Rudderless

It's how John McCain appears these days.

And he's come by it honestly. Because he has to know, deep in his heart, that bringing Tucker Eskew, who was the guy on the ground here in South Carolina for the infamous smear campaign the Bush camp orchestrated on McCain during the 2000 primary, means the last vestige of any moral high ground, or soul, or even those pesky little ethics thingies, have dissipated from his core.

McCain came into South Carolina in 2000 off a 19-point drubbing of Bush in New Hampshire, a completely unexpected win. McCain was flying high here, and with good reason. He was well-liked here, and had strong support from the active duty and retired military in this state.

Then the whispers* started. That voters in South Carolina allowed these whispers that were the essence of the lowest level of racism and misogyny and old fashioned fear of crazy people to sway them to Bush says so much more about the voters than about McCain.

But it's eight years later. And McCain wants to be President. And apparently he believes that to achieve that, he must cut loose all the things that made him 'Not Bush'.


*Those whispers included talk of McCain's instability, due to his legendary temper. It was wrong for the Bush campaign to do that in 2000, and it's just as wrong for the Democrats to do it in this election.