The Feel of Concrete Setting

Yesterday, a slate of new polls delivered devastating news for McCain.

The Pew Research Center poll shows Obama leading 52%-38%, as doubts grow over McCain's judgment, age, campaign conduct and Sarah Palin.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Obama leading 52%-42%, as voters grow more confident in his ability to be president and commander in chief while McCain is plagued with voter concerns about Palin's qualifications to be president.

Even the less reliable Reuters/CSPAN/Zogby poll shows Obama leading 50.3%-42.4%.

All these polls seems to confirm the opinion of highly respected election analyst/forecaster Charlie Cook:

The metrics of this election argue strongly that this campaign is over... First, no candidate behind this far in the national polls, this late in the campaign has come back to win. Sure, we have seen come-from-behind victories, but they didn't come back this far this late.

Second, early voting has made comebacks harder and would tend to diminish the impact of the kind of late-breaking development that might save McCain's candidacy...

Third, ...the switch from parity between the parties to a 10-point Democratic advantage would seem to almost seal this outcome irrespective of the candidates fielded on each side. The unprecedented surges seen in Democratic party registrations in those states that require party affiliations confirm that.

Fourth, just look at the money and spending. With Obama now outspending McCain routinely by margins of 3- and 4-to-1 in advertising in so many states, it's hard to see how the Arizonan's campaign can drive a message...

Fifth, while many are talking about the so-called "Bradley effect," ...it hasn't been seen in at least 15 years and the likely surge in turnout among African-American and young people seems sufficient to offset it anyway.

Finally there are the states. Obama is now leading in every state that Al Gore and John Kerry both won... He is also ahead in Florida, Colorado and Virginia. If that weren't enough (and it is), he's running basically even in Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio, and even threatening in Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

Hmm, perhaps this is why McCain is cutting back ads in New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Colorado, Maine and Minnesota?

Poor McCain. Not only is he running out of runway, his fly zone is getting smaller and smaller.

Cook further predicts:

As things are going now, this election would appear to be on a track to match Bill Clinton's 1992 5.6 percent margin over President George H.W. Bush, the question is whether it gets to Bush's 1988 7.7 percent win over Michael Dukakis or Clinton's 8.5 percent win over Robert Dole in 1996.

Maybe some cataclysmic event occurs in the next two weeks that changes the trajectory of this election, but to override these factors, it would have to be very, very big.

Twelve days to go.

More from Memeorandum here and here.

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