Karl Rove and a certain river in Egypt

Pumping sunshine up Republican skirts:

What about swing voters? There are probably more undecided and persuadable voters open to switching their choice than in any election since 1968. . . .
To win, Mr. McCain must demonstrate he stands for responsible conservative change, while portraying Mr. Obama as an out-of-the-mainstream liberal not ready to be president.

Let's inject some cold reality into this scenario:

• Gallup - Obama +11
• Rasmussen -- Obama +6
• CNN -- Obama +8

You can cherry-pick more favorable national poll results for Maverick, but none of them show him winning, and let's try some recent battleground state polls, shall we?

• Virginia -- Obama +2
• Nevada -- Obama +2
• New Hampshire -- Obama +8
• New Mexico -- Obama +5
• Missouri -- Obama +3
• Colorado -- Obama +6
• Florida -- Obama +2
• Ohio -- Obama +3

Again, you can cherry-pick and find other polls where Maverick is doing better in some of these states, but it takes a pathological level of optimism to draw a map that gives him the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win. It's a sort of delusion that psychologists call "magical thinking" -- if you want it bad enough, you can will it into existence -- and it's symptomatic of severe psychoses like paranoid schizophrenia.

Karl Rove doesn't believe this crap he's shoveling. He knows as well as anyone that this election is over. When Maverick called off his campaign to push the bailout Sept. 24, he blew it. When his campaign pulled out of Michigan, it was an admission that the harebrained stunt had failed. We've already had three out of four debates. In the last Gallup daily tracking poll before the first debate Sept. 26, Obama led by 3 points. Now he leads by 11: The more voters see of John McCain, the more they favor Barack Obama.

Rove is just a cynic, exploiting the magical-thinking delusions of Republicans who desperately want to believe that victory is still possible. False hope is bad for your mental health.