Try To Imagine Something Dumber

Mickey Kaus, still given an inexplicable venue in which to needlessly bold things, shares with us his take on the electoral map.

kf is Confused: Politico's Mike Allen reports-

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) now must win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Minnesota in order to get enough electoral votes to win the presidency, his campaign says.

Huh? It looks to me as if McCain can win enough electoral votes simply by winning all the toss-up states on the RCP map--which does not require him to win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Minnesota. What am I missing? Does McCain know something about Ohio that the public polls don't show? Is it going the way of Michigan? If so, there's your lede!

The thing about toss-up states is that they're, er, toss ups. He theoretically could win every single state on that map, but just given the fact that each state is teetering on the fence, it's like hoping that your team can get two touchdowns, two two-point conversions, recover two onside kicks and then get a field goal all in the final six minutes of the fourth quarter. It's theoretically possible, yes. But it would probably help if the other team dropped the ball once or twice.

P.S.--Don't Unpanic, Dems! If Ohio is still in play, then I'm one of those who looks at the RCP electoral map and thinks, not "McCain's path to 270 ... is narrowing," but "jeez, Obama could still easily lose," even if the polls showing his non-trivial national lead are right. He's got to win one of seven decidedly iffy states (Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Missouri). You want to rely on Colorado?

This is where the special kind of stupid comes into play. The states are "iffy" on both ends - the only difference is McCain has to do everything perfectly while Obama, at present, only has to do anything competently. At least Kaus isn't doing his bogus "who will Kausfiles vote for?" schtick that he pulled the last two elections - it was painful watching him pretend to not be in the tank for the Republican candidate. Of course, it would be helpful if he's at least not to pretend to be in the tank of Big Dumbass - a surprisingly resourceful interest group.