Here is a RedState post (“The Seven Reasons McCain-Palin Are A Lock To Win”) that will serve as a valuable artifact of the political and intellectual cocoon of the modern GOP and mainstream conservatism.  In years to come, when strategists and pundits try to understand what happened in this election, this might serve as a key text demonstrating core Republican disbelief that they could lose. 

It may interest you to know (on the day that Gov. Crist had to extend voting hours to accommodate the waves of early voters) that there is an egregious campaign of voter suppression, and I suppose it must be a conspiracy so vast that I and many other conservative bloggers have unwittingly contributed to it by acknowledging reality days and weeks ago:

The first and foremost reason McCain-Palin will win is the absolute arrogance, elitism, condescending, patronizing and in-your-face voter suppression campaign – don’t vote for McCain, he can not win — being conducted by the national media on Senator Obama’s behalf.

Now think about this for a moment.  When the author says that there is a “voter suppression campaign,” he means that the national media are reporting poll numbers and Electoral College projections accurately and then drawing more or less rational conclusions from the information they have reported.  For fun, let’s grant this point–there is a vast campaign to “suppress” the vote, but we are then told that the vote-suppressing is going to lead to McCain-Palin victory by way of causing a backlash.  If that’s true, shouldn’t McCain supporters want the media to be even more biased and unfair in the closing days?  After all, as his media coverage has gotten worse and more hostile McCain’s numbers have been soaring.  Oh, wait, maybe that’s not right. 

The other reasons why McCain-Palin is a “lock” (note that he doesn’t even hedge his bets with a lot of conditional statements about what still could happen) are: 1) the Gallup poll after Labor Day as reliable predictor (which means we should ignore all the polls since then); 2) the “predictor states” of Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee (never mind that Obama is probably going to win one and possibly two of these); 3) Farrakhan and Jackson’s remarks about Obama are scaring away elderly Jewish voters (never mind that Obama’s support among Jewish voters is at 74%); 4) Disaffected female Clinton supporters will re-emerge and shock all of us (Pew has Democratic support for McCain at a whopping 7%, and his support from women is 34%); 5) Unstable economic situation means voters will turn away from the young, inexperienced candidate (even though economic woes clearly work in Obama’s favor); 6) Bradley Effect! (non-existent!).