I don't understand what you're saying is not McCain's fault. Surely McCain's campaign and what it says (including what McCain himself says) are 100% McCain's fault. He made the decisions and he absolutely deserves whatever damage occurs to his reputation.

The "not his fault" claim suggests that you've been hanging out too much with former barbecue guests of McCain, who continue to believe that somehow he can be an honorable man despite failing to behave in an honorable manner (much as the US can remain a supporter of human rights while embracing torture, because we're by definition the good guys?).

There's a lot of chicken-fetus-counting going on in the lefty blogosphere. I think it is still an open question whether McCain's attacks are going to work. I hope they won't. But I fear the most likely outcome is that they will work to some extent. My expectation is that they will work well enough to draw this race back into something like a dead heat, and on the morning of Nov. 4 we won't have a good idea who is going to win, just like 2000 and 2004.

I agree, jeebus. Who knows what motivates the voters who are still undecided, but I imagine a fair number may be develop "doubts" about Obama because of the nonstop slime over the next four weeks. The media coverage will also evolve to avoid a blowout and keep things close to keep more people glued to their televisions.

If BushCo hadn't totally and undeniably destroyed this country, any of those things would have been enough.

And the media needs a horserace. Something will "come up" to tighten things.

I just wrote about whether or not these Rove-style smears are effective on my blog, and I came down on the same side as Ezra. Basically, when they were alleged to work in the past there were other compelling reasons for the candidates who won to win. The effectiveness of this stuff has been receding since the 80s, and I think this might be the year it backfires. Hearing Americans yell racial slurs at black men, calling a US Senator a terrorist, and all the rest should make America wake up and take stock of where we're going. I think it will.

Yes, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I largely agree, but I wonder about the timeline you close with. Is it possible that it is the nature of Obama's candidacy that has blunted the attacks, rather than the timing of it?

Those Rove style smears worked once already during the campaign. How soon everyone forgets Obama's mid summer swoon. The economy is making those attacks hold less and choosing a neophyte like Palin took away a lot of McCain's "serious" cred.

I think the fact that McCain has so thoroughly aligned himself with someone who is quite demonstrably the worst "president" in American history* may have something to do with it, too. Probably because it's because Bush has made it impossible to deny that basing your vote on a phony culture war smear is a really bad idea.

I disagree with Ezra (& the rest), or rather, I agree for a different reason.

I don't believe the "template is broken" so much as it's not operational in the current climate. With two failing & expensive wars, the economy in free-fall, not to mention seven years of Bush mismanagement, identity politics aren't enough to distract people from the actual issues.

McCain's attack politics have, I think, had some effect. But if this were a time of peace & prosperity, McCain would be out ahead by at least 10 points... indeed, his attack politics are perhaps the reason Obama isn't ahead by 10 points.

If Obama wins, it will probably discredit identity/attack politics. For a while. Once the US gets back on track to (relative) peace & prosperity (it's gonna be a while), I think we'll see return of the "template" in all it's glory.

What this is about is the continuing decline in the white vote, plus older more racist generations of voters dying off and younger more tolerant voters taking their places.

The Civil Rights movement sparked the angry white backlash. Nixon called it the "Southern Strategy."

But, most voters today weren't even born in 1968 and people talking about those racial wounds might as well be discussing the Norman Conquest for all the relevance it has.

People under 40 grew up in a different world (most of them). For the 1980's generation it's even MORE different. Race just is a lot less relevant and they can't understand why older voters are making such a big deal about it. It looks OLD and ugly -- like somebody exposing their string-warts in public.

In 1996 the white vote was 83%
In 2000 the white vote was 81%
In 2004 the white vote was 77%
In 2008 the white vote will be 73% or possibly 72%.

The Reagan Revolt where all these culture war crap was relevant is finally over. And it's going to STAY over.

The Reagan coalition is as dead as the New Deal coalition. Republicans haven't accepted that yet and keep hoping for their cultural crap to continue to work "I don't get it? It worked in 2004! Why not now?"

2004 was still in the shadow of 9-11. Today, the terrorist threat is a distant memory and the economy is front and center.

I hope Ezra's right about this. I'm waiting to see whether the McCain slime sticks in places like Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina. It's clear from the ugly noises at Republican rallies that the haters aren't going to fade away quietly.

Ross Douthat figured out the difference between this a Willie Horton. Willie Horton connected to people who feared crime, which was still a salient issue in 1988. It may have been racist, but it connected to an actual fear of the voters.

Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers connect to nothing.

Willie Horton connected to people who feared crime, which was still a salient issue in 1988. ... Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers connect to nothing.

As for Reverend Wright, definitely. But Ayers connects to terrorism, which I think is still something people fear, though the fear is not nearly as salient as it was last time around.

If you held a gun to my head and told me to choose between McCain and Bush I would ask,nay beg you to shoot me.

shuttered

*sigh* one thing the msm still has over blogs: orthography...

I think that one reason that McCain has to be more explicit about his message to the political right is that people on the right don't trust McCain. McCain got his "maverick" label by being willing to occasionally criticize conservative positions in the national media. The problem, from the perspective, is that McCain was interfering with the political right's messaging in order to get publicity for himself.

McCain doesn't do this any more. For the past four years he has been trying to reassure the political right that he is a reliable conservative, but that hasn't erased all of the doubts. As a result, he's still trying to reassure the political right four weeks from the election.

It's 100% McCain's fault. He is also an incompetent, dishonorable jerk.

It is remarkable that Obama has a shot at the Presidency. A very large percentage of Americans cannot consider pulling the lever for a black man, despite the very clear incompetency of his opponent, and the very clear implications of that incompetency on the future of America.

What Ayers really connects to is the Sixties, with all the horror that holds for the people who made up the Reagan Coalition. How many people really care about the Sixties now? Not enough to matter.

I also suspect that the McCain hijinks around the Wall Street bailout bill was probably the last nail in the coffin, as to anyone paying attention it totally undercut his claim to being the steady one.