John McCain: Meet Hank Martin - And Morris Dees: Part One

And Now The Flailing Begins:

Now the comedy known as the McCain / Palin campaign is in it's last stages - that of flailing about incoherently.And Now The Flailing Begins:

No wait, wasn't that the condition it was in throughout the general election?

It seems only a year ago that the Republicans were fighting a primary over who is best suited to beat the Democratic Opponent and keep the White House in G.O.P. hands.1

Only they were counting on the Democratic Opponent to be Hillary Clinton. What they got was Barack Obama. That plus the damaged Republican brand.

And then they got John McCain.

He was the best of a bad lot. All of them bear the taint of Republican misrule. Most, like Huckabee and Romney were so in the Bush tank that they almost said "Sieg Heil" Grover Norquist's tax cut pledge during their Youtube debate. Fred Thompson doddered around in a manner appropriate to his age. They played so far to the Right that you just knew that in a year when Republicans were expected to lose in the House and Senate, it would suicide for the G.O.P. to use them in an attempt to bridge the gap.

McCain seemed like only one who could talk the middle class's language. After all, wasn't he the "maverick?" Didn't he always speak his mind, especially on matters of civil rights, social justice, and other things that ruffled the feathers of the party elite? And yet, he was certainly no "tax and spend" Liberal! Just a moderate Conservatlve. He even hated fundamentalist evangelicals, and had no truck with the "Culture War!"

But then something happened in the 2000 elections that changed McCain. Honest John got beaten in the primaries by an upstart governor from Texas who used sleazy smear tactics and had no shame. He became the victim of smear tactics and innuendos. The lesson he took from that was: a conscience is an inconvenience to a man with high ambitions. And, in order to win the Oval Office, he had to play to the base of hls party.