One of the most strategically useful tools the Obama-Biden campaign has going for it is the seemingly endlessly self-destructive strategic propensities of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

A long campaign that has entered its final month commenced with John McCain sealing a Republican nomination for president by appealing to the Bush base while seeking to run away from the Midas touch in reverse of the Texan and cohort Dick Cheney.  

That campaign now stands with McCain continuing to appeal to that rigidly doctrinaire base.  

Rallies featuring McCain and his vice-presidential choice, who is revered by the gun toting evangelical Christian right, and that he proudly designated as a "barracuda", have focused ever more narrowly on a hard core fringe that has formed the most outspoken and noisy element that has held increasing sway within Republican ranks beginning with the Goldwater revolution of the sixties.