What a great synopsis of organizational failure, starting at the top. But JimWhite @2, your comment really synchs with the NYT article about the changing narrative of the McCain campaign.

New issue today. Apparently CREW is involved with this case, a Federal Case filed in Texas — a whistleblower case claiming that the same person who bought Coleman’s suits, and apparently furnished the credit card for the Neiman Marcus shopping trip for Palin, has been paying an insurance company where Coleman’s wife worked 25 thousand a month for no services. Apparently some sort of super-secret pass-through to Coleman via his wife. The source of the money seems to be Oil Drilling Companies active in the Gulf off Texas — which is probably why the suit was filed in federal court in Austin Texas, rather than in Minnesota. If someone wants to look up the complaint and add particulars, please do so.

Coleman had a press “curbside” — too smally to call it a conference, and has denied everything, and blamed the DFL for making public what is going on in an Austin Texas court. Apparently this case had been filed in the past, their were negotiations, they failed, and the case was refiled. At least that is what Coleman is saying.

Franken has no comment on this yet — perhaps he won’t bother given that he has asked about who is paying for Norm’s clothes, rent and utility bills, and still does not have a straight answer on that. Why should he ask who is paying for his wife? (and put that way there is a real story there that has never made print.)

Anyhow, a nice little nugget to hit just before election eve.

Lawyers – especially GOP lawyers – don’t work for free.

So they have relied heavily on Lawyers and the courts (Plus Drudge and Fox) to try their suppression tricks. But against Obama Campaign Lawyers and MONEY, looks like they were out maneuvered.

Their only suppression hopes at this point will probably be the rogue elements going old fashioned with tricks such as misleading flyers in black precincts- too mishmash to have a large effect.

So, not only are these people dropping the ball in terms of a ground game, they aren’t even able to contact the right people! It’s actually funny, when you think about it. But in a battleground state, you’d think they’d at least know who not to bother with! It’s comical, but they seem to think that self-employed people vote repub.

I’m simply not sure that scaring people works well anymore. People want hope and the Obama campaign provides a sense of uplifting unity. Who wants to be down-in-the-dumps with mcShame? Oh, well….

I do remember what McCain was doing. He took a break, certainly. And he spent a lot of money advertising in the summer.

Starting in June, he started advertising on attack ads against Obama.

Those ads almost perfectly coincided with Obama’s focus on opening ground game in his last two states: FL and MI.

As I said, this problem really goes back to the summer, the period when (though the press would have had you believe that Obama, not McCain, faced the big problem within his party) McCain had not yet won the love of the base of his party.

Along those lines, remember all the hand-wringing over McCain having won his nomination so far ahead of Obama and the calls for Clinton to drop out because McCain had such a clear playing field to campaign? As it turns out, McCain completely wasted that time (does anyone remember what he was doing while all the attention was on Barack vs. Hillary?) and Obama is now reaping the rewards of all the ground staff he put in place in those late primary states.

When I came back from voting yesterday, I found a McCain RNC direct mail piece in my mailbox. It was bad enough to send me a Palin-focused flier, but to send me a flier trying to get me to vote for neanderthal Cliff Taylor and against Carl Levin??? A big waste of money.

Also, rumor has it that the McCain team is paying some of its poll challengers. Of course, if they’ve taken money out of GOTV and dumped it into ads, they’re going to pay fewer challengers, muck up fewer polls, and dissuade fewer voters from voting.

Bummer for them.