On June 15, 2008, Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times:

It was just this toxic stew of inadequate fund-raising and hostility from the base — along with incompetent management — that capsized the McCain campaign last summer. Now the management, at least, is said to be new and improved, but the press is still so distracted by the “divided Democrats” it has yet to uncover how that brilliant McCain team spent weeks choreographing the candidate’s slapstick collision with a green backdrop and self-immolating speech in prime time two weeks ago.

The only figure in the McCain camp who has candidly acknowledged any glitches is his mother, the marvelous 96-year-old Roberta McCain. Back in January she said that she didn’t think her son had any support in the G.O.P. base and that those voters would only take him if “holding their nose.”

The ludicrous idea that votes from Clinton supporters would somehow make up for McCain defectors is merely the latest fairy tale brought to you by those same Washington soothsayers who said Fred Thompson was the man to beat and that young people don’t turn up to vote.