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The folks in Crystal City are pushing back hard with Marc Ambinder's "McCain-isn't-dead-yet" meme. Our own Matt Lewis makes note of it here. They'll get no argument from me that media narratives, especially in primaries, are fickle and can turn on a dime. I can see where McCain is a tad undervalued on Intrade. I can see where he makes a comeback, particularly with his residual strength in some of the early states. Ambinder has placed his chips on McCain as John Kerry '04 -- a campaign of the living dead that rallies back to win Iowa and virtually everything else. Like the Dems in 2004, the field is very unsettled, so it's not impossible. But it's less likely than Kerry '04. Unlike Kerry, McCain doesn't just have the unstable Howard Dean to climb over. He has Thompson, Giuliani, and Romney. All of whom are very skilled politicians. Against any one of them, you might give McCain better than even money. Against all three, in the war for "Who has the Big Mo?" McCain would have to hit the jackpot.
The McCain-dead-pool narrative, though overplayed, does at least follow the fundamentals of McCain's bid, in that McCain can't seem to break 20% nationally no matter what the configuration of the field. As I noted before, when Rudy announced he popped. When Fred announced, he popped. Romney is popping after the debates. But when McCain announced, he went sideways, which I think reflects a fundamental lack of interest and enthusiasm for the man among Republican voters.
McCain may be better off than most in that if his tide does come in, his opponents' first tier defenses (IA, NH, SC) crumble first. But his tide is receding, which makes it only a matter of time before McCain's strong points are subject to the same flight. (It was once thought that money and organization were McCain strengths, but no more.) If everyone else is leaving the party, how likely is it that Granite Staters would buck the trend and stick around? It's a long campaign. Will one or two of Big Four implode? That's likely. But McCain would need three out of the four to implode (assuming, of course, he's not one of them).
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