The rats are jumping off Captain McCain’s sinking GOP ship

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Elizabeth "Liddy" Dole, once the darling of the Republican Party and considered a serious contender to become the first female president of the United States, is in serious jeopardy of losing her reelection bid to the U.S. Senate in North Carolina.

Dole's Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan, has run a solid campaign and is maintaining a consistent lead in statewide polling since mid-September. Pollster.com has the averaged polls at 46.6 to 42% in favor of Hagan. Kay Hagan has made a clean sweep of every major newspaper endorsement in North Carolina. Kay Hagan Sweeps Endorsements

And Barack Obama is either tied or leads in recent polls in North Carolina, a state a Democrat has not won since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC) just released a campaign ad trying to save Liddy Dole's Senate seat in which the underlying premise of the new ad is that Obama is going to win.

The ad urges a vote for Dole against Hagan to prevent total control of the government by Democrats. "If [Hagan] wins, they get a blank check." NRSC ad assumes Obama win

John McCain has run the GOP ship aground, and the rats are jumping off his sinking ship. It's every man (and woman) for himself now. The NRSC is trying to prevent a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate, and to hell with John McCain. Expect to see more endangered Senators join Liddy Dole in jumping ship in coming days.

"With despair rising even among many of John McCain’s own advisers, influential Republicans inside and outside his campaign are engaged in an intense round of blame-casting and rear-covering — much of it virtually conceding that an Election Day rout is likely." Blame game: GOP forms circular firing squad

[S]ome McCain aides are already speaking of the campaign in the past tense. Morale, even among some of the heartiest and most loyal staffers, has plummeted. And many past and current McCain advisers are warring with each other over who led the candidate astray.

One well-connected Republican in the private sector was shocked to get calls and resumes in the past few days from what he said were senior McCain aides — a breach of custom for even the worst-off campaigns.

“The cake is baked,” agreed a former McCain strategist. “We’re entering the finger-pointing and positioning-for-history part of the campaign. It’s every man for himself now.”

John McCain apparently is looking out for himself now as well. (I know, what a surprise). John McCain might skip his own election-night party:

John McCain's election night watch party might be missing John McCain. Instead of appearing before a throng of supporters at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix on the evening of Nov. 4, the Republican presidential nominee plans to deliver postelection remarks to a small group of reporters and guests on the hotel's lawn.

Aides said Thursday that the arrangement was due to space limitations and that McCain might drop by the election watch party at some other point.

McCain's remarks will be piped electronically into the party and media filing center, aides said. Only a small press "pool" — mostly those who have traveled regularly with the candidate on his campaign plane, plus a few local Arizona reporters and others — will be physically present when he speaks.

Classy, John. You still have dedicated supporters busting their humps for your sorry ass, and you are signaling to them that it's all over and you are giving up. So much for all that B.S. "I'm a fighter" crap. The Prima donna is going to take his ball and go home because he lost. This is no way to treat your staff, volunteers and supporters. A candidate has an obligation to thank his staff, volunteers and supporters personally for their efforts.

So why should anyone vote for John McCain at this point? Republicans should just stay at home on Election Day to register their profound disappointment with McCain.