Schumer: 'The McCain/Palin campaign has peaked'

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the McCain/Palin campaign had reached a peak in popularity that could not sustain a lead over Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

As I've mentioned previously, McCain's surge in the polls is a direct result of the post-convention "bounce" that was entirely expected, especially with the addition of neocon dream gal Sarah Palin to the ticket. The McCain campaign did an exceptional job at defusing the Democratic convention's high points, especially Barack Obama's rousing acceptance speech before 80,000 enthusiastic Americans, by introducing Ms. Palin the following day. Obama was able to enjoy only mere hours of afterglow from the convention, which included the spectacle of Pat Buchanan stating that Obama had delivered the greatest convention speech he'd ever seen, before McCain stole his thunder by unveiling his surprise candidate.

It was a genius move, and it worked for a while. Palin enjoyed roughly a two-week "honeymoon" with the media, largely due to the fact that nobody except a few Alaskans knew anything about her. The McCain camp was able to paint her as a "maverick" and an "anti-earmark" candidate because in the information vacuum the GOP was able to say anything they wanted about her without giving the media much chance to refute it.

Now the honeymoon is over, and the media is digging and asking questions about Palin. It turns out that the VP candidate has a lot of very bulky baggage that is finally coming to light. "Troopergate", cronyism, earmarks up the yin-yang, abuses of authority, dozens of lies about her record, etc. are bringing her and the media back to reality. I predict we'll see the polls reflect this trend of disclosure in roughly a week.

Now that the Palin love-fest is over, we'll be getting back to the issues. And as far as the issues go, there's no doubt of these two things:

Obama/Biden is the ticket of change, and McCain/Palin will be more of the same.

It's going to boil down to what the American people really want. If they're happy with the way things are going and business as usual, we'll see John Sidney McCain wandering around the Rose Garden. But if the people want positive and dynamic change in the way Washington does business, Barack Obama will help make those changes from the Oval Office.

The choice is yours.