John McCain's campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, has officially become a rolling punch line to the joke of the GOP presidential primaries.

There has simply never been a primary for either major party as ridiculous as the 2008 GOP effort. Mitt Romney, who would easily have won the Phil Gramm award for financial futility had not Rudy Giuliani spent $50 million to earn a single delegate, is now considering reentering the race in the wake of damaging revelations about John McCain's sluttish relationships with lobbyists and his efforts to game the public election financing system. Fred Thompson, widely viewed on the right as a man of unquestionably presidential timber, left the race amid the impression that he never actually entered it. Ron Paul, the lone anti-Iraq occupation candidate on the GOP side, couldn't even grab a majority of anti-occupation Republicans. California Congressman Duncan Hunter sank without a ripple. Of all the failed Republican candidates, Coloradan Tom Tancredo was probably the most successful: he didn't get any delegates, but he did manage to instill a Pavlovian foaming of the mouth in the other candidates whenever the subject of undocumented immigrants came up.

Unless/until Romney jumps back in, we're left with theocrat Mike Huckabee and the gawrsh-honest McCain. McCain's fragile candidacy rests on having been blown from the sky over Vietnam and his undeserved reputation as a straight-shooting maverick. The New York Times story about McCain's efforts on behalf of a television industry lobbyist with whom he may or may not have had a romantic relationship prompted a damage control campaign from the Senator that quickly disintegrated into a tangle of evasions and lies that directly undermines his myth: it turns out that his campaign bus doubles as a branch office for one of Washington's most powerful lobbying shops.

And that's why he's toast.

He doesn't know it yet, although clearly he's uneasy. The political press, who remain in love with him, don't seem to know it yet. But the revelation that he spent much of his last presidential campaign cozying up to a lobbyist and her client, and his lies in response to the mini-scandal, have broken the spell. His lovers in the press will not respect him in the morning. The tortured justifications they concoct for his repeated failures to stand up on the issues he has made central to his political personna are about to fall flat. The press have been his lone unshakable base for a decade; even if they don't turn on him in the manner of the cruelly disappointed smitten, their support will wax anemic and anemic support from the base is fatal.

And the worst is yet to come, through the vehicle of McCain's attempt to opt out of public financing after he used his eligibility to secure a campaign loan and to gain ballot spots in states where he would otherwise have had to spend money to gather the necessary signatures. Campaign finance reform is a critical plank in his honest iconclast platform, yet here he is violating at least the spirit of the issue and quite possibly the law of it as well.

Early on in the GOP contest it seemed impossible that any of the candidates could actually win. Only four of them—McCain, Giuliani, Romney and Fred Thompson—seemed to have a real shot, and each of them carried loads of baggage: McCain's image as a renegade Republican left him roundly despised by the right, with only the press, some delusional Democrats and a good chunk of independents in his corner; Giuliani's one-liner 9/11 campaign couldn't overcome his gay-friendly, anti-gun, adulterous past; Romney was a flip-flopper whose religion inspired distrust among right-wing Christians; Thompson was never taken seriously by anyone other than a few pathetically needy establishment Republicans. Huckabee, counted out early but now running a solid if hopeless second to McCain, inspires astonishing vitriol from almost everyone in the GOP but conservative evangelical Christians. None of them had the chops to make it to the general election for the inevitable spanking.

Nevertheless, McCain backed and filled into the lead. He may stay there, but his lobbying and election finance shenanigans will remain news up through the GOP convention in September. It seems increasingly possible that he'll be such damaged goods by then that he'll be forced to withdraw, and there really won't have been any winner of the Republican primaries.

Even if he does survive, he now has no platform other than eternal war. This general election was always due to be among the most vicious of modern times, but McCain's collapse guarantees an exclusively negative approach from the Republicans. Mark Halperin, one of McCain's long-time paramours in the political press, helpfully published an outline of the racist, xenophobic approach McCain, or whoever, can take against Barack Obama, should he prevail over Clinton. He allows as how that approach would be disgusting coming from Clinton, but merely "savvy" coming from Republicans in general and McCain specifically.

Halperin, though, is an extreme case, and it's unlikely that his brethren in the press will dutifully choke down with a smile the GOP bile coming our way. Even allowing for the best voter suppression efforts money can buy, McCain, or whoever, is headed for an epic loss. The consequences may not be much more significant than a fleeting afterglow for Democrats, but it will be a superlative moment while it lasts.


~~~~~http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/13085~~~~~

madman.....

What sources did you use to check out the above cut/pasted material? One should not blindly post information just because it is negative. So, advise what sources you used to ascertain that what is stated above is fact and not the usual liberal lies.

you will have to be more specific, what do you take issue with or feel isnt true?

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madman.....

I take issue with everything.

well google to your hearts content and actualy have smokeing gun proof that it is all a scam by the vast left wing media

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madman......

You have the smoking gun? Oh my God! Do you realize what you have. Quick, hurry, rush, run to the DNC and give the smoking gun to them so the Democratics can stop McCain. Hurry, hurry, get off this site. Oh my God! I can't wait for the evening cable news ..... madman furnished the DNC with the smoking gun that destroyed John McCain. I am going to get off this site now and turn on my TV and wait for the announcement!

Now you know why I ignore you havea nice night

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madman......

but you said you had the smoking gun!! so, let's see it.

you know even the paper that ran this story first said that it had failed to do any investigation, and that it was full of inuendo and suppasition with NO facts. i think it was the ny times, it mite have been the wash post tho, im not ure which, buddy your a day late and a dollar short. i know you want a dem to win this time, and i hate to say this to you, but unless mccain has a heart attack in the next couple of months then you wont see the white house again for at least another 4 more years.

but hey its not all that bad, at least we let you keep some of your money, unlike the other guys...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------armydoc4u

It is the New York Times. This guy is always posting inuendoes and lies about McCain. He posted stuff about McCain taking viagra and it backfired on him.

yeah thanks i knew it was one of those rags...


you know im not a big fan of the rino but the alternative, holy hell scare the wiz outta me.

doc

Sure would be nice to have the opportunity to vote FOR Someone instead of being forced to vote against the perceived lesser of two evils,

Doc, Troubled, I couldn't agree with you guys more...

armydoc..... I am not a big fan of the RINO either, but he has the delegates and it appears he is going to be the Republican nominee.

Troubled.... I feel the way you do. When I first got into politics, I would study the men who were running for office and vote for the best guy. Now, I vote for the one who will do the least bit of damage to the country.

Now and in the future leagmaria I will ignore you so dontwaste your time with me your just argumentive and difficult so its best I ignore your silly comments

McCain, aw ! come on , I find it hard to believe he got real live people to vote for him??(warmonger)

McCain, I think he is a BIG TIME ZIONIST, and he probably is imploding, which ,I think will happen to all Zionists, when we put the CONSTITUTIONAL pressure on them..

madman......

I cut/pasted part of your post

"madman......

but you said you had the smoking gun!! so, let's see it.

Now and in the future leagmaria I will ignore you so dontwaste your time with me your just argumentive and difficult so its best I ignore your silly comments"


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madman......

But of course you will ignore me. You claim you have the smoking gun, but will not produce it. You plagarize from websites that are anti-American and gleefully post them. Of course, I am "just argumentive and difficult," as you put it. That is because you have no facts or proof to back up what you say. Okay, do your usual ...... plagarize, lie, then cut, run and hide.

while everyone is insisting that madman provide proof to back up his claims,where is the "proof" to the contrary? Instead of waiting around for this guy to prove he's right, why dont you do some of your own footwork and prove him wrong? There plenty of stuff out there for you to do your own cut n paste.