IF YOU THINK THIS IS BAD, IMAGINE IF THEY WON

A lot of lefties right now are letting themselves believe the new Pew poll that shows Obama up by 16. Many righties are believing the most McCain-friendly of Gallup's three interpretations of its own polling numbers, which shows Obama up by only 2.

Me, I think Obama's winning -- but I'm still worried about the few remaining tight polls. I can't shake the fear that a tightening race + GOP voter suppression + Obama voter complacency could equal McCain by an eyelash, maybe just in the Electoral College.

So I still think persuadable voters need to be talked out of voting for McCain. If you know such voters and need more ammo to help change their minds, point them to all the bickering that's going on -- and ask them if they can imagine people who are at one another's throats this way managing to stop fighting and run a freaking country.

How bad is it? Here's the latest, from Robert Draper at GQ:

Almost from the very beginning, the Palin pick created tension.

... I remember seeing Tucker Eskew—an old Bush hand out of South Carolina who had never spent a day in McCain World until Nicolle Wallace recruited him to be Palin’s counselor—wandering around the premises, looking somewhat lost. He and Wallace took charge of schooling the Alaska governor on message discipline. Two days later at the GOP convention, an adviser watched them coach Palin on how to answer routine press questions and warned Steve Schmidt that she was being overly managed.

... a couple of McCain higher-ups have told me ... that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues. Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: "Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing." It’s a grim binary choice, but apparently it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus. I was told that Palin chafed at being defined by her discomfiting performances in the Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Sean Hannity interviews. She wanted to get back out there and do more....

... I’ve heard from one well-placed source that McCain has snubbed her on one long bus ride aboard the Straight Talk Express, to the embarrassment of those sitting nearby....

You think it would get any better if McCain somehow manged to eke out a win?

McCain would think he'd won despite the frivolous, ignorant Alaskan millstone around his neck. Palin would think she was the one who'd pulled the ticket across the finish line even though the wussy, uninspiring old centrist in the top slot didn't want her to "take the gloves off" and go all Wright/Ayers/socialist/un-American, all the time. The advisers would be divided into similar camps. And Palin would probably be just as determined to run for president in 2012 as she'll be after a loss, so she'd be undermining McCain's authority every chance she got, while he'd be trying to show her who's boss.

Can you imagine the country run by this bickering, dysfunctional clan? Can you picture them with a 9/11 or a financial meltdown in the offing? Doesn't it terrify you that this is still a possibility?