Obama will win

Just before his 1983 election, Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards famously said, "The only way I can lose this election is if I get caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy." This election is now in dead-girl-live-boy territory for Obama. He is going to win, and likely with an electoral vote count more similar to Clinton than to Bush 43.

Let's look at the remaining 16 days of the election:

• Current situation: Obama leads by 5-7% and about 200 electoral votes. The only silver lining for McCain is that the bleeding has stopped. If the race were in the 0-2% range as it was just before the conventions, then McCain could hope that random drift, earned media, wise choices in resource allocation, or systematic pro-Obama errors in polling could make up the difference. However, there simply isn't enough time for McCain to win based on the sort of steady drifty 4% gain he received through July.
• Money: Obama is flush with cash, and has no spending limit; McCain chose (sort of) to receive public funding, and therefore has a spending limit. To be specific, Obama raised 150MM USD to spend in September alone, while McCain is limited to 84MM in spending through the whole general campaign. It must make McCain furious that he has legitimate beef about Obama declining public funding, but that he doesn't have enough money to tell voters about it. What's more, the RNC may not be spending as much on McCain as McCain has been counting on. Leaders of the six major national committees (with the possible exception of Howard Dean) like to spend money effectively, on campaigns in close races with competent leadership. At this time, McCain's campaign meets neither of those criteria.
• Air (paid): Because of his fundraising advantage, Obama is drenching McCain in paid media, and his clincher ad is outstanding. The ad's libretto effectively associates McCain and Bush, while the visuals drive home the Obama message about McCain's temperament. (In fact, even on mute, the ad is great.) I don't know what McCain's clincher ad is, or even what his campaign's message is at this point.
• Air (free): For several weeks now, McCain's campaign is behaving as though they are desperate for earned media, as well an understrapped campaign should. Some gimmicks (Palin's rollout) have worked better than others (campaign suspension), but a campaign only gets so many stabs at gimmicks before they lose their punch and the whole campaign seems, well, erratic. This Ayers/Acorn stuff isn't doing anything significant for them, and even if it were as effective as the March Wright controversy (a 4% swing in Obama's lead), it wouldn't be enough to make up for Obama's current lead.
• Air (free): The other avenue for McCain to get free media was the debates. They failed to alter the race in any significant way.
• Ground: McCain's volunteer base is more enthusiastic since he put Palin on the ticket, but Dems are pumped up (unlike for Kerry), Obama will still smoke him on the ground on the four GOTV days. In PA, where I'll be spending election day, and where McCain is spending some time, Obama has about 60 offices, while McCain has about 30. In many key areas, I expect that targeted voters will get at least half a dozen attempted contacts on election day alone.

Weekly football picks: Cowboys, Titans, and Bucs to beat their 7, 8, and 10.5 spreads against the Rams, Chiefs, and Seahawks.