McCain's strategy reaches for the disconnected

I didn't think there was any GOP ploy inane enough to befuddle Fox TV.

I was wrong. (note: Sam Wurzelbacher is "Joe the Plumber")

Editorial - Shepard the Anchor - NYTimes.com

... Mr. Wurzelbacher has held press conferences. He was interviewed on the “CBS Evening News,” where he compared Mr. Obama to Sammy Davis Jr...

At a campaign rally this week, Mr. Wurzelbacher was filmed agreeing with another McCain supporter that electing Mr. Obama would be “death to Israel.”

For five painful live-on-Fox minutes the next day, Mr. Smith repeatedly asked Mr. Wurzelbacher what evidence he had to back up that charge. Mr. Wurzelbacher refused to answer. He said it was up to Mr. Smith’s viewers to figure out why he, Joe the Plumber, thought Mr. Obama was a menace to Israel.

Looking incredulous, Mr. Smith gave up. He read a statement from the McCain campaign praising the plumber’s “penetrating and clear analysis.”

Then Mr. Smith said: “I just want to make this 100 percent perfectly clear. Barack Obama has said repeatedly and demonstrated repeatedly that Israel will always be a friend of the United States no matter what happens once he becomes president of the United States. His words.”

“The rest of it,” he said, “man, it just gets frightening sometimes.” ...

So is McCain insane?

Sadly, no.

If we exclude the alleged 66% of people who now won't answer pollster phone calls (so what does that say about polls?), we're left with 10% of the electorate that's still in play.

How can they still be undecided?

These are Americans who don't have much contact with the wider world. They don't use reason or logic (not even the logic of those who feel abortion is legalized murder), they aren't connected to a religious community or other organization that controls their voting behavior, they are simply adrift.

Outreach to this group demands the bizarre.

That's what McCain is doing.

He doesn't have much choice. The reason-based community, from libertarian to rational conservative to liberal has deserted him. The non-fundamentalist religious community has largely deserted him. He's left with the fundamentalists, the racists, the hard-core GOP talk radio audience, and the disconnected.

The worst bit is that when you add up the hard-core GOP, the racists, the fundamentalists and the disconnected you might have a majority of the American people.

We'll find out soon enough.

Call a rational young person and compel them to vote.