By: Michael M. Rosen

At a rally in Ohio last week, Sen. John McCain — harried by crumbling poll numbers, hopscotching from state to state — announced that "I’m an American, and I choose to fight." But for those of us keeping hope alive for the McCain-Palin campaign, there would seem to be ample reason to quit.

The national polls are bad, the state surveys aren’t much better and time is running out. Various conservatives have already surrendered, pinning blame on McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Some have taken to the airwaves, declaring the election over and explaining where the campaign went wrong. Others have outright endorsed Sen. Barack Obama.

So why should Republicans keep fighting over the course of these last few days before the election? McCain was never the conservative faithful’s choice to occupy the Oval Office, but it’s hard to deny that he’s the only Republican who stood a snowball’s chance at winning in this incredibly challenging election cycle. And now that McCain is locked in battle, here are some reasons to continue reinforcing his efforts:

(1) It’s not over yet

Although the RealClearPolitics average of the national polls gives Obama a 7-point edge, the polling is all over the place, ranging from a double-digit Obama lead (New York Times/CBS and Newsweek) to an advantage of a few points (IBD/TIPP and AP/GfK). This turbulence alone could suggest that Obama’s lead lies between the extremes, or it could signal a deeply unsettled block of undecided voters who may, as in 1980, wait until the final week to make up their minds.

The survey volatility also implies that the various pollsters differ significantly in their methodologies, sampling and electorate modeling and that until voters actually cast their ballots, we will not know which model is most accurate. While cherry-picking the ripest of these polls may be wishful thinking, it bears noting that the IBD survey turned out to be the most accurate in the 2004 election.

National surveys aside, the battleground state tally also favors Obama, by some counts fairly strongly; RealClearPolitics puts from 300 to 375 electoral votes in Obama’s column, and he needs only 270. Yet despite apparently large margins for Obama in such states as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Iowa, both candidates continue to campaign there, presumably because their internal polls show a tighter contest than the published ones.

Other signs point to a close race. According to Gallup, about equal proportions of McCain and Obama supporters cast early ballots. Joe the Plumber and Joe (Biden) the Gaffe-Maker (his latest: predicting a major international crisis that will "test" a neophyte President Obama) have kept McCain’s hopes alive. And Palin, though widely derided on the left, continues to attract massive crowds and to energize marginal conservatives who might otherwise be too dispirited by McCain’s candidacy to bother showing up on Election Day. True, the vaunted Republican turnout machine appears to have been equaled, if not eclipsed, by Obama’s legions of campaign workers, but it’s the Republicans who invented microtargeting, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see a strong conservative showing on Nov. 4.

(2) Even if Obama wins, it’s important to keep it close

Turnout, of course, depends heavily on perceptions, and the mainstream media’s premature coronation of Obama appears designed to dampen Republican spirits and fire up Democrats. Everybody likes a winner, and predictions of a landslide tend to make supporters want to pile on while dissuading the pilees from turning out only to get smashed at the bottom of the heap.

To avoid self-fulfillment of these prophecies, it’s important for McCain supporters to get out and vote, regardless of what’s being said on TV and in the papers. In the past few weeks, lots of fellow Republicans informed me, matter of factly, that the race is over, we should give up, and gird our loins (to borrow another Bidenism) for eight years of an Obama administration. As I tell these folks, we need to keep our gloves up and fight, even here in California, a safe Obama state.

Here’s why: Even if Obama wins, it makes a big difference whether the margin of victory is 3 percentage points or 10; 20 electoral votes or 100. A landslide victory would persuade the president-elect and his supporters that he won a broad mandate to enact major liberal projects, appoint leftish judges and cater to the many Democrats who elected Obama, not the relatively few others who opposed him.

(3) The down-ticket races

A big win for Obama also could spell doom for other Republicans running this year, from GOP senators clinging to their seats in swing states all the way down to upstart city council candidates.

It’s difficult to imagine that Americans, as tired as they seem to be of the GOP’s eight-year lock on the White House, truly desire what the Wall Street Journal calls a "liberal supermajority," with Democrats in firm control of the House, Senate and White House. But this would be precisely the result if Obama’s coattails prove long and sticky, and if GOP voters stay home on Election Day.

Disheartened conservatives need to ask themselves whether they can tolerate a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority, a distinct possibility if Republicans can’t hold on to a handful of the hotly contested seats. The Chamber of Commerce has vowed to tolerate no such thing, spending tens of millions to attack Democratic challengers in key Senate races.

(4) The mainstream media

Finally, conservatives owe it to themselves to repudiate the mainstream media’s shameless cheerleading for Obama. It’s amusing to watch the press fall all over itself lamenting how "the old McCain" has "changed" during the election, how the candidate they loved in 2000 and 2001 became too hard-boiled and doctrinaire. This is understandable: Who among the liberal elite didn’t love McCain when he’s stood up to Bush and his own party? And who could possibly respect him when he dared to oppose their favorite son?

Never mind that McCain continues to criticize the Bush administration’s performance, and that he’s now running as a Republican against a Democrat. What was once a "feisty" and "insurrectionist" attitude has magically become a "cranky" and "volatile" temperament, and what at one time was a delightful willingness to "challenge the status quo" and speak truth to power has somehow calcified into an inappropriate "disrespect" for the fledgling Illinoisan. McCain himself surely has been surprised by the vitriol of the media, which he once called his base, but he shouldn’t be. The media were happy to applaud him when George W. Bush was his adversary, but now, when he’s up against "The One," not so much.

And it’s rich watching liberal organs like The New Republic and The New York Times (which hasn’t endorsed a Republican for president since Eisenhower) publish their editorials in support of Obama for president, as if they’ve carefully, soberly considered the two candidates and only now, days before the campaign, at long last decided to support the Democrat. The fix was in since Sen. Hillary Clinton conceded in early June, and these editorial boards’ trumped-up struggles over their precious endorsements just add insult to injury.

Of course, as Peggy Noonan points out, the media alone are not responsible for McCain’s deficit. And even if they were, only the enthusiasm and hard work of his supporters can save him now. So while counterculture icon Dylan Thomas urged his readers to "rage, rage against the dying of the light," Republicans, too, would do well to heed his advice. After all, we’ve only got a week to go.

Michael M. Rosen is an attorney and Republican activist in San Diego.

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