It’s just under a week before the contest to elect the 44^th President of the United States, and John McCain’s campaign is crumbling. States that were battlegrounds three months ago - like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin- are now solid Obama states, giving way to new battleground states like Nevada, Colorado, Virginia, and North Carolina. But even those are now leaning in Obama’s direction. Today’s tossups are states that were among George W. Bush’s strongest bloc four years ago. Montana, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Georgia are all forcing McCain to fight for what should have been his.

But perhaps the most telling sign that McCain’s campaign is beyond dire straits is the disposition of Arizona. McCain, of course, has lived in The Copper State for most of his adult life. And yet, his home field advantage appears to be evaporating before his very eyes. McCain maintained a double digit lead through most of the summer and early fall, with a Rasmussen poll putting his lead above 20 points as late as the end of September. But today, his grip on the state has weakened substantially. The RealClearPolitics average puts McCain at a paltry 5 points up on his home turf. An Arizona State study put him up by just two.

To be fair, Arizona is a fairly evenly divided state. While both Senators hail from the right side of the aisle, its Congressional delegation is evenly split between the two parties. It’s governor, Janet Napolitano, is a Democrat. And yet, it’s presidential election history paints a decidedly different picture. Arizona has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate just once in the six decades since it voted for Harry Truman back in 1948. And the most recent contest was a blowout: Bush won it in 2004 by 10.5%. So shouldn’t a candidate from Arizona ostensibly perform a little better?

Only two presidential candidates- Woodrow Wilson and James K. Polk- have lost their resident states and gone on to win the White House. But in the 35 other instances in which candidates have lost their home states, they’ve come up short every single time. It’s not so much that the home states were particularly important wins. Certainly, Arizona- which awards 10 electoral votes to the winner- isn’t anywhere near the major players California (55), Texas (34), New York (31), and Florida (27) are. Rather, the home state can act as a barometer indicating how the relative strength of the campaign nationwide.

And notice I say can be a barometer. There are times when home state performance can actually belie the candidate’s true prospect. Massachusetts went to John Kerry by more than 25 points. So while winning your home state doesn’t mean much, losing it says a whole lot, especially when it’s traditionally favorable to the candidate’s party. Al Gore lost Tennessee, but at least he could point to the fact that his home state was a strong GOP stomping ground.

The truth is that Arizona should never have been competitive, even if McCain was losing ground everywhere else. Even when Barry Goldwater- also an Arizona Republican Senator- lost 44 states to Lyndon Johnson in 1964, he managed to keep Arizona among the six states in his column. Likewise, when Walter Mondale suffered the worst electoral beating in presidential victory back in 1984, losing 49 of 50 states, at least he hung on to his home state of Minnesota.

The electoral hole John McCain has fallen into is deeper than the Grand Canyon, and Arizona shows it.

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