Funny stuff from Pittsburgh’s WTAE-TV:

Next Monday, the Pittsburgh Steelers will try to beat the Washington Redskins on the road and hold onto a one-game lead in the AFC North Division — but that’s far from the most important thing at stake.

The result of the Redskins’ final home game before Election Day has accurately predicted the winner in 17 of the past 18 presidential elections.

If the Redskins win, the incumbent political party stays in the White House. But if they lose, the incumbent party is voted out.

So, rooting for the Steelers next week will be like rooting for Obama. I’m sure that this twofer is something that a lot of Steelers Nation will cheer about.

From Ambinder, the latest Pew poll:

Pew’s Andy Kohut conducts one of the better national surveys out there, and his results today — even assuming that he caught McCain in a downdraft — are fairly stunning. Obama leads by 16 points among likely voters, by 17 points among independents, by 13 points among men, by 20 points among women, is tied among whites, and is up eight among white Catholics.   Of the 15 percent of the sample who’ve already voted, Obama leads by 19 points (although this subsample has a fairly large MoE).  74% of Obama’s backers say they support him “strongly,” which is 20 points higher than the percentage who say the same about their support for McCain.

From Ambinder:

Pennsylvania will see a lot of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin next week.

The scheduling reflects McCain’s tough electoral math. With some — though by no means all — advisers all but conceding Colorado, McCain would be forced to win a blue state in order to recoup the electoral votes. New Hampshire wouldn’t give him enough, and Pennsylvania, the McCain campaign believes, is the most brittle of the remaining states. Public and private polls give Obama a double digit lead in the state, but McCain advisers believe that Obama is underperforming in the suburbs and exurban counties around Pittsburgh. Tensions between the two campaigns in the state is acute.

John Moody, Executive VP of Fox News and Pittsburgh-native, writes what I think is the definitive take on Ashley Todd’s account of alleged political violence.

We know know that she has confessed to making the whole story up and forever done her candidate of choice a great deal of harm.

Less than two weeks before we vote for a new president, a white woman says a black man attacked her, then scarred her face, and says there was a political motive for it.

…

Part of the appeal of, and the unspoken tension behind, Senator Obama’s campaign is his transformational status as the first African-American to win a major party’s presidential nomination.

That does not mean that he has erased the mutual distrust between black and white Americans, and this incident could become a watershed event in the 11 days before the election.

If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.

For Pittsburgh, a city that has done so much to shape American history over the centuries, another moment of truth is at hand.

From the Dept. of Confidence Boosting:

John McCain’s election night watch party might be missing John McCain. Instead of appearing before a throng of supporters at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix on the evening of Nov. 4, the Republican presidential nominee plans to deliver postelection remarks to a small group of reporters and guests on the hotel’s lawn.
Aides said Thursday that the arrangement was due to space limitations and that McCain might drop by the election watch party at some other point.
McCain’s remarks will be piped electronically into the party and media filing center, aides said. Only a small press “pool” — mostly those who have traveled regularly with the candidate on his campaign plane, plus a few local Arizona reporters and others — will be physically present when he speaks.
Thomas Patterson, a government professor at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, called the arrangement “unusual” but said the campaign may simply be bowing to the reality that the candidate’s remarks are geared toward the televised audience rather than those in the hall.
“Addressing your supporters election night is one of those traditions in politics, like where you choose to launch your campaign,” Patterson said. “Why wouldn’t you want the energy of the crowd? And if you’re going to lose, you almost need it even more.”

According to an analysis by Evan Tracey of Campaign Media Analysis Group sponsored by Talking Points Memo, McCain ran 336 spots in Pennsylvania last Monday but only 284 this Monday. That is a week over week 15% drop in Pennsylvania ad spending by the McCain campaign.

From Taegan Goddard:

With 12 days to go, a new Quinnipiac poll finds Sen. John McCain is narrowing the gap in Florida, but fading in Ohio and barely denting Sen. Barack Obama’s double-digit lead in Pennsylvania.

Florida: Obama 49%, McCain 44%

Ohio: Obama 52%, McCain 38%

Pennsylvania: Obama 53%, McCain 40%

Said pollster Peter Brown: “As we enter the home stretch, Sen. Obama is winning voter groups that no Democrat has
carried in more than four decades, and he holds very solid leads in the big swing states. If these
numbers hold up, he could win the biggest Democratic landslide since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.”

Politico spoke with McCain staffers to see where they see their chance to get to 270 electoral votes with Michigan now off the map.

McCain now must win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Minnesota in order to get enough electoral votes to win the presidency, his campaign says. 

Those were considered swing states in 2000 and 2004, but George W. Bush lost them both times. 

“Our ability to pick off one of those three states is where our fortunes are largely held,” a McCain official said. “These are states where Barack Obama is on the defense.” 

They’re also confident that Obama won’t pick off any more of the states that Bush carried in 2004.

Recent polls have showed Obama running strong in some states Bush won in 2004. But the McCain official said the campaign is confident: “We feel strongly that we’re going to win in Florida, Missouri and the traditional Republican states of Virginia and North Carolina.”

This is absolutely huge news. How does McCain get to 270 now? Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are his last bets to pick up a sizable (sorry NH) Kerry state. Unfortunately for McCain, neither of those are at all trending in his direction. In fact, he’ll have a lot of trouble holding Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina if the latest poll numbers hold. On top of which is that he’s already given up Iowa and New Mexico, which Bush won. Ouch! This has got to hurt Team McCain.

Jonathan Martin has a huge piece of news:

John McCain is pulling out of Michigan.

Just weeks ago, that state seemed like the key battleground, and McCain’s best bet (save New Hampshire) to pick up a Kerry state.

Now, McCain needs a win in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as the pressure on him to run the table grows and his winning scenarios narrow.

“You don’t suspend your campaign. This doesn’t smell right. This isn’t the way a tested hero behaves… “hat are you going to do if you’re elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We’ve got a guy like that now!

– David Letterman, criticizing Senator John McCain