On Tuesday, Mike Duhaime, John McCain’s political director, uncorked the finest vintage of political spin I have heard this political season. If you’re a John McCain supporter, Mr. Duhaim’s lyrical, succinct and uplifting assessment should give you hope that a formidable comeback is in the making.

I recall many of the national polls in 2004 leaning in John Kerry’s favor right up to Election Day. I also recall thinking, for a few hours on Election Day, that John Kerry was going to be elected president based on exit polling data that was flourishing on the Internet throughout that late afternoon. I don’t doubt Kerry was sporting the countenance of victory for a few hours, only to have the joy turned to sorrow. Perhaps I’m just a natural born contrarian, but when I read Mr. Duhaim’s statements today, I couldn’t help but think that he might be on to something.

Here’s a sample:

“When you look at the flip side of this race, Senator Obama is outspending us three or four to one in every one of these battleground states, he’s got enormous staff presence in every one of these states,’’ he said. “He’s got the best political environment for a Democrat at least in probably 30 years, maybe in almost 80 years. You’ve got tremendous personal popularity. When you look at that, look at all these battleground states we’re talking about, most of them right now are within the margin of error.”

“You’ve got some national polls right now within the margin of error, so if you look at this from the flip side, as I come down the stretch and look at with a week to go, you could not have more going for you in many ways than Senator Obama has going for him in his campaign,’’ he said. “Yet this race is very close going down to the wire, and that makes me think that undecided voters who are being deluged with historic amounts of advertising, the most negative ads in history, the most positive ads in history, the most money ever spent on a campaign, and yet we’re still sitting here, very close in an environment that is very, very bad for Republicans.’’

“Throw all those factors in, throw in an economic crisis that we’ve seen, that’s being blamed, fairly or not, two to one on Republicans, and I see that the deal is not done yet, and that makes me very optimistic about where we are,’’ he said.

So I called a friend who has worked as a Republican political strategist on several statewide legislative and national races over the years, and read to him Mr. Duhaim’s take on the final week of the race.

He acknowledged “that’s great spin, from a great strategist,” but did not hesitate to add, “But New Mexico is going blue.”

Why so sure? He said that polling is under-sampling “Obama fervor,” and not accounting for the Democratic Party “turnout machine” that can be seen in the estimated 100,000 people attending an Obama rally in Denver and estimated 45,000 people attended a similar rally in Albuquerque. He said McCain’s campaign can’t match this vitality, as evidenced by his smaller turnout at Expo New Mexico, nor is this vitality measurable in a scientific survey.

What’s more, he said look at the early voting trend in Bernailillo County and it looks better for Obama. So I confirmed with the county’s Web site (which is updated daily), and it shows 57,933 ballots cast with 34,359 (60 percent) Dem and 15, 739 (27 percent) GOP.

I’m still not sure what all this means, because my instinct tells me there will be some surprises next Tuesday. And if McCain pulls off Florida and Ohio, holds onto Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina, there will be a lot of eyes on New Mexico. I’m just saying, anything is still possible.