Split Personality

John McCain's presidential aspiration is like Bruce Willis in Sixth Sense -- already dead, he just doesn't realize it. His overtures to the evangelicals (who despise him anyway) have lost him the independents who were the most inclined to vote for him in the first place. And his interminable flip-flopping on nearly every issue of substance is going to catch up with him in spades, just as soon as the first big-name herd animal in the media (probably Li'l Russ) corners him on something and makes him commit once and for all. Either he supports Roe v. Wade or he doesn't; either he has a foreign policy plan or he doesn't.

It's too bad, really; McCain's quick wit and ill temper have actually suited him well for the bloc he has reached most effectively. But there's no walking back from being seen repeatedly genuflecting to the tools currently running the show, and their extra-chromosome base. Nobody in their right mind wants anything to do with either group anymore, and they will go in different directions electorally next year, especially if Sam Brownback Mountain becomes more viable with that shitty-pizza bankroll.

McCain's age, his notoriously thin skin, and his exposed lack of any guiding principle or backbone will combine to squash him fairly early in the primaries. Inside-baseball commentators are already positing that there may be more upside to the Democrats' chances if McCain gets the nomination, but it's looking more and more like, barring a dark-horse in the next few months, none of their potential candidates will have quite enough juice to pull the big tent back together.