Pre-Debate III

So we stand on the brink of the Third Debate. The final debate. Perhaps the McPalin campaign's last chance to turn away from their increasingly flailing campaign and pull together a coherent narrative to run through the next few weeks. I've already stated that I think the failure of the first bailout plan to immediately right the financial world effectively doomed the McCain campaign, and if he's going to make me fall on my keyboard, eat humble verbiage, etc. very early in the morning of 5 November, this could well be his last chance.

Don't take my word for it- conservative and liberal pundits alike pile on: Huffpo points out that the combination of negative ads and the prolonged economic crisis are driving Obama to double digit leads. Kathleen Parker suggests that Palin was the fatal flaw, and then admits on last night's Colbert Report that her White House contacts agree. Matthew Dowd, chief political strategist for Bush-Cheney '04, suggests that the selection of Palin has endangered the country. The New Republic offers this "pre-mortem" for McPalin. And of course, the now-classic William Kristol piece that led the charge, suggesting that McCain should stabilize his campaign...by firing his staff.

The remarkable thing about the above sampling of an increasingly crowded field is that so many of the people in it are archly conservative, or even work for the Republican party. As the Right turns on its own, Obama's job just gets easier. All he has to do is keep marking time. As I said starting out, tomorrow night might well be the last chance for McCain to destabilize the trends running ever more solidly against him. But lets be clear about that- he needs to win the debate, and to do that at this point would require the sort of performance that would immediately enter the annals of American politics a la Kennedy-Nixon. It's not impossible. But it is analogous to recovering an onside kick, then forcing a fumble, and running en effective enough offense to recover from a 10 point deficit in the fourth quarter. With each passing day reinforcing positive impressions of and voter support for Obama, the odds just keeps getting longer.

And of course, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the person most deeply tarnished by current conditions is the sitting president. Gideon Rachman of the FT pens this piece, evaluating the performances of various European leaders which comparison to President Bush. Who says the world doesn't benefit from the trans-Atlantic alliance?