One of my co-workers saw it in Indianapolis, where McCain has to blunt what will be probably a big victory for Obama.

Good. Make him play defense everywhere. There's no way he can sustain it.

What happens if he runs out of money on, say, the Friday before Election Day? It would be nice to have Obama ads running all over the place with no counter-slime.

I said it yesterday. This is clearly "hold the old map" mode at this point. If states like NC and Indiana go blue - they are apt to stay like that for at least few cycles. The dam has broken and they are just trying to save the small village 40 miles downstream.

Although, to believe this, you have to believe that McCain (and, by extension, his campaign managers) actually give a shit about their party. Which, at this point, is highly questionable.

I am getting cocky and hope the RNC takes out as many loans as it can because I don't think it will help.

In terms of predictions I would bet on the OVER across the board - EVs, Sen, House everything.

Over at 538 MO, IN and NC are all blue at the moment. In keeping with my positive mood I wonder what would be the next domino to fall?

Georgia? (Would almost guarantee that Chambliss got the boot)
North Dakota?
Montana?

These states being even remotely possible is mind boggling.

I imagine that Axelrod, Plouffe are a little bit giddy playing with all of the campaign cash and pushing McCain all over the map. (Not that the jedi masters would ever lose control - they leave that up to people like me)

The idea that we can compete with the Republicans in these states that don't matter like Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Georgia is ridiculous. Indeed, even the idea that we could force McCain to spend money defending them that he can's spend elsewhere is ridiculous. We should have concentrated all of our efforts on trying to hold the Kerry states and then flip Ohio or Florida and eke out a slim mandate for the next four years. We simply won't have enough money to do waste in these states that don't matter because there's no way he can run a campaign and raise enough money over what he'd get from public financing to compete with McCain in his own backyard. And, ohmigod, the commercials, the scary, scary, scary commercials the Republicans are running. They have the power to cloud minds, you know. Obama's simmply not tough enough to stand up to that kind of sliming and people are too stupid to see through it. We've doomed ourselves by nomiating him.

I live in the NYC suburbs and work in NYC and I tell you, we haven't had a contested Presidential election in these parts in I don't know how long (I think the last time NY went red was for Reagan back in 1984). Other than the cable ads, we get nothing. . .no visits, no rallies, no robo calls, no local tv adverts, nuthin'. It's almost like I'm an observer of this election from another country but then again, come to think of it, when I see the videos of the McCain/Palin supporters, I guess I do live in another country if not another planet.

You write "The Indiana spot is the latest sign that McCain is shifting cash out of blue toss-up states and into red tossups or even reliably red states." But as he shifts money into it, Indiana is at present at least a blue toss up state, historical tendencies be damned. This isn't prevent defense, as the post suggests, it's more of a hail mary. And on home field too.

i think the mccain campaign is trying to do what the obama campaign has been successful at doing; albeit quite poorly.

the obama campaign message is "change we can believe in". from that message they are able to express how change would be good for america, how mccain does not represent change- in fact mccain represents more of the same- and how change can only come from the people. from the obama campaign message they are able to attack mccain and stay within message.

the mccain campaign message is "country first". from that message they express how senator mccain has always served his country honorably and will continue to serve his country without bowing to any party, special interest or the calls of power (at least how i've interpreted it). on the flip side, they attack sen. obama for not putting his country first and suggesting that he conceals his true intentions about change, he conceals his past, and he doesn't care about america has much as john mccain has.

unfortunately for the mccain campaign they subsequently abandonded their message of "country first" for a while and adopted something like "change you can trust" or something. but not having the ability to defend that message, they went back to the "country first" bit.

the mccain campaign does not have the ability to maintain the crux of their message and hammer it home because the adjacent attacks on obama that were once connected to the message have spiraled out of control into unbacked and blatant character attacks. there is an argument to be made the suggesting that sen. obama "pals around with terrorists and other extremists" and "might be a socialist" and "will tax you into obscurity" are derivative of mccain's "country first" message, but because we're losing sight of that message, everything mccain says about sen. obama appear to be character attacks with no basis in anything whatsoever. and when that happens, you can fill in the blank to why he makes those attacks and the obama campaign has done so: "change the subject off of the issues" "mccain has nothing left to say" "mccain can't present solutions".

this ad, in my opinion, is indicative of that strategy. sen. obama said in the ad that spreading the wealth around is good for everyone. the "joe the plumber(s)" in the ad decried raising taxes and increased spending. nowhere in the quote that sen. obama gave suggested increased spending or raised taxes. i suppose the mccain campaign is hoping people watching already "know" that sen. obama will raise your taxes and increase spending. they never give an argument. they simply say barack obama is a tax and spend socialist. is that wrapped in the "country first" message? no. those kinds of attacks don't serve him or his campaign well- and i'm pretty dang glad of that.

Uh...what's up with the new-sign in? Is registration now defunct?

I know how you feel, age. We've had no visits from either candidate in Arkansas. No one has even done any polling here in over a month, and 538 has us predicted as McCain +7 here.

But I'm not so sure about that. It all depends on turnout in central and south Arkansas. Here in central Arkansas, I'm seeing 100 Obama signs/stickers to every 2 or 3 I see for McCain. I know that's anecdotal, but I can't help but think a last-minute ad buy here by the Obama campaign could swing our state. Even without the ad buy, I'll be surprised if the margin isn't closer than Nate Silver has predicted.

Why is McCain bothering, anymore? He should just bank his cash, go back to the ranch, and wait for the other shoe to drop. I don't get his strategy, when all it seems he can accomplish is to motivate people to vote for the other guy and, this is important, the down ticket Democrats. He ran and F'd up campaign and there's nothing he can do about now except go home.

All of the Joe the Dumbers in the country can't save McCain's butt. It will keep us all entertained until Obama is elected, though.

Here in AZ we see no Mccain ads even on cable... there are Obama ads on every day...good ones.

How come no one's talking about Joe the not really a plumber having the same uncommon last name as Charles Keating's son-in-law..who also lives in Ohio???

If your state has early voting, don't wait for Nov. 4th.