I posted earlier today about how there didn’t seem to be a lot of excitement about John McCain’s campaign here in Washington DC at AFP’s Defending the American Dream summit.  After completing a full day at the event, I’m ready to say that McCain’s chances for winning this election are nil.

I’ve never thought his chances were anything more than 50-50 (that high-water mark in my estimation coming after his pick of Palin as VP), but I’ve never thought they were lower than I do right now.

I am attending a national gathering - involving thousands of people from all over the country - of the one of the largest fiscally conservative, free market group in the country.  And throughout a day of mixing with the rank-and-file members of this group, and listening to the high-profile speakers (including George Will, Dinesh D’Souza, Senator James Inhofe, Ed Meese and Dr. James Miller), I haven’t once heard anyone talk about John McCain winning.

I haven’t heard anyone say that McCain can win.  I haven’t heard anyone say that McCain has to win.  I haven’t heard anyone say that McCain can win.  With less than a month to go a heated Presidential race where the Democrat candidate is the most liberal Senator in this nation’s house of Congress, that’s just plain bizarre.

All in all, I think the people attending this convention have resigned themselves to the idea of a President Obama and are readying themselves for a hard, four-year slog through what will undoubtedly amount to Jimmy Carter’s second term.

I’m not any more happy about it than anyone else, but it’s the truth.