Monday: Stormy Monday

And, no, we’re not talking about Hurricane Ike, although we are sending good thoughts to our Floridian and Gulf Coast Conflucians today.

What we’re talking about is it the newest USA Today/Gallup poll that puts McCain ahead by 10 points over Barack Obama.  This latest poll was conducted from September 5-7, 2008, sufficient time to gauge the Palin Effect and John McCain’s speech.  Darragh Murphy said that the Republicans would finish Obama off by the end of September.  Who knew that the minions working for Obama would be so efficient in speeding things up?  The DNC must be in full panic mode, hoping and praying that Hillary can pull it out for them.  Bastards.

By the way, I finally got a chance to view McCain’s speech in its entirety on my DVR and I have to say that it took me by surprise.  McCain put his own party on notice.  There were many points in that speech when the applause in my house was louder than the tepid response he got in Minnesota.  I sometimes wonder which torture was more painful and humiliating for him.  The Hanoi Hilton or being broken by the Bushies while they trashed the tattered remnants of his own party?

It remains to be seen whether John McCain can deliver on the reform he promises.  But one thing is for certain: there is no doubt who he identifies with as his role models.  He admires Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower.  These are men of integrity, progressivism and moderation.  John McCain’s voting record in the past eight years has not reflected much of any of those three things.  But he *does* have a respectable record on election reform and objection to the earmark system.  It is regrettable that he broke to vote with the Bushies on so many other horrific bills.  Did he compromise his principles in order to survive and fight another day?

In the meantime, the PUMAs may be flexing their muscles. We are real and there are millions of us.  Millions disaffected enough to bump McCain up, whether or not we intend to vote for him.  We got the word out that the Democrats were NOT unified.  We showed up at the MSNBC kiosk in Denver and “marched and shouted slogans” (generic NPR speak for any sufficiently significant band of protestors).  I didn’t mind shouting “Rise, Hillary! Rise!” but felt uncomfortable about calling Matthews a sexist pig.  He did come out at one point and stood on the corner of the stage, a little like a contrite sinner in the stocks, as the goody townspeople hurled nasty epithets at him.  I suppose we should feel happy that Olbermann and Matthews have now been sidelined.

But *why* are they being sidelined?  What possible harm could they do now?  Exactly.  Their job is done.  They took out Hillary Clinton.  Now’s the time to bring in the less overtly vitriolic team to shore up NBC’s reputation and return to the status quo of treating Republicans with kid gloves while covering the Democrats less gently.  The whole mechanism is reconstructed as it is every four years.  The electoral map hasn’t changed significantly, except that now the Democrats are in danger of losing Pennsylvania.  Plus ça change…

We did what we could.  We got the word out as best we could.  We fought off attack after attack.  We tried to warn our own side not to fall into the trap.  But fall it did.

Lord, have mercy on me.