Of the signs that a presidential campaign is in deep trouble, the most telling might be when a candidate’s home state is in play. For a race to be even close on home turf would be a massive embarrassment. It would take a politician with a high concentration of self-defeating behaviors and noxious methods of campaigning, a politician so out of touch with the situation on the ground that his own constituents had no choice but to turn away from him.
As you may have surmised, that politician is John Sidney McCain III. McCain leads Obama 48% to 47% among likely voters in Arizona. To give the proper context, Obama holds a commanding lead over McCain with likely voters in his home state, 58.7% to 33.6%. The script is flipped with early voters, a 17 percent sample of the potential state electorate: Obama comes out looking good, 54% to 42% (then again, those are exit polls, so there’s always the chance the numbers are actually reversed).
The situation for McCain looks sufficiently dire that he’ll be popping up in Prescott, Arizona election eve, instead of one of the handful of swing states that could decide the election. You know, I’m really beginning to see the inherent elegance of Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy…
