The third debate cinched Obama's landslide. Here's what I wrote in the Financial Post:
It's all over but the crying
The only "victory" the Republican spinmeisters could muster after last night's final Presidential debate was that John McCain was able to explain, concisely, that he is not George Bush. So there, they said to a man.
As the election looms days away, it is clear that McCain and his ragtag Republicans are so bereft of initiatives, remedies or validity that they have been playing the race card. Here's how and it will not only cost them the election, which it already has, but will result in a massive landslide.
At a recent "townhall", McCain was asked a question (undoubtedly a Republican set-up) as to whether Barack Obama was an Arab.
McCain delivered a rehearsed soundbyte back that he did not believe that Barack Obama was an Arab. It was a version of the I-did-not-beat-my-wife ploy combined with racism: Being "Arab" in and of itself was considered a legitimate concern.
Consider how any decent candidate would have answered that question, if it had not been a set-up.
"America is a pluralist and tolerant society and race or ethnic background are irrelevant to me. I don't label people and no one should."
There goes another 2%, you Republican bigots.
The Republican Camp's campaign about the Ayers-association is another coded racist gambit.
But Obama knocked that one out of the ballpark last night when McCain foolishly brought it up: "Let's get the record straight," said Obama. "Bill Ayers is a Professor of education in Illinois. Years ago, when I was eight, he engineered a despicable act."
Ayers decades later is involved in activities that are funded by a man who was a major financial supporter of Ronald Reagan's and endorsed by the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the very Republican Chicago Tribune.
So there you have it: A classy brilliant young man whose team includes Paul Volcker and Warren Buffett versus a rude, disrespectful ex-military man who wants his "base" to think Obama is an Arab terrorist.
McCain and his candidate-lite will be crushed.