Rift cracks demoralised McCain campaign

Denis Irwin

The McCain campaign is definitely demoralized right now. The blame game has begun.
There is no question that there is a rift between Sarah Palin's camp and that of John McCain inside the Republican campaign, sources tell ABC News.
And you are seeing people within the McCain campaign starting to look to the future.
Not only Palin, but many of the McCain staffers, as well, are circulating their resumes and pointing the finger.
Whenever people in the campaign are starting to worry more about their own reputations rather than whether they're going to win in seven days, there is a significant problem.
GOP Rift Between McCain and Palin Camps

Palin is going to be the most vivid chapter of the McCain campaign's post-mortem.
McCain argued Monday that he "couldn't be more proud" of his running mate.

However, there is a significant rift inside the McCain campaign.
Those loyal to McCain believe they have been unfairly blamed for over-handling Palin. They say they did the best they could with what they got.
They point to the bounce in the polls McCain got when he announced Palin as his running mate, her Republican convention speech, and her first interview with ABC's Charles Gibson.
What didn't work were the limited, subsequent media interviews, most notably between Palin and CBS anchor Katie Couric.

But some McCain camp insiders tell ABC News they simply couldn't put Palin out in front of the media any more than they did because she wasn't ready.
The Palin camp is fighting back, arguing that if the McCain campaign had just let Sarah Palin be Sarah Palin, she would have done just fine on her own.
The Alaska governor herself has been pushing out on her own against McCain's handlers.
In recent days she has been speaking her own mind about what she thought of McCain's strategy in Michigan, and what she thought of his decision not to go after Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And we're seeing more and more of that in the closing days of the campaign.

Obama Tries to Boost Turnout, Momentum

Officials from both the Obama and McCain campaigns tell ABC News they believe there is very little that either candidate can do to change the trajectory of the race.
Unless one of them makes a major mistake, nothing they can say or do will affect them one way or the other.
Now, it's all about turnout and momentum.
Barack Obama is leading McCain 52-45 in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.
The only thing the Obama campaign is worried about right now is voter complacency, over-confidence, or that the idea that Obama is winning somehow energizes and mobilizes Republican voters.

McCain Looks to Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is the only big Democratic-leaning state than McCain has a chance of turning around now, although he trails Obama 53-40 in the latest Pennsylvania poll by Morning Call/Muhlenberg College.

If McCain doesn't win Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes, he would have to run the table and win all eight of the competitive states that were held by President Bush in 2004, including Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, and Nevada.
That's very, very tough for McCain to do.

The only way he has more paths to 270 electoral votes is if he can flip Pennsylvania and turn it around -- that would give him more leeway.
If you take all four of these states that will be decided relatively early on Election Night next Tuesday -- Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and Florida -- McCain has to win three out of four of those states to even have a chance of getting to 270 electoral votes.
Even that is a necessary but not sufficient condition for him. That shows what he's up against because he's behind in all four of these key battleground states right now.
Even more dire for McCain, the Republicans even started to advertise this week in Montana, which should be a solid Republican state.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=6124663&page=2

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