So, is McCain resigned to defeat or is he still committed to stealing it?

At least the Republicans in charge of the machines are still committed to stealing it, but it seems like McCain is beginning to give up (pulling out of CO, etc.) What do you think?

Time to turn it over to the vote thieves and go take a nap.

as Obama will end this week near a 15 point lead in the national polls (my guess)

election, and even more privately, he knows that he is not the presidential contender Obama is.

Increasingly, I feel that McCain is just going through the motions. Mysterious "others" took his vice presidential pick away from him in exchange for a block of fundie support, and they lit the cigar in St. Paul and it blew up in their faces.

Kaboom.

Obama landslide.

....I wonder if the reason why McCain seems to be phoning it in, is that he knows it's already been stolen for him, so he's going though the motions.

sincerely and honestly believes he will win, and win honestly. When you are inside a campaign you really are sheltered from reality. People like McCain and Palin (by which I mean people running for very high office) are not logging on to sites like DU, and probably aren't logging on to the internet at all. We know that McCain is pretty much computer illiterate, and I suspect Palin is a low user of the internet.

Plus, at this point they are too busy to do things like read a lot of newspapers, news magazines, or anything at all. I suspect strongly that McCain almost never reads for pleasure, and I doubt Palin reads anything more intellectually demanding than a romance novel.

And while Obama and Biden are similarly isolated, I bet they are reading actual news, either real papers or printouts handed to them by aides. They are already far better educated and better informed about many things than McCain and Biden combined, and it shows if you see even snippets of their speeches. Or watched the debates.

It is far too simple to start thinking in terms of stealing the election, or deliberately throwing it, or other things like that I keep on reading here. No one runs for office assuming a loss. No one makes it through a difficult primary season without being convinced he can and will win. My guess is that John McCain will be the most surprised person in America when he loses on November 4.