In business we learn: "Face the brutal facts" and "Know your competitor". So, here we go.

Far be it from me to disagree with Hugh Hewitt... (after all he's written the book on this one)... but I have to take issue with him here. I do this in the same spirit of the warning flags he raised about Zogby last week. As much as I would love to see the McCain campaign crash and burn... it just isn't going to happen.

Hugh has rightly documented the seemingly steady decline of the McCain campaign. Today he notes: "The Parrot is Dead":

Senator McCain may hang around through Iowa and New Hampshire, but there's nothing as over as Christmas and a front-runner's campaign gone flat.

No doubt the lackluster performance of McCain on many fronts (most notably in fundraising) has given the political community serious pause. But there are several aspects to this race to consider.

For example, take a look at a sample of the the endorsements McCain has garnered in the past two weeks:

• 20+ Mayors from Alabama (just today)
• 20+ Mayors from South Carolina
• 20+ Mayors from Iowa

Also consider:

• His Iowa and NH HQs are almost complete
• He still reigns pretty high in early primary polls
• No major staff defections (plenty of heartache and confusion but no defections)

This is just a sample.

In my mind the ground game is all important. I believe the Romney campaign knows this and is banking on the notion that the last two folks standing will be Mitt and McCain.

Don't get me wrong... I would love to see McCain sputter and spit by the end of the year. But my gut tells me he's here to stay, even beyond NH and IA.

Here's a quick chart I put together to demonstrate the prowess of the ground game:
The chart below ranks the GOP candidates based on all the elements of a ground game (or, at least, all the elements we could think of). This is essentially a "ranking" or "scoring" chart showing the "tier" rank for each candidate..

The lower score (higher rank) shows serious ground game.

Labels: ground game, mc