McCain prepares concession speech for Republican convention tonight

John McCain is putting the finishing touches on the concession speech he will give at the Republican National Convention tonight.

Normally, such speeches are given after the election when enough votes have been counted to convince a candidate he has lost.

The McCain campaign says they already see that they have lost months before a single vote has been cast.

"We hoped that adding Sarah Palin to the ticket would shore up our religious right base and rope in some women swing voters," said a top campaign official speaking off the record.

"We got the religious right back on the bus with Palin, but our polling and focus groups show we lost the few conservative Democrats we had, lost swing voters, and even lost some Reagan Republicans like Peggy Noonan. We shot ourselves in the face."

Another long time confidante of McCain said he is conceding not so much because he is certain he will lose but because he is afraid he may win. "The party has all kinds of tricks to pull the rabbit from the hat from ginning up military conflicts like Georgia to terror alerts to rumor emails about Obama to purging Democrat voters in states where the Secretary of State is GOP," said the confidante.

"But John's basic views have not changed since 2000. He still believes the religious right are 'agents of intolerance' as he said back then, and when party insiders forced him to take one of them as his VP, and one who has all the worst qualities of the Bush administration, the religious hypocrisy, corruption, profound ignorance about foreign policy and the Constitution, and using political power for personal vendettas, John said enough."

McCain will throw his support behind Barack at the end of the speech, and wish his presidency well.

The move is not without precedence since McCain twice approached the Democrats about switching parties during the Bush years.

The McCain confidante said, "John really believes in our fight against fundamentalist fanatics in the Middle East. He doesn't want to see the same thing happen here if he dies in office and the presidency falls to someone just a few steps to the left of the Taliban."

The confidante concluded, "John hopes tonight will be the GOP's greatest moment since Lincoln freed the slaves." The confidante seemed unaware of the irony since the Republican Party platform includes the repeal of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.