Well, add Mr. Sunnis-and-Shias-Love-One-Another to the list of rats fleeing a sinking ship (today's NYT column: "Fire the Campaign"). Note the irony in Kristol criticizing McCain's campaign for its panicked, frantic behavior in a column that reads like the author is running about like a chicken minus its head.
Some day a friendly reader is going to register "www.billkristol.net" as a gift to me (my birthday's coming up!) and I will use it to chart a timeline of every Kristol column and major TV appearance since 2000, based on which I will determine what percentage of the time this man is actually right about anything. And as a bonus, we will see how many times he contradicts himself in print in any six-month period Friedman Unit.
J. Dryden says:
I'm always curious to know whether 'insiders' like Kristol have access to poll numbers that we mere mortals (and the media that reports to us) do not. Or whether it's simply the 'trickle-up' of feedback from the front lines: "Yeah, this is the McCain campaign chairman from Sandusky calling–just wanted you to know that our door-to-door activities have been suspended due to the number and severity of face-punchings our volunteers are receiving." Word from the right is more dire than even the worst 'official' polls are showing, especially when the Bradley effect is factored in–so what's going on out there that they're not telling us…?
Ed says:
I think that to whatever extent this is worse than the official numbers indicate, it is a result of creeping defeatism among likely supporters. Let's face it, there must be some portion of the McCain base (or potential McCain voters who are not Republicans) who look the last few weeks and figure "Well, fuck it."
To whatever extent the face-to-face campaiging on the ground is yielding bad news, I imagine that a good deal of it must be in the form of voters telling the nice young man who knocks on their door "Oh, come on, this race is over."
pmayo says:
All of this smacks of the old "conservativism doesn't fail; bad conservatives fail conservativism" routine. They're already framing McCain's defeat, so that four years from now, they can trot an real nutjob.