Is McCain Trying to Lose?

Nate Silver has a good piece in the NYPost outlining how he would advise John McCain with 10 days to go (this assumes, of course, that Nate retains full use of his mental capacities but has just turned to the dark side).

Among his recommendations, Nate suggests that McCain abandon some states like Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin that are clearly lost and are not worthy of the expenditure of scarce resources like candidate visits and media buys. This recommendation is based on lots of polling data, like this Iowa poll that came out today showing McCain behind in Iowa by 15 points.

Iowa, in particular, has never really been a good state for McCain. Obama practically jump-started his campaign there with his performance in the Iowa Caucuses, he was very well-organized in the state in order to pull that off, and he's only become better organized since then. Finally, as Nate points out, McCain's stance on ethanol is deadly stuff in Iowa.

So, what's the McCain campaign to do? Sarah Palin visits Iowa today and John McCain will be there tomorrow. Brilliant.