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Short of an October (or November) surprise, it's looking like the United States is about to elect its first black president. Already, the political commentators are picking over the bones of the McCain campaign strategy to work out how it failed. The best piece I've seen on this so far is Robert Draper's article in this weekend's New York Times Magazine. Draper pieces together, step by step, the McCain team's efforts to sustain a credible narrative for their candidate. Americans vote for their president on the basis of a narrative: they are offered a story which they buy into or reject. Obama has maintained a coherent narrative throughout this long campaign, but McCain's team have struggled on a month-by-month basis with a coherence and credibility problem. As a result, they have branded, re-branded and re-re-branded their candidate out of all recognition -- leaving him looking muddled in the eyes of swing-voters. Read Draper's article .

I will select, as my money quote from Draper's piece, part of his account of the hurried conversation which introduced Sarah Palin to an astonished world:

'After that first brief meeting, [Rick] Davis [McCain's campaign manager] remained in discreet but frequent contact with Palin and her staff -- gathering tapes of speeches and interviews, as he was doing with all potential vice-presidential candidates. One tape in particular struck Davis as arresting: an interview with Palin and Gov. Janet Napolitano, the Arizona Democrat, on "The Charlie Rose Show" that was shown in October 2007. Reviewing the tape, it didn't concern Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues or that, when asked to name her favorite candidate among the Republican field, she said, "I'm undecided." What he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues -- energy independence and ethics reform -- and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her. A friend had said to Davis: "The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best -- that's your V. P."

By the way, it's worth pointing out that not every number-cruncher has given up on McCain's bid for the presidency. We're still not sure what impact race and racism will have on the minds of voters when they cast their vote in eight days' time. One possible outcome, even by today's figures, is that Obama could win the popular vote while losing in the electoral college (which is where presidencies are made). There's still time for yet another re-branding.