Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

by DemFromCT [courtesy of Daily Kos]

Capitulation.

NY Times:

Again and again, party leaders said they were concerned that the race was slipping away and that Mr. McCain and his advisers seemed to be adrift in dealing with an extraordinarily challenging political battleground.

Connecticut Post:

She's reveling in the ugliest corner of her party's support. Rallies over the past week have featured backers yelling racial epithets, calling Obama a terrorist and worse. She has shown not the slightest indication any of this was a problem for her. (Nor, it should be noted, has a certain Connecticut senator on stage with her at a few of these events.)

Jonathan Alter:

Sure, the market would likely be melting down McCain's campaign no matter what he did. But he'd have a better chance if he canned the character attacks on Barack Obama. Aside from being offensive and desperate, they don't work with undecided voters. And they're confusing to McCain's own stoked-up partisans, as he found in Minnesota last week, when he told a woman who said she was scared by Obama, because he was "Arab," that she was wrong and his opponent was actually a "decent family man." McCain's own crowd then booed him.

Christopher Buckley:

Let me be the latest conservative/libertarian/whatever to leap onto the Barack Obama bandwagon. It’s a good thing my dear old mum and pup are no longer alive. They’d cut off my allowance.

Or would they?

Wick Allison:

THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT “the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate,” the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me.

In 1964, at the age of 16, I organized the Dallas County Youth for Goldwater. My senior thesis at the University of Texas was on the conservative intellectual revival in America. Twenty years later, I was invited by William F. Buckley Jr. to join the board of National Review. I later became its publisher.

Follow-up:

Your article endorsing Obama found its way to my computer, Wick... and I wanted you to know you have a VERY strong "thumbs up" from three folks you might least expect: my two sisters and me. We are the daughters of Bill Miller who ran for Vice President with Barry Goldwater back in '64. We have all morphed quite independently into feeling, as you do, that the Republican Party in general and George Bush in particular do not represent in any fashion what our dad stood for more than 40 years ago.

NRO: We've come a long way from Bill Buckley and Wick Allison. We're obsessed with pushing losing strategies. Just scroll down and pick your favorite.

Harold Ford Jr.: Been there done, that. When faced with losing, Republicans turn into vicious asshole character assassins. Why? Sometimes it works. But then again, McCain's been down that road before, so it's no shock.

Charles Lewis: An interesting description of Scranton, PA Catholics and the dilemma they face over abortion in the face of an aggressive Bishop.

Dick Polman:

We knew already (as I detailed in this space yesterday) that John McCain's Faustian pact with the Republican attack machine has seriously damaged his so-called "maverick" brand, perhaps beyond repair. And now, thanks to the news last night, we have solid proof that the so-called "maverick" vice presidential nominee is really just another garden-variety politician who violates the public trust for personal gain.

Pat Buchanan: Can McCain win? With my track record of running as the pitchfork wingnut who lost, and lost badly, why is anyone even asking me? Believe, me, I am as puzzled as you as to why people care what I think. I guess they assume I have insight into Sarah Palin's hate stuff.

Charlie Cook: Well, I've got a better track record than Buchanan, and this is getting near to being out of McCain's reach. Only a refocus on national security can save him.

Michael Barone: The sunofabitch is going to win. Let me vent. Obama's a thug who hands out at librul thug places, like universities and colleges. Sarah Palin and the Hate Talk Express? Just a nice girl who speaks her mind. Gah, I'm too old for this.

Stephen Hayes:

It is, in short, a campaign heavy on tactics and light on strategy. Three weeks out from the 2008 election and John McCain's campaign has no discernible central theme, no succinct answer to the most basic question voters ask as they consider their choice: Why should I choose you over the other guy?

Paul Harris:

When John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate, his supporters declared the move a masterstroke. But Republican poll ratings have been falling day by day - and now the 'Troopergate' scandal has turned the Hockey Mom from Alaska into a liability for a campaign that has lost its way.

And here's something that needs to be read by every reporter in America:

There seems little doubt that Palin is still the darling of a huge section of red state America. But what works for the Republican base no longer works for the country as a whole.