This is not the first time the McCain campaign has shot itself in the foot

If McCain is personally in charge of his campaign, then he's incompetent. Accept the endorsement of Ayers' Republican funder right before the last debate? When you've gotten wind that your opponent's rebuttal on Ayers is that he was funded by said major Republican? Either that, or McCain is being sabotaged. If, as I've seen hinted, it's by a Palin-supporting group closer to Bush & Cheney than McCain (Schmidt, Kristol, etc.), they're doing a terrible job of introducing her for 2012. She's such an obvious liar, so obviously incompetent and such a tangibly scary religious nut that she's already been defined as unqualified for the Presidency to a large majority of the country.