Gramm-pa McCain's manufactured momentum

By GottaLaff

What's going on here:

Something is a little bit funny when Matt Drudge is treating 1-2 point gains for McCain in the Rasmussen and Zogby tracking polls as "BREAKING" news.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight has a theory:

The McCain campaign is planning on a major "reboot" of its campaign in some point in advance of Wednesday night's debate. This will take on something of the form that Bill Kristol advocates in his must-read Monday AM piece in the Times, including some combination of (i) pledging to run a positive campaign; (ii) firing/demoting Steve Schmidt and or/Rick Davis; (iii) apologizing for his campaign's tone. [...]

What the McCain campaign really, really doesn't want is for this move to be portrayed as desperate stunt. [...] ...and Bill Burton and Robert Gibbs must be foaming at the mouth waiting to spin something like this.

The only way for McCain to do that is for him to convince the media that he already had the momentum. [...] They will suggest that McCain found his voice, and made the "maverick" move of telling off the Beltway Republicans who were urging him to go for blood. They will suggest that the reboot is a continuation of this strategy, and that -- as the Zogby poll so obviously attests to! -- voters were already responding favorably to McCain's new tone.

[T]hey'd seem to have little left to lose, and if the media is reminded of the "old" McCain, they may tend to give his narrative the benefit of the doubt.

It's a level red alert. Grab the duct tape and plastic sheeting.