Loosing the Grip

Well, I thought life was bad for Obama after the lipstick-pig thing, but he has managed to make it worse. He put out an advert yesterday that mocked McCain for not using e-mail. Turns out that this is wrong on so many fronts somebody in Obama's campaign should be fired.
First, McCain has injuries that make it difficult for him to type. In other words, the Obama advert just mocked a heroic war veteran because the injuries he sustained have handicapped him - that will go well. As Glenn Reynolds said:

Oops. Another unforced error from the Obama campaign, which seems to have had a lot of those lately. The above is from 2000 -- don't these people know how to use Google? Or NEXIS? Or something?

Second, turns out that McCain pioneered the amazing use of the Internet that has powered the Obama campaign, and McCain did that in 2000 - some Luddite he! What on earth is going on here? This suggests a level of incompetence that is almost unbelievable.
Partly I think this is the cocooning issue I discussed a couple of days ago. Nobody in the Obama campaign could think beyond the message they wanted to send, to see what negative repercussions it might bring. In short, they cannot see beyond their own (inevitably limited, by which I mean all of us have limited vision, not just the Obama campaign) vision. In a campaign that can be bad, but in a Presidency this can be disasterous. It further makes clear just how stupid Obama's claim that his experience running the campaign qualified him to be President - it don't!
Of course, all of this might have no effect, but it looks very much as if it is beginning to have a major impact. First, the Palin phenomenon continues. Increasingly, commentators are drawing attention to the solid values inherent in small towns, and inherent in the experience of many women (a far broader group than coastal elites). Neither of these aspects of her candidacy are easily comprehended by the mainstream media, so they miss the import of these insights.
But, the voters do not. And the polls are beginning to reflect that, not only in the National numbers, where change would show up soonest, since National level polling occurs daily, but also at the State level, which is of course where it actually counts.
If you look at those State level numbers, you see that of my ridiculous projections for McCain to win, the numbers do not apparently look good.
Currently in the "leans" or "likely" GOP column, I have Florida and Ohio. Three of my states are in the toss up category CO, NM, and NV. Of the remainder NH,PA, MI, IA are in the "leans" Democrat column, and MN is in the "likely" Democrat column.
That would seem to suggest absolutely no chance of my prediction that all of these would go for McCain. Add into the mix Virginia, which I had assumed would be for McCain and is in fact shown as being a toss-up. However, if we look a little closer we see that many of these States have old polling. MN for example, is based on an August 14 report at which time Obama led 46 to 42%. Think that might have changed a bit? NH was polled August 20 at which time Obama led 47 to 46%. Iowa was polled August 11 (46 to 41% for Obama). Other polls are more recent (typically September 8 or 11) but these three states (MN, NH, IA) will almost certainly show numbers more favorable to McCain when they are next polled. Obama has taken a significant hit in the last two weeks, it is only now beginning to show fully in the State polling, and if he does not move his game up several notches, he will be toast. He has to get back on message and quit making mistakes in the next week, or he may not get back into this race.
UPDATE
It would appear that I am not the only one who is feeling this way. Senior Democrats are beginning to panic, and polling indicates that FL and PA are moving out of contention.