The Toxic GOP and Its Just Desserts

Here we are, still a week to go, and analyses of why John McCain lost versus how John McCain can win are outpacing print and cable-network commentaries by at least a 10 to 1 ratio. And that's being generous.

Even the professionally poltroonish are "going rogue." For example I saw number-cruncher Charlie Cook making the rounds again last night on cable and public tv, and the man was downright dazed -- in fact, he was awestruck and reveling in the unmistakable throes of some sort of weird, statistical transubstantiation.

"Sure, it's not over," Cook drooled, "it's never over till it's actually over, but I mean, come on, on the other hand, it's over." That, at least, is a close approximation of words from an analyst I single out for a reason: Charlie makes his living by being cautious and noncommittal. He wouldn't have a political report to vend very long if he took risks. But calling this race, he no longer regards as risky.

What did the trick as much or more than anything were the numbers being beamed out of the Old Dominion. "By wide margins," reports the Washington Post on its latest poll, "Virginia voters think that Obama is the candidate who would do more to bring needed change to Washington, who understands the economic challenges people are facing and who is the more honest and trustworthy of the two rivals."

In short, Obama beats McCain among Virginians in virtually every category of contemporary concern.

But it's the geographical twist within that tells the deeper story -- indeed, the national story.

Perhaps unsurprising is that Obama "has an almost 2 to 1 advantage over McCain in Northern Virginia." But get this: "He and McCain each drew 48 percent of the vote outside Northern Virginia."

That's stunning, and indeed it's what has stunned the Charlie Cooks of this world and has them forecasting with unaccustomed confidence and bravado. "Outside Northern Virginia" -- otherwise once known as the reliable land of George W. Bush, Protector of Real America.

Now? It's gone as rogue as Sarah Palin. Like that Saturday Night Live skit, in McCain's face Virginia at large sees the face of Bush. And it ain't pretty.

Which leads, of course, to just about the only interesting question left in this presidential campaign. And that question is: In what ways did McCain himself contribute to his impending disaster?

I have already weighed in on the potentially, politically restorative matter of the bailout bail -- in failing to demagogue against it, McCain blew it -- and have noted as well, on occasion, the McCain camp's most curious and indeed singular strategy of assiduously playing to the conservative base, which was in full and disorganized retreat well before the stock market's Black Monday, Black Tuesday, Black Wednesday and so forth.

Yet in playing to that base there came an inherent and even inexorable substrategy: Going not roguish, or mavericky, but really, really nasty. And that, I think, was as responsible for McCain's doom as George W. Bush and his catastrophic economy.

Consider for a moment the gothic mental architecture of Donna Tilley, 58, a full-fledged member in excellent standing of John McCain's Virginia base: "I honestly believe Obama is a socialist, a Chicago thug," she told the Washington Post.

Now, it almost goes without saying that Donna would not enthusiastically and honestly believe that Obama is a thuggish Chicago socialist if the McCain campaign hadn't felt compelled to inform Donna that Obama is a thuggish Chicago socialist. That much is a given.

The key word in that passage, however, is "compelled." Donna, you see -- not George W. Bush -- (and if I hereby overstate slightly, it's only to make a necessary point) has become a significant face of the conservative base: wretchedly ignorant and hopelessly malicious. Hence when McCain decided to pander to the base, the only way he could gin it up was through cranking up the volumes of ignorance and malice.

I don't think McCain wanted that. I think he sincerely desired something resembling an honorable campaign, just as he once promised. But once he committed the fatal mistake of committing to the venomous conservative core, the above substrategy naturally and ineluctably followed.

His base had come to demand red, raw meat. It's addicted to it. It doesn't just thrive on it; it now requires it for motivation, otherwise things just don't feel "right."

This wasn't the year for that. Reality intruded, and it's likely to intrude for a long, long time. Which leaves the GOP of tomorrow with two options: either remain an irrelevant, malicious minority or detoxify as well as expand its base through massive infusions of moderation.