McCain races towards a dead end (Irish Times)

[struggle4progress]

... "Debates very seldom make fundamental changes in a race unless one of the candidates makes a huge mistake," McCain's senior strategist Charlie Black told me after the Nashville debate. "In no poll will you see John McCain's unfavourable rating go up as a result of this tonight."

That's not enough for a candidate who is now struggling to defend states that have long been solidly Republican, who is being outspent three-to-one in the battleground and has already retreated from Michigan, until recently one of his most promising targets ...

The shift in the race towards Obama is clearly reflected in the candidates' schedules: McCain and his running-mate Sarah Palin now spend almost all their time campaigning in states George Bush won in 2004; when Obama left Nashville yesterday, he went to Indiana, a state that has not backed the Democrat in a presidential election since 1964.

Obama is also campaigning and advertising heavily in traditionally conservative southern states like Virginia and North Carolina, where he is either ahead or tied with McCain ...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/1009/1223445615393.html