That's the conclusion of Politico's Roger Simon:

The real problem for McCain is that Palin is running a separate--and scary--campaign that does not seem to be under anybody’s control.

She storms around the country saying: “Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.

It seems that John McCain's brand-new stump speech actually leans heavily on an old McCain argument--namely, that the opposition includes both Barack Obama AND that pesky Fourth Estate:

Let me give you the state of the race today. We have 22 days to go. We're 6 points down. The national media has written us off. Senator Obama is measuring the drapes, and planning with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid to raise taxes, increase spending, take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections, and concede defeat in Iraq.

This Politico piece by Jonathan Martin, who's been covering the Republicans during the presidential campaign, is an absolute must-read. First off, his description of the anger he's been seeing on the trail is chilling:

With McCain passing up the opportunity to level any tough personal shots in his first two debates and the very real prospect of an Obama presidency setting in, the sort of hard-core partisan activists who turn out for campaign events are venting in unusually personal terms.

After the RNC winnowed itself back yesterday afternoon due to Hurricane Gustav, I considered the political ramifications and suggested that McCain could benefit--but only if his campaign displayed caution and sublety.

So much for that. From Politico's Jonathan Martin:

John McCain's campaign manager today accused Barack Obama of practicing politics as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the Gulf Coast.