PPP’s final poll of the special election in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District finds a race that’s too close to call, with Republican Mark Sanford leading Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch 47-46. The 1 point lead for Sanford represents a 10 point reversal from PPP’s poll of the race two weeks ago, when Colbert Busch led by 9 points at 50-41. Sanford has gotten back into the race by nationalizing it and painting Colbert Busch as a liberal. A plurality of voters in the district- 47%- say they think Colbert Busch is a liberal compared to 43% who characterize her as ideologically ‘about right.’ Colbert Busch’s favorability rating has dropped a net 19 points compared to 2 weeks ago, from +25 then at 56/31 to +6 now at 50/44.

Remember that, over the two weeks in which Colbert Busch’s numbers have deflated, Sanford has done nothing but make a jackass of himself, even by his standards, which are damned near historic. He choked in a debate. He tried to have an argument with a cardboard Nancy Pelosi. He had plenty of troubles before, and then he turned into a clown and, at the same time, he got himself back into position to win the election. Why? Because this is no longer an election. This has become a tribal conflict, and Mark Sanford’s tribe is bigger, that’s how. Most of the god-bothering yahoos were quite upset with Sanford’s intercontinental sins of the flesh but, deep in their lizard brains, they know what counts and Sanford gave them the proper totem to hate and soon, the fever swamps resounded with whooping and hollering and chanting and the reek of burning entrails. This is not political. It is theological. It is not people going to the polls. It is people, maddened by thirst, wandering through the Sinai screaming their prayers into the undying sun.

More: Mark Sanford Gains Momentum in South Carolina - South Carolina Is Still South Carolina