Rove On McCain: "Very Steep Hill To Climb"

John McCain has a "very steep hill to climb" to win the election, former White House adviser Karl Rove told "Fox News Sunday."

Rove, nicknamed "The Architect" for his role in helping President Bush win the last two elections, gave a sober assessment of McCain's chances, explaining that Barack Obama is ahead with 317 electoral votes, according to his own electoral map.

Rove forecast that Virginia, Colorado, Indiana and Ohio would go Obama's way and that McCain has to win back those states and dominate the remaining battleground states to have any chance of winning:

In order to -- in order for McCain to win, he's got a very steep hill to climb. He's got to win all of the toss-up states, 64 electoral votes, all the yellow-shaded states on the map.

Then he needs to strip away Ohio and Indiana with 31 electoral votes to get him to 252. And then he needs to either win Colorado and Virginia, which gets him to 274, or win one of them plus Pennsylvania, which would get him to 282 or 286. It's a steep uphill climb.

Rove also commented on recent reports about infighting within the McCain campaign:

It is a sign of undisciplined people who do not have the loyalty that they ought to have to the candidate whom they're serving. And it's -- it's a sad sight to see. Nobody makes themselves look good by this process..