The Impeachment Hearing Room

GOP Heavyweights Bailing On McCain Campaign

McCain still could pull out an upset on a last-minute wave of voter hesitation about Obama, much like Hillary Clinton came back in New Hampshire after the polls counted her out, but political professionals are putting their bets on McCain going back to Phoenix, not rising like one.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell's broadside on Sunday was only the first of the recent GOP defections. The latest arrived Friday from former Republican Gov. William Weld of Massachusetts, who had endorsed Gov. Mitt Romney over McCain in the GOP primary. Now Weld endorses Obama, calling the Democrat "a once-in-a-lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore America's standing in the world."

On Thursday, former Republican Gov. Arne Carlson of Minnesota endorsed Obama and ripped McCain in an essay for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Carlson said he saw in the Democrat "a remarkably disciplined and focused leader who has the potential to become a truly great president."

Just as striking as the tone of the GOP endorsements for Obama was the noticeable chill coming from the state parties in such McCain must-win states as Virginia and Florida.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, whom McCain considered and rejected as his running mate, said he had not appeared in any McCain ads because he wasn't asked. Reports aired that the state GOP is saving some of its war chest for the next election cycle. Similar tensions between the McCain campaign and the state party have surfaced in Virginia.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, also rejected for the vice presidential slot, offered that McCain's chances in his state would have been better if he had been on the ticket. "I think we'd be foolish not to admit it publicly," Ridge said.

Ridge also predicted that whoever wins Pennsylvania will win the presidency.

McCain is pinning his hopes on winning Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes, his last shot at offsetting a string of potential losses in states that President Bush won in 2004. Democratic nominee John Kerry won Pennsylvania in 2004, and a raft of polls give Obama a double-digit lead.

The McCain campaign has "virtually surrendered 21 electoral votes in New Mexico, Colorado and Iowa that were won by Bush, there's no Kerry state he's winning, and Bush won by 16 electoral votes," said Pennsylvania pollster G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College. "A third-grader can figure this out. They've decided that it's 21 electoral votes in PA or it's over."

A look at other Bush states shows the difficulties. McCain is either badly behind or struggling all over the Electoral College map, where he needs 270 to win. His own campaign has written off Iowa and New Mexico and is pessimistic about Colorado, Nevada and Virginia.

Obama is leading strongly in Ohio and more narrowly in Missouri. Even solidly Republican states such as Indiana and North Carolina where McCain had comfortable leads a month ago are now toss-ups. In the Electoral College prize of Florida, with 27 votes, McCain has slipped from a five-point lead in mid-September to a small edge for Obama.

Pennsylvania "has an electorate that is older, conservative, blue-collar, Catholic, Hillary voters, Reagan Democrats," Madonna said. "They picked it. Why? Because they’re out of options. They've not only rolled the dice; it's the only game in town."

Still, if McCain can win in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida, Obama would need complete sweep of western states without capturing wither Virginia or Missouri.

That's why the Obama campaign is taking nothing for granted.

"We understand that 11 days is a long time, and we're not going to get overly concerned about any polls, whether they be national or state," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said. "Our orientation here is that the presidency will be decided in these battleground states. We've always believed that these battleground states would be close, and we're going to run through the tape as hard as we can."

He also dismissed the notion that undecided voters might move at the last minute to give McCain an upset either nationally or in hard-fought states. Plouffe cited Obama's high favorable ratings and heavy early voting by Democrats.

"I'm sure Sen. McCain will get his share of them," Plouffe said, "but the notion that somehow these late undecideds are going to break in a disproportionate way, we just don't see that."

A flood of critiques and epithets followed from inside the GOP tent, tracing much the same arc as the inside commentary on Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign when she struggled through the primaries last winter.

McCain joined the recrimination game himself with an all-out attack on the Bush administration published in the Washington Times newspaper on Thursday.

In it, McCain accused Bush of a litany of failures in a last-minute attempt to yank himself away from a president whose popularity has fallen below former President Richard Nixon's on the day he resigned. McCain hit the same themes at campaign stops Friday, following up on his line in the last debate when he told Obama that if he had wanted to run against Bush, he should have run in 2004. The line arrived late, however, and did little to stop independents from gelling around Obama through the three debates.

McCain has tried, as Clinton did, to hit Obama's weaknesses that show up in polling, mainly experience and trust, but has failed to land any measurable body blows. His campaign also has come under attack for being too tactical, lurching from one impulsive move to another, from picking the untested Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate to reacting to the financial crisis by threatening to pull out of the second debate.

"There are still serious concerns about Obama," Madonna said. "There's still the issue of race, there's still the issue of experience, there's still the issue of character, there's still the issue of values ... but I think voters have generally now reached the conclusion that they can trust Obama with the White House."

McCain is also at a serious financial disadvantage with just $25 million left in the bank to Obama's $66 million. A new analysis by the Nielsen television rating company of seven swing states - Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia - showed Obama outpacing McCain advertising by 150 percent between Oct. 6 and Oct. 22. Obama ran 53,049 advertisements to 21,106 for McCain.

Even with flawless campaigning, which almost no one inside or outside the campaign thinks it is, McCain would face daunting odds: a widely disliked two-term incumbent of his own party, a soured economy magnified by a historic financial crisis, an unpopular war and a surly mood across the land.

"There is no precedent in modern history" for a candidate winning under such conditions, Madonna said. "You can't show me a time."

E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com.