NP: John Cage, 4'33"

If these numbers are accurate, they demonstrate both the breathtaking magnitude of McCain's mistake in picking Sarah Palin, and the relentless short-term view his campaign has been taking throughout. I can't help but think that Steve Schmidt thought he could keep the wool over people's eyes -- particularly over white women's eyes -- until the election.

I've been thinking a lot about how certain things don't scale lately -- mostly with regard to free market capitalism and the notion of the "invisible hand" -- and this seems like it fits in that particular pattern. Voters in the past two presidential elections have seemed at least as stupid as Karl Rove expected them to be, and Schmidt has tested that limit by blasting through it, setting off a fairly massive backlash in the process.

The more optimistic view is that voters have gotten smarter, rather than campaign managers have acted on the assumption that they're a lot dumber, but I'm generally not an optimist.