No need for a long op here.
Simply.........who thinks he can still win?
McCain's boost in polls is predictable and temporary. Palin is a cute, new, sexy celeb added to a dead ticket. The GOP likes to confuse people by doing contradictory things that make no sense. They claim to be against big govt, then expand the powers of the president beyond belief, and preside over the most invasive, expensive expansion of govt the US has ever seen. They claim to be fiscal conservatives, then choose policies that are absolutely ruinous from a fiscal point of view, like refusing to tax the rich for an unnecessary war. Bush was liberal to the extreme when it came to granting himself the right to be above the law, and do whatever he simply felt like doing. He got away with it by simply calling himself conservative, then acting with the most extreme kind of liberality toward himself, big oil, his cronies and friends. They did not even have to be qualified to do a job. He gave them jobs because they were buddies. You can't get any more liberal than that.
McCain is trying to paint himself as a change agent by saying he disagreed with Bush & other republicans. This is like saying you are no longer married to your wife because you occasionally disagree.
McCain is married to the republican party. He embraces their whole mind-set. The only way the GOP is ever going to change is if they are soundly defeated, and kicked out of power. That is the only thing that will get them to re-think their basics and fundamentals. They have to hit rock bottom, like an alcoholic or drug addict does, before they will sober up. Unless and until that happens, they will keep using the same old strategies they have always used. They are good only at attacking, ridiculing, abusing, and badmouthing others. They get a kick out of putting incompetent people on a ticket or in office. It's a little bit like appointing Martha Stewart to be the new head coach of the New England Patriots. That would outrage anybody who loves football and takes the game seriously.
The message they send by appointing incompetent, clueless people to a job they clearly can't perform is a simple one. They are simply saying, "We have the power to do whatever the hell we want, and nobody can stop us."
This gets a lot of democrats so angry they can't even think straight at first. But the good thing is that there is plenty of time between now and Nov for the confusion and novelty factor to wear off.
McCain can't give a decent speech. He acts sometimes like someone with the symptoms of pre-dementia. He's erratic, has poor judgment, gets abusive, loses his temper all the time, gets reactive as hell.
Obama is the exact opposite. He has a cool head, is not impulsive or reactive. His sense of timing is very good. I think he is letting the GOP dig its own grave a little deeper right now. It's like giving your opponent a false sense of security and confidence in the ring or on the playing field, so they become blind to their own weaknesses. You bide your time until they are exposed and vulnerable. Then you simply knock them out and wipe them up.
McCain acts like a spoiled, pissed off teenager, much like Bush did. Both appeal to a kind of adolescent male resentment. They appeal to people who don't have the power to do whatever the hell they want to do, whenever they feel like doing it.
I know I'll get backlash for saying all of this. But that's what I think.