Smell the Flop Sweat

So, speaking of the DNC, I was listening to Weekend Edition yesterday morning, and they had a couple of political strategists on the air, doing wrap up what-did-it-all-mean analysis. They were going down the list of speeches, the Democrat and Republicans taking turns giving their opinion. When they got to John Edwards, the Republican's take was that Edwards was a disappointment, not much meat, not much fire to the speech, so maybe Edwards wasn't going to turn out to be such a strong choice for Veep after all. Maybe he was going to turn out to be another Dan Quayle...

After the briefest of stunned pauses the Democrat cut in to deride this as the arrant nonsense it is, but in that pause what I thought was: Omigod, they're so terrified they're not even thinking straight. They're grasping at straws to smear Edwards with anything they can think of, and they're even willing to dis their own team to do it, and look ridiculous trying it. They will say absolutely anything at this point in the hope that something, anything, will stick.

What reminded me of it again this morning was reading over at Eschaton what Bush team strategist Matthew Dowd actually said with his mouth on Fox today:

"If you want change in this country, you ought to vote for President Bush."

This is a little too close to the Onion spoof headline: "Bush 2004 Campaign Pledges To Restore Honor And Dignity To White House"

They. Will. Say. Anything.

Honey, make some popcorn. It's going to be an interesting campaign...