This isn't a stretch. I can see clearly now. SAFIH (Stick a Fork in Him.) McCain is done. Senator Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States of America. This is not an endorsement but a prediction. Of course, I'm the same person who predicted John Kerry would win in 2004.
I'm much more sure of my prognostication this time.
Last time I thought the youth vote would tilt the election in Kerry's favor. But the youth didn't turn out in greater numbers. Plus, they weren't really all that enamored of Kerry. The 2008 youth vote is a clear channel: All Obama, All the Time. College campuses, with few exceptions, are Obama Central.
It doesn't take a village to raise the white flag on the McCain-Palin ticket. It takes a disappointing showing by Senator John McCain in Round Two of the presidential debates.
Last night Senator Barack Obama, aka "that one" according to Senator McCain, erased lingering doubts that he is ready for the Prime Time Presidency.
Senator McCain raised more doubts that he has the energy or interest in the job. McCain's point of no return occurred weeks ago when he declared he was suspending his presidential campaign in order to focus on the economic bailout in Washington. That putting country first utterance was supposed to come across as presidential. Instead it came across as unsteady. It's been downhill ever since for the McCain-Palin Straight Talk buggy and the ride has been bumpy, although Governor Sarah Palin still has that energizer snowbunny aura about her. (I want to know what daily multivitamin she takes.)
Since the old military man seems unwilling or unable to return fire, he has left it to Palin to question Obama's Facebook-like credentials. It's not sticking. The guilt-by-association tactics and radical community organizer labels are backfiring as characteristics of a campaign in freefall.
The world is not only watching, but it is weighing in. We're being told, "Hey America, give this guy from Illinois a chance. We like him." In ordinary times global public opinion wouldn't count as much. But these are extraordinary times and this time the world is a Blue State.
Have the mainstream media assisted Obama in making his case to America? Of course they have. But Senator Obama had the same media format as Senator McCain in Mississippi and Tennessee, so the otherwise Obama-fawning media charges aren't persuasive this time.
There was once a time when I watched in awe as Senator John McCain kept Town Hall crowds spellbound with his inspirational rhetoric. It was in New Hampshire and a long eight years ago.