The Damage Control Begins

With 22 days left until the election, not even the right wing numbers nerds at Real Clear Politics can see a way out for McSame at this point. This week's GOP plan, which is apparently "ludicrous happy talk of divided government through Republican control of Congress" is already being laughed off the stage by the right.

Jonathan Martin catches a new message perhaps emerging from McCain circles: The benefits of divided government.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, campaign manager Rick Davis said:

Do we really believe that the American public is going to feel safe by having both the head of the Congress and the head of the White House from the same party that has had so many challenges with the way they've run Washington over the last couple of years?

Appearing next, Gov. Tim Pawlenty sounded the same theme:

"I don't think the country is going to like the Democratic party running the table on taxes, on education, on health care and have kind of the liberal, unchecked, imbalanced approach to all of those issues," Pawlenty said. "It's going to be bad for the country. I think having John McCain as president to balance that out and be able to work across the aisle as he has throughout his career to get things done would be a good compromise, a good balance."

If coordinated, as Martin says these comments "almost certainly" are, then we can probably expect an ad in the not-too-distant-future featuring prominently Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid as the faces of an Obama administration. It could have an impact, since Congress' approval ratings are also in the tank, except that Dems hold a 10-point advantage in the generic Congressional vote and no one thinks they won't pick up seats in both chambers.

The Democratic landslide is coming, folks. We'll need all the help we can get in 2009. Certainly the GOP will try to put up the divided government argument once again in 2010 and argue that Obama is responsible for everything, and that the Democrats have to go.

I don't think it will work then, either.