-tip to Juan Cole):

[youtube]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HCaOCWYpPk4[/youtube]