No matter what national polls are saying, the presidency is won by electoral votes, and to get to 270, there are two states McCain has to have in his column: Florida and Ohio. (yes, there are other battleground states he needs also, but without FL and OH, it ain’t happening).

So…okay, I can see him in Virginia. Important state – not as important as Florida or Ohio, but important. But on Tuesday and Thursday he was in Pennsylvania and Palin was in Maine and North Carolina..? I see that today he finally got to Florida. He needs to be camping out in Florida and Ohio.

Nope, not a concern troll before anyone starts pointing fingers. But c’mon, you have to admit – McCain has some “hafta win” states, and he really needs to be there, stumping and shaking hands. Not wasting time in PA where he’s 14 points behind.

From the “you need to read it even though you won’t like it” pile:

An item from the stack of stuff that you won’t like if you’re a right winger. No, not Rush’s stack of stuff, Douthat’s. But it needs to be said.

Look, I’m going to tell you up front that I’m someone that most of you guys have little use for, so feel free to ignore or delete this or whatever, you’re not hurting my feelings. I’m not posing as a conservative, because I’m not a conservative, nor am I a dyed in the wool liberal. Just boring middle of the road. Ok, nuff said.

So much of what I’ve seen this election season has been repulsive in terms of anger, attacks, and name-calling. I swear it’s like being on an elementary school playground, where two groups of kids that can’t stand each yell stuff like “hey Jimmy, you’re a big poopy pants” and “nuh uh, it takes one to know one”. Zing.

So. It comes down to Old Man PoopyPants versus Young That guy-with-the-terrorist-sounding-name. Truly a brilliant level of discourse this election season.

I take most of the pundit’s columns with a grain of salt. I read them, sure, but I find few of them compelling. However, this column by Douthat actually resonates, it makes perfect sense. It reminds me of what happened to Democrats after the 2000 and 2004 elections when the hard left faction of their party was crying “cheaters” and “fraud”. It took Democrats 6 years to get back on track and realize that voting fraud and cheating weren’t the issue; and crying over spilt milk and lost elections got them nowhere.

From Douthat’s column:

*My original point, though, was that even if you view all of these critics and their motivations in the worst possible light, you still have to address the problems that are making them jump ship, instead of just saying “good riddance!” as they jump over the side. This isn’t David Gergen milking his “Republican” cred on the Sunday talk shows while spouting a center-left line; this is a large and diverse swathe of the right-of-center intelligentsia, and just calling them careerist RINOs in search of crumbs from the liberal table isn’t going to cut it. Maybe Kathleen Parker’s delight at appearing on the Colbert Report is unseemly, and maybe Frum and Brooks and Will are getting carried away in their anti-populism. But the counternarrative being pushed by the critics of the critics – namely, that the GOP ticket is losing mainly because the media is biased, Obama’s playing dirty, McCain isn’t a true conservative and his campaign won’t go after the Ayers connection hard enough – is vastly more damaging to conservatism’s long-term prospects, I think, than anything that Brooks or Parker or Buckley or anyone else had said and done.

This is what a lot of conservatives are going to be telling themselves after election day: That Obama cheated, that the media cheated, that McCain wasn’t a conservative anyway, and that the only reason Sarah Palin wasn’t a hit with swing voters is that the press – with an assist from conservative quislings like Frum and Brooks and Parker and Noonan – poisoned the well. And in such thinking lies the seeds of years or even decades of defeat.*

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/29/rollins.palin/index.html

I admit it: I’m a moderate, not a winger for the right nor the left, so the usual entries that I read on RS and Kos are usually so over the top partisan that they make me take the opposite side of the issue. Weird; but that’s just the way my brain works I guess.

This story, by a former Reagan political director, is what appeals to a moderate’s sensibilities (well, ok…at least my sensibilities). It’s very well thought out, it’s articulate, and note – it’s absolutely absent of all BS. This Ed Rollins guy rocks.