The 48 Hours

The Republican Party's Ministry of Propaganda has produced a news release in which McCain is quoted as saying:

I’ve got to catch up and get ahead. And I expect to do that about 48 hours before the general election.

He's been mocked for this on a lot of the leftie blogs, but I think it's a smart gambit. He's behind in the polls, but everyone who's paid attention during a national election knows that polls taken in June mean nothing, and that races this far apart always get closer by November (just ask Walter Mondale about that!).

Peggy Noonan (blech!) knows that, and writes:

Things will move along, Mr. Obama in the lead. And then, just a few weeks out from the election, something will happen: America will look up and see the inevitability of Mr. Obama, that Mr. Obama has already been "elected," in a way, and America will say, Hey, wait a second, are we sure we want that? And it will tighten indeed.

The race has a subtext, a historic encounter between the Old America and the New, and suddenly the Old America—those who are literally old, who married a guy who fought at the Chosin Reservoir, and those not so old who yet remember, and cherish, the special glories of the Old—will rise, and join in, and make themselves heard. They will not leave without a fight.

And on that day John McCain will suddenly make it a race, as if moved by them and wanting to come through for them one last time. And then on down to the wire. And then . . .

And then. What a year, what an election.

So this election, like all elections, will get closer. People will yearn for the days when America was, well, white -- or, at least seemed so. And McCain will make it look like it was all a result of his brilliant campaign. Columnists will say, "By golly, he was right!" And he'll claim the momentum in the last two days, when it's unverifiable before it doesn't matter anymore.