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October 11, 2008
As the clock runs out.
I remember stories like these at about this stage of the campaign in '92 and '96 (here's one, in fact). We didn't get to see them in 2000 or '04.
Now they're back. Happy Saturday.
Republican leaders across the country said Saturday that they were worried that Senator John McCain was heading for defeat unless he brought stability to his presidential candidacy and settled on a clear message to counter Senator Barack Obama.
In interviews, Republican leaders said Mr. McCain appeared to be flailing in trying to campaign against the backdrop of an economic crisis on Wall Street and seemed uncertain about how tough to be in taking on Mr. Obama.
Again and again, party leaders said they were concerned that the race was slipping away and that Mr. McCain and his advisers seemed to be adrift in dealing with an extraordinarily challenging political battleground...
“I think you’re seeing a turning point,” said Saul Anuzis, the Republican chairman in Michigan, a state Mr. McCain pulled out of last week. “You’re starting to feel real frustration because we are running out of time. Our message, the campaign’s message, isn’t connecting.”
...The difficulties of the McCain campaign have lead some Republican leaders to express concern that he could end up dragging other Republicans down to defeat, if he ends up losing by a significant margin.
“If Obama is able to run up big numbers around the country, the potential for hurting down-ballot Republicans is very big,” Mr. Anuzis said.
One sign of that has emerged in Nebraska, where Representative Lee Terry, a Republican, ran a newspaper advertisement featuring words of support for him from a woman identified as an “Obama-Terry voter.”
"G.O.P. Officials Hope for Stability From McCain" (NY Times)
