Really, really, it’s not too late for the war hero and the shotgun-toting hockey mama to have a shot a winning this presidential election. According to Drudge, the latest Zogby poll, released today, shows McCain running ever-so-slightly ahead, with 48 percent of the voters to Obama’s 47 percent. That’s within the statistical margin of error, of course, but it’s an indication of just how close the ballot count is likely to be come Tuesday.

But McCain will definitely lose if his supporters lose heart during these next couple of days and give up, feeling drowned in the flood of Obam-adulatory stories and predictions of shoe-in victory gushing like Niagara from the mainstream media And that’s my main quarrel with the high-profile GOP defections we’ve been reading about. Their influence on voters’ choices is zilch. Who’s gonna change his or her mind after reading that Christopher Buckley thinks Obama’s a “rara avis” or Kathleen Parker thinks Palin’s a sexy bubblehead who wears her skirts too short? (Gee, if the great Buckley and the even greater Parker think that, why they must be right! Dumb me!) My view is that it’s a free country, and it’s great that conservatives can robustly disagree with each other. The real effect of the defections hasn’t been to convert McCain supporters. It’s been to demoralize them-as the left-wingers well know who have embraced Parker like a long-lost sister and invited Buckley and others to blog ad infinitum on the Daily Beast and the Huffington Post. The idea is to drive down GOP donations, volunteer efforts, and even votes-on the why bother? theory.

This is why this post on the HillBuzz blog should be required reading for all Republicans-today. HillBuzz was started last February by supporters of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries who believe that their candidate, who overwhelmingly won the Dems’ popular vote in states that held primaries, was blindsided by Obama-ite lobbying (by professional outsiders) in the cacucus states and by an in-the-tank media that could scarcely contain its leg tingles for The One. The result was a lot of demoralized Hillary volunteers who just gave up-”Eeyores,” HillBuzz calls them, after the gloom-and-doom donkey in “Winnie-the-Pooh.”. HillBuzz, which now supports McCain-Palin, says the Obama staff and its media groupies are now using exactly the same tactics on Republicans:

“It’s so funny, but when you work on these campaigns every day and give up all of your free time and all other activities for this, you just know when the media’s lying and reading from an Axelrod [David Axelrod, Obama's campaign manager] script. The coerographed calls for Hillary Clinton to drop out of the race before New Hampshire, before Super Tuesday, before Ohio and Texas, before Pennsylvania, before West Virgina, before Kentucky, before Indiana, and before South Dakota were completely ridiculous to us – and yet, Eeyores always listened, and lost enthusiasm and drive because ‘the TV said Hillary needs to just quit’. We know this kept some Eeyores from going out to vote, because they thought, ‘Why bother? The TV told me she’s gonna lose!’.  Well, the TV lies. And the toaster says you’re fat. Unfortunately, the toaster’s telling the truth. The microwave tells you to set fires – and that just means you’re nuts, because why would it do that?

“The ONLY way McCain loses this race is if the media, operating as a full-fledged wing of the Obama campaign, breeds enough Eeyores amongst you to keep enough people home for Obama to squeak out wins. Hillary Clinton should have won Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, by larger margins that she did. Ohio should have been a 13-point win, Pennsylvania should have been a 12-point win, and Indiana should have been a 9-point win. Eeyores staying home, saying, ‘Oh bother, TV say me stay home, me sad, need dydee changed!’ is what cost Hillary those extra points.

“Don’t be Eeyores on Tuesday! Get those Eeyore butts off your couches, away from toxic TV, and GO VOTE. Get everyone you know to vote – tell them if they don’t, then Obama will turn America socialist, and we’re going to start with their house and bank account when we begin redistributing wealth. That should motivate them.”

I discovered HillBuzz via conservative bloggers Kathy Shaidle and Jim Treacher-and Rush Limbaugh has also called attention to the site. I’ve also kind of rediscovered and started to kind of like Hillary. She’s too liberal for me politically, but you know what? She’s a liberal. She’s not a socialist (er, I mean “progressive”). She doesn’t want to “spread the wealth around” via my taxes. She doesn’t kick reporters off her plane if their newspapers disagree with her. She doesn’t let her campaign incite her supporters to try to jam radio shows airing views critical of her. Her supporters don’t riffle through the personal records of a Joe Shmoe who happened to ask her a question she didn’t like when she was driving through his neighborhood. She doesn’t hang with an unrepentant Sixties bomber whose girlfriend plotted to massacre hundreds of young men and women at an Army-base dance. Or hang with an apologist for Palestinian terrorism. Or get endorsed by Al Qaeda. Don’t you wish Hillary was the Democratic Party candidate this election?

So join the dissident Dems during these last few days and do something. Give some money to the GOP, or to the HillBuzz people, who are in Ohio this weekend trying to turn out the Hillary Democrats. (I’ve contributed to both.) Drive some elderly or disabled neighbors to the polls. Most important of all, vote. Every vote for McCain-Palin will be counted, even here in overwhelmingly Dem D.C., where I live. And every vote for McCain-Palin will mean something, even if, as predicted, the Great Redistributor happens to win.