It was a very short time ago that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were engaged in a battle over Michigan and Florida - would they count? How many delegates would be seated?
The Hillary supporters who felt Obama would lose to McCain in the general election often cited Florida and Michigan as the reasons Obama would fall. And Pennsylvania, too, but that's another story. But part of the myth that the Clinton supporters tried to create was that only Hillary could win Michigan - Obama couldn't do it because he "dissed" Michigan.
It was wrong-headed then (some would say it was wishful thinking on the part of Clinton supporters who want Obama to lose). It's really wrong now, especially because John McCain has pulled out of Michigan.
This is a stunning move, because if McCain is really conceding Michigan, it means his field of states he can win just became that much narrower, his margin of error that much smaller, and one thing we know about McCain: man, the guy makes lots of errors.
Election Day is oh so close. Resources have to be spent in places where you really can win. Right now, McCain, ahead in the polls just three weeks ago, is seeing his campaign teeter on the brink of outright collapse.
It all started with Sarah Palin. The pick that everybody lauded at the beginning is turning out to be a disaster. Regardless of how tonight turns out, Palin will never be an asset to the ticket; she can only not wreck it entirely. That's not exactly what one normally looks for in a VP pick.
Further destroying his own efforts was McCain's repeated erroneous statements about the economy's fundamentals. No one forced McCain to say nearly 20 times that the economy was basically okay.
Then, McCain really threw caution to the wind and he made a transparent ploy to get involved in the bailout negotiations even though no one asked him to, and when he did go, he contributed nothing.
Some say he went because he didn't want people to see Palin's interviews with Katie Couric. He needed to distract us. Well, that didn't exactly work out.
Of course, there was also the debate. McCain would not look at Obama, and kept referring to Obama as uninformed or naïve (said the man who thought we'd win in Iraq quickly, and with 100,000 troops). Mistakes. McCain's Des Moines Register meeting, at which the Angry McCain came out again - mistake. No one's fault but McCain's that he seemed so angry.
One of the reasons I've always expect Obama to win is because of his opposition - McCain is, well, kooky. He's all over the map. There's no way to know what he's going to do or say from one moment to the next.
If McCain got the 3 a.m. call, don't you think he'd spend 10 minutes cursing at the person who called him? And then he'd probably nuke Canada and go back to sleep.
Now, though, as the McCain campaign begins to fade, it is my guess that McCain will throw more crap against the wall to see what sticks to Obama. I'm talking about nastier campaigning than we've seen so far. Desperation time.
There's a very good chance that, at this pace, John McCain will go from war hero to maverick Senator so popular in 2000 to the Republican candidate who lost the race with complete dishonor. That's where this is going: McCain's reputation is going to be in the toilet, in the same way that Rudy Giuliani can never get his reputation back after his disastrous campaign that turned America's Mayor into America's punchline.
McCain should realize this - he's going to lose the campaign. Does he want to lose what's left of his reputation, too?