Politico's Mike Allen on the fading hopes of McCain Central:
McCain advisers speak ruefully of "the dead-man-walking" trope and the thirst by reporters and pundits to administer "the journalistic last rites."
So McCain's most urgent and immediate battle is not in Manchester, N.H., or Des Moines, Iowa, but inside the Beltway.
He has to make sure perceptions -- which at this point in a campaign can be at least as important as reality, because of the effect they have on donors, staff and supporters -- don't pull him under in a brutally competitive field.
Calling Jon Lovitz. The McCain Campaign needs a new spokesman.