How McCain could pull this one off

Can John McCain possibly win this thing? Can he actually win in November?

The outlook is bleak: The polls are ugly, the Electoral College map is grim, the economy is getting worse, and McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin may have energized the Republican base, but it has appalled and frightened many outside it.

Still, McCain’s campaign has come back from the dead more than once. He survived his early support for immigration reform, he not only survived but has prospered from his support for the Iraq war surge, and he rebuilt a primary campaign that was in a state of near collapse to win the Republican nomination. [...]

“McCain can definitely win the race,†[conservative politics expert, Greg] Mueller said. “McCain needs to change the discussion back to a referendum on Obama. He needs to define Obama’s agenda as dangerous to America.

“It is dangerous to the economy. Obama is calling for higher taxes, historical spending and a huge increase in regulation that will hamper American business. Contrast that with McCain’s message of lower taxes and freezing spending. On foreign policy and national security, Obama is a risky bet in a hostile world.

There are a number of conflicting accounts of the Forrestal accident, but here is the story as based on the strongest sources. The fire started at 10:51 a.m., Saturday, July 29, 1967, as 30-year-old Lt. Cmdr. John McCain sat on the port side of the Forrestal in his A-4 Skyhawk going through preflight checks. To his right was Lt. Cmdr. Fred White, also in an A-4 Skyhawk attack aircraft. A Zuni rocket on another airplane accidentally fired and flew across the flight deck, passing through White’s auxiliary fuel tank and falling into the ocean. Fuel spilled onto the deck from White’s craft and ignited. McCain told his biographer, Robert Timberg, and repeats in his own book, “Faith of My Fathers,†that the rocket hit his own plane and knocked two bombs from it into the burning fuel as he scrambled out of his cockpit and raced to safety across the deck.1

There was, in fact, a single bomb—not two—that dropped to the deck. It exploded 90 seconds after the fire broke out, intensifying the blaze until it raged out of control. White and Thomas Ott, McCain’s parachute rigger, were among the first to be killed instantly or mortally injured, along with most of the firefighting crew. McCain’s plane captain, Robert Zwerlein, was one of those who suffered fatal wounds at this point.

GOP presidential nominee John McCain has past connections to a private group that supplied aid to guerrillas seeking to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua in the Iran-Contra affair.

McCain’s ties are facing renewed scrutiny after his campaign criticized Barack Obama for his link to a former radical who engaged in violent acts 40 years ago.

The U.S. Council for World Freedom was part of an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. The group was dedicated to stamping out communism around the globe.

The council’s founder, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, said McCain became associated with the organization in the early 1980s as McCain was launching his political career in Arizona. Singlaub said McCain was a supporter but not an active member in the group.

“McCain was a new guy on the block learning the ropes,” Singlaub told The Associated Press in an interview. “I think I met him in the Washington area when he was just a new congressman. We had McCain on the board to make him feel like he wasn’t left out. It looks good to have names on a letterhead who are well-known and appreciated.

McCain plans fiercer strategy against Obama

GOP plans to focus on Democrat’s judgment, honesty and personal ties

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama’s character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat’s judgment, honesty and personal associations, several top Republicans said. [...]

“We’re going to get a little tougher,” a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. “We’ve got to question this guy’s associations. Very soon. There’s no question that we have to change the subject here,” said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Sarah Palin questioned Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s decision to abandon efforts to win Michigan, a campaign move she only learned about Friday morning when she read it in the newspapers.

In an interview with Fox News Channel Friday, the Alaska governor said she was disappointed that the McCain campaign decided to stop competing in Michigan. In an indication that the vice presidential candidate had not been part of the decision, she said she had “read that this morning and I fired off a quick e-mail” questioning the move.

“Todd and I, we’d be happy to get to Michigan and walk through those plants of the car manufacturers,” Palin said, referring to her husband. “We’d be so happy to get to speak to the people in Michigan who are hurting because the economy is hurting.”