Endgame

Fully aware of the pitfalls that await anyone who would seek to go into the future-predicting business, the aggregate effect of this morning leaves little choice:

As part of my effort to generate more reader comments, I'm calling it.

With 34 days left, the race is ending, and Barack Obama has won.

Let's review the state of affairs that compel me to this post:

1. The massive federal bailout of the financial markets has not only failed to shore up the US markets, but has done little to shore up the approaching collapse of Europe's financial centers. Desperate efforts to prop up banks in Germany and Ireland over the weekend are probably the tip of the iceberg. The financial collapse of the Western world is driving a wave of news stories comparing the US in 2008 to Great Britain in 1946, when the costs of World War II forced London to essentially cede the global stage to Washington in exchange for a massive financial aide package. This charming state of affairs: brought to you by Republican governing philosophy. The economy is like kryptonite to the Republican campaign. McCain desperately needs the financial crisis to go away- it isn't. And it isn't going to.

2. Having been hammered in two consecutive debates, McPalin are now attempting to pivot away from the economic storyline which has done so much to hurt them in the last few weeks and regain control of their campaign message. However, they seek to do this by going back to the Wright and Rezko storylines that failed to bite six months ago and that feel anti-climatic, indeed rather desperate, at this point. If this is all they have left in the arsenal, it's the equivalent of dropping back into a prevent defense. And we all know what that prevents.

3. And then we come to the announcement that McCain's health care plan, which frankly never made much sense, will be paid for by gutting Medicare and Medicaid. There are die-hard conservatives who hate those programs. There are millions and millions more elderly people who rely on them, and who see voting to protect them as a seminal political issue. In fact, I'm struggling to think of another policy decision likely to have a similarly negative effect on support for McPalin, and right in the middle of the demographic most likely to support them too...reversing the outcome of the civil war, perhaps? Surrendering Oregon and Washington state to Canada?

It is difficult to say when efforts of the magnitude of a presidential campaign reach tipping points, but this weekend has the feel of one. The points listed above seem most salient, but there are so many others I could include- the withdrawal from Michigan, the transformation of Palin into a national joke (a woman channeling her yesterday afternoon couldn't impersonate Palin without including Tina Fey), McCain's increasingly obvious physical exhaustion, the political and moral bankruptcy of the Bush administration...how many more things could this list contain?

There are still two debates left, one of them being a town-hall style discussion ostensibly favoring McCain, but unless he radically reworks the direction of his campaign between now and then, it isn't going to matter. There's plenty of room left for endgame, but barring the occurrence of a series of events so terrible they will not even be committed to print, the outcome is increasingly clear.

This week, consideration turns to what will be left of the ship of state when Obama takes the helm.

Oh yeah, one other thing that hopefully doesn't even need saying: I'm not that good at this, so you should still make a point of voting :)