Filing from the Cleveland Clinic, Too Much Change Ward

LS: Dick, wake up. We need to write this Shiner Spencer Report. The election is less than a week away.

RS: Mmrf? What happened? Where's my waitress?

LS: No waitresses, Dick. We're in the hospital. If you want the nurse, hit the button.

RS: Hospital? Why the hell are we sharing a bed?

LS: Because you don't have health insurance, so I put you on my plan as my 'partner.' It's been that kind of campaign.

RS: I'm drawing so many blanks that it feels like I've had a vasectomy. Why are we in the hospital?

LS: I'll fill you in as we go along, Dick. With only six days to go, Senator John McCain is trailing behind Senator Barack Obama in most battleground states, making this election seem all but in the bag for the man from Illinois.

RS: True enough, Louis. Although the McCain signs have been popping up like unsteady mushrooms during the last two weeks of October, polls have been relentlessly tilting towards Obama, making McCain supporters uncomfortable about their future.

LS: And, as early voting has suggested, Obama supporters are making their stand ahead of time. It remains difficult to see a McCain win at this time, although nothing is ever certain this close to election day. Absentee ballots, traditionally favoring Republicans, are

RS: Absentee ballots won't matter in this race. It's all over for the elderly senator and his ambitions. Had he maintained his actual maverick ways, the ones he held until about 2004 when he began to court the GOP to be the golden boy for this election, then he might have had a chance to truly distance himself from the Bush Doctrine and the recent economic turmoil.

LS: Careful, Dick.

RS: As it is, he has been campaigning on a more recent history of being tied to Bush's fiscal irresponsibilities and the disastrous effects of the war in Iraq, and Obama is representing a complete change from the festering sepsis that has manifested in the White House, and people are really... seeing...

LS: Easy, Dick. Deep breaths.

RS: Real change! Real change! Real change!

LS: Nurse Wagahoff! Nurse? He's lapsed again.

RS: A vote for Obama is a vote for America's future! It's not socialism, it's opportunity, and there's nothing more American than...

NW: I've increased his objectivity count, but you'll need to keep him on topic or he'll lapse into hysterical messiah propaganda again.

LS: Thank you, Nurse Wagahoff. Dick, steady on now. Let's maintain our neutrality, shall we?

RS: I... I'm sorry, Louis. The frenzy of the Obama campaign is... it's not easy to maintain a dispassionate distance.

LS: Of course it is, Dick. That's why we're in the Too Much Change Ward.

RS: Mayo Clinic?

LS: Cleveland Clinic.

RS: So we're still in the middle of the battle?

LS: It's close, but it's a red state at the moment. Blue where we are now.

RS: And the candidates?

LS: McCain was in North Carolin and Palin was in Pennsylvania yesterday. Obama left Virgina, and Biden is on a bus tour through Florida.

RS: Virginia... isn't that the state with the phony fliers telling independent Republicans to vote on the 4th and independent Democrats to vote on the 5th?

LS: It is. The Virginia state police are investigating.

RS: Anyone who falls for that deserves to be left behind. Americans owe it to themselves and their nation to be educated voters. At any rate, we're looking at the same sort of criminal partisanship that has plagued this country for decades. Whether it has anything to do with the McCain campaign is irrelevant at this point. The idea that someone or some group would try to trick their neighbors out of their constitutional right to vote is completely irresponsible.

LS: It is a federal crime to obstruct voting.

RS: It ought to be punishable by horsewhipping, Louis. How long have I been out?

LS: We've both been out, Dick. Late last week, we were in Ohio to cover the McCain message, and on the way back to the press bus,

you saw a group of teenagers wearing Obama shirts. We stopped to interview them, and their obvious enthusiasm was infectious. We joined up with them in their Scion convoy, and during the weekend, you arranged a drinking game where every time Obama said 'better off' or Palin acknowledged Joe the Plumber or any of the other 'X the Y' persona non grata, you would take a shot of Jgermeister.

RS: That's why my tongue tastes like cough medicine.

LS: And during McCain's Meet the Press interview Sunday, you began to hyperventilate when Senator McCain said of himself and President Bush, 'so do we share a common philosophy of the Republican Party? Of course.'

RS: I remember that. The beady eyes, the inappropriate eyebrow play, the clumsy laugh...

LS: And the kids started chanting 'Change We Need' over and over, and you lost control.

RS: I wish I remembered that.

LS: It's nothing to be proud of. I don't know where you found that crate of Obama * Biden stickers, but I don't think Mansfield will ever be the same.

RS: And the hospital?

LS: It was either a short committal to the Cleveland Clinic or a long stay in the Richland County jail.

RS: I wonder if they still serve Kona coffee there. Thanks, Louis. This election cycle has really taken its toll, but I'm feeling better.

LS: Good to hear, because we're checking out today.

RS: Can you catch me up on the campaign in fifty words or less?

LS: Joe the Plumber is stumping for McCain, McCain's people are calling Palin a diva, Palin and McCain are calling for Ted Steven's resignation, Palin accused Obama of wanting to rewrite the Constitution, Obama's giving the same speech over and over, and Biden hasn't said anything crazy in a few days.

RS: I'll trust your count. before we leave, what's the constitutional change thing?

LS: Seven years ago, Obama said the words 'redistributive change' in a radio interview. Tuesday evening, Palin, in what looks like an attempt at an October surprise, said Obama 'regretted that the Supreme Court hadn't been more radical and he described the Court's refusal to take up the issues of redistribution of wealth as a tragedy.' She then went on to say 'he also regretted that the Supreme Court didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers there in the Constitution, that's a quote.'

RS: Fabricated alarmism or fact? I mean, Obama used to be a constitutional law prof, right?

LS: Obama was actually talking about the civil rights movement at the time, not taxes. He also said he believed relying to heavily on the courts to affect social change was a mistake for the civil rights leaders, and that income redistribution issues were better off in the hands of legislators and community organizers.

RS: Of which he was one.

LS: Yes, but the McCain campaign has discounted his experience as a community organizer, so from their perspective, that's a moot point. Palin was using the quote as a way of rallying the troops into believing that an Obama administration would allow judges to 'confiscate your property and your hard, all of your hard-earned money and then re-distribute that. He may call that a tragedy, but I call it fairness and adherence to our U.S. Constitution.'

RS: Assuming McCain loses, where do you see Sarah Palin in four years?

LS: On Fox News as either an analyst or as the host of her own show.

RS: So political future?

LS: She's alienating Alaskan voters, and angering Alaskan Democrats. Those Democrats helped her to push through her tax on oil companies in Alaska, and her bi-partisan ways were key to all of her accomplishments as governor. Palin's new rhetoric makes it pretty clear that her days of reaching across the aisle are over, and that is going to handicap her as governor. Couple that with Senator Ted Steven's conviction and the Troopergate scandal that hasn't gone away and she's looking at hard times for the next two years.

RS: I've talked with some GOP strategists who believe she might be a Republican superstar if the McCain campaign goes bust.

LS: I don't see it that way. She has been a bizarre combination of a liability and a crowd catcher for McCain, but part of her ability to attract large groups of people at rallies seems to have more with her folksy patter than her actual message. If Obama wins, I don't see Palin as a 2012 hopeful.

RS: Good enough. Anything else?

LS: Some last-minute efforts by both McCain and Palin to tie Obama to yet another bad guy. This time they're attempting to link Obama to the PLO.

RS: Magnificent. Go down swinging, is that the strategy?

LS: That might be an apt analogy. The vicissitudes of McCain's campaign have really brought out the worst in him, and the choice of Palin has really emphasized how bad things have become. Apparently, she wasn't kidding when she made the self-referential remark about pitbulls and lipstick at the RNC. Whenever she starts a speech with 'it is not negative campaigning to call someone out on their record,' chances are pretty good they've dug something up that's going to either make them sound petty or give Obama a chance to display his calm exterior when dealing with one of the McCain accusations.

RS: Interesting thought, Louis. Do you suppose McCain's biggest foe is himself or the liberal media that the Republicans see everywhere?

LS: Honestly, Dick, I think McCain's biggest foe is Sarah Palin. She was the wrong pick for the time, and her actions as of late aren't doing a lot to further McCain's agenda. She's become a rabid reminder of what has gone wrong with the Republican party. All of her fiery bluster only makes her look hateful and divisive, and that's not how McCain started his campaign. Nor is it how Obama is winning his. As for the liberal media, I admit that my credentials helped to get your medical care this week.

RS: Thanks again for that, old friend. Do we leave a tip for the nurse? But before we check out, let's check the betting line:

LS: Obama by 12.

RS: My lost weekend aside, I'm calling it at 3 up for Obama. Still close, but inconsequentially so.