by Evie Stone

Good morning, we're one week out and the markets are yo-ing back up...at least for the moment.

The candidates are making their final arguments to voters as the local organizations turn to get-out-the vote efforts. The RNC has bought ads in once-reliably red Montana and West Virginia. And Jonathan Martin reports that the DNC has taken out a loan in an effort to maximize the outcome of what they expect to be a favorable election day. In other words: signs of confidence among Democrats and nervousness among Republicans abound...though McCain does appear to be making up some ground on the economy with his Joe-inspired tax talk. (A new ad released this morning keeps up that argument.)

The reports of Republican infighting have been legion over the past week. This morning, the LA Times looks beyond November 4th to speculate about the future of the GOP. Peter Wallsten writes that social conservatives will be making a play for RNC leadership at the party's winter meeting, and will aim to revitalize the battles against abortion, gay marriage, and immigration. Party moderates respond that the party has alienated voters with its divisive rhetoric and should be broadening its appeal rather than narrowing its focus. But the socially conservative faction may work to limit John McCain's influence on the direction of the Republican Party even if he is elected.

 

A focal point of the GOP fight is the selection of the next chairman of the Republican National Committee — the party's power center for fundraising and strategic thinking. With various factions already trying to build support for their favored candidates, some conservatives are warning that McCain cannot serve as the party's spiritual guide even if he becomes president. The Arizona senator, after all, has a history of breaking with the party's mainstream on such issues as immigration and campaign financing.

Perhaps most interestingly, Wallsten writes that "some conservatives argue privately" that if Obama wins next week, Democratic dominance of Congress and the White House could enable the ground-up rebuilding of the GOP as an opposition party...without tarnished Bush and McCain operatives getting in the way.

Meanwhile, the WP's Howard Kurtz warns that all this media chatter assuming a favorable outcome for the Democrats is a bit risky. If McCain pulls out a victory, the press could lose — as BU's Tobe Berkovitz so delicately puts it here — "whatever shred of credibility they have left".

Apparently we are still talking about Sarah Palin's clothes. (Zzzzzz.) Via Ben Smith, the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes kept the wardrobe story alive 'n' kicking on Fox News yesterday, blaming McCain aide Nicole Wallace for making the big-ticket purchases — and for failing to take the fall for the tin-eared handling of the hockey mom's image. Wallace fired back to Smith that Barnes's charges are "incorrect." Aren't there diminishing returns for the GOP if this story stays in the news, even if the buck is successfully passed? (Unless Barnes has joined the rest of the Fourth Estate and is already looking past as assumed Obama victory next Tuesday to salvaging Sarah Palin's political future.)

And finally, high-tech meets low-tech in a Virginia House race as a "tracker" (i.e. the opposition's guy with a video camera who looks for YouTube-ready gaffes) gets a few good old-fashioned whacks from the incumbent's elderly staffer's cane.