Can McCain Pull This Off?

Yes.

If he can reach the voters directly ... Here are his challenges.

First, the polls are unreliable. When you look at a poll, you have to ask one question: what is the ratio of Democrats to Republicans? By upping the number of Dems or lowering the number of Repubs, a pollster can manipulate the results to favor Obama. I won't name names but this has happened more than once over the last few weeks.

Second, the MSM will run with these bad polls because they desperately want Obama to win. How else to explain the lack of coverage for Biden's outrageous gaffes about clean coal, who was president during the Great Depression, and his egregious debate whoppers? (I'm sure a few experts on the Middle East are scratching their heads about the "Biden-Obama Hezbollah-Lebanon" policy.) By pushing the idea that Obama's win is inevitable, they hope to sway undecideds and dispirit McCain-Palin backers.

Third, McCain has to step up to the plate. He has to make it clear to the American people that the Democrats blocked Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform, enabling the housing bubble. He has to link Obama to the freshman senator's crazy cohorts, because, trite though it sounds, you really can judge a man by the company he keeps. And, most important, he has to give voters a reason to vote for him. What is he going to do to fix the economy? Tax cuts won't cut it.

Fourth, Americans need to realize they are being played - by the media, by the Democrats, by the Obama campaign, by George Soros, by moveon.org, by labor unions, and by Hollywood loons who make millions reading lines other people write for them. All of these groups have vested interests in presenting a candidate with no real job experience as a viable president. If McCain's campaign can't drive home the prospect of a Pelosi-Reid-Obama government, he deserves to lose.

I believe this election is closer than the polls say. Neither candidate has made the sale to voters. I'm not confident one will before November 4th, which actually favors McCain as the known commodity.

Can McCain pull this off? If he wants to.