McCain and "That One"

It's the only moment from the second presidential debate that they'll remember.

When John McCain referred to Barack Obama as "that one."

The sheer contempt that McCain has for his fellow senator and the nominee of the Democratic party for president of the United States was suddenly, painfully, viscerally obvious.

It was not a pretty moment.

John McCain is an angry and a desperate man at this point -- and he's got a lot to be angry and deperate about. After all, if Barack Obama by some miracle of atrocious luck were to lose this election, he's got a lot more chances. 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024... you name it. Consider the mind-boggling but very real fact that in 2032 Obama will be younger than McCain is now.

Time is on his side.

Time, however, is not on McCain's side. This is his last shot at the White House. It's do or die for him -- and at the moment it very much looks like die.

I sat down with an electoral map provided by AOL and tried to figure out a way for McCain to win this election -- and I couldn't do it. I don't think there's a way for him to do it. All Obama has to do is hold onto the states that Kerry won last time and add New Mexico and he's the next president. McCain's job is a lot harder. He has to win all the states that Bush won last time and that's not even remotely possible.

Obama will win Michigan. He'll win both Ohio and Florida. He'll win Pennsylvania and New Mexico. I also think he'll win Virginia and possibly even North Carolina -- which native son John Edwards couldn't deliver for John Kerry four years ago.

If the election were to be held today Obama would get well over 300 electoral votes and McCain would get less than 200.

It's not going to be a landslide on the nature of 1932 or 1964. But Obama is going to win, and he's going to win decisively.

And a new era could begin in this country. A better era than the one we've been dealing with since Ronald Reagan asserted so piously in 1981 that government wasn't the solution to our problems, it was the problem.

We know better now. And we're going to prove it in less than a month.