George W. Bush's old ad man, Mark McKinnon was once at the center of the John McCain brain trust, but he walked away months ago because he knew the campaign would have to "disqualify Obama," and he didn't want to do that. Like many Republicans, he has chosen now to weigh in on what went wrong with the campaign. Unlike some of the others, he opines that there are not really any strategies that could have done any better. He writes:

I could join the ugly chorus and point out some of my disagreements about the campaign. There are a few things I might have done differently, but I don't think any would have made any significant difference. But I know what it's like to be on the inside of an effort that may not make it. And I know what it's like when you join the ranks of the idiots just because you come up short. Most of all, I know that Steve Schmidt and his colleagues have run a very good campaign and have taken McCain further than he had any reasonable right to, given the political climate. And by the way, don't tell the press, but the election ain't over yet. The old fighter pilot may have a couple barrel rolls left in him.

If not for a major economic event that interceded a few weeks ago (for which a strong majority of voters blame Republicans), this race might still be competitive. It isn't Steve Schmidt's fault. It's the economy, stupid.

According to Ben Smith, the skirmish  between McCain's advisers and their running mate that Karen noted below now seems to be escalating into a shooting war.  I've never seen that before.

Andrew Sullivan has a really insightful essay in the latest Atlantic on the challenges and the rewards of blogging. I was especially struck by this passage:

To blog is therefore to let go of your writing in a way, to hold it at arm's length, open it to scrutiny, allow it to float in the ether for a while, and to let others, as Montaigne did, pivot you toward relative truth. A blogger will notice this almost immediately upon starting. Some e-mailers, unsurprisingly, know more about a subject than the blogger does. They will send links, stories, and facts, challenging the blogger's view of the world, sometimes outright refuting it, but more frequently adding context and nuance and complexity to an idea. The role of a blogger is not to defend against this but to embrace it. He is similar in this way to the host of a dinner party. He can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but he also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate.

And at a time when most people in our business anguish over what has come to be regarded as a zero-sum struggle to the death between print and the web, Sullivan sees the two as strengthening each other, and comes to a conclusion that is positively bracing in its optimism--and idealism:

In fact, for all the intense gloom surrounding the news-paper and magazine business, this is actually a golden era for journalism. The blogosphere has added a whole new idiom to the act of writing and has introduced an entirely new generation to nonfiction. It has enabled writers to write out loud in ways never seen or understood before. And yet it has exposed a hunger and need for traditional writing that, in the age of television's dominance, had seemed on the wane.

Words, of all sorts, have never seemed so now.

To Karen's suggestion that Sarah Palin might be hacking her own path across the wilderness, I direct readers to this note sent to Marc Ambinder from Randy Scheunemann, regarding Palin's mavericky maverickiness:

Just read your post.  This is on the record.  This is cleared by HQ.  It is a fact that Barack Obama was palling around with terrorists.  It was a fact before Governor Palin  said it in a fully vetted speech and it is fact today.   It is b------ to claim or write anything else.

To paraphrase the top of the ticket: You can't just listen to what this guy says, you have to listen to how he says it.

Here's a story I wrote for tomorrow's Washington Post Outlook section about the AP and how things are changing for them and thus the journalism world.

Ben  Smith reports rising tension between Sarah Palin and her handlers:

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain's camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain's decline.

"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

Which the McCain campaign quickly denies:

"Unnamed sources with their own agenda will say what they want,” Schmitt said. “But from Gov. Palin down we have one agenda, and that's to win on Election Day."

UPDATE: Smith returns for Round Two, quoting unnamed sources in "McCain's camp" saying that Palin's a "diva."

The Obama campaign has just announced something I can't recall seeing at the close of a campaign: a two-minute ad (you can see it here), which it says will be running in "key states" starting tomorrow. It's unusual in part because few campaigns find themselves having the resources for two-minute spots at the end of a long and expensive fight. But the tone--specific and serious--also represents a signal to voters of the political terrain that Obama intends to occupy in the final 10 days of this race. It will be interesting to see if the McCain campaign responds in kind.