McCain expressed such a tepid and sterile defense of Kerry against the swift boat liars, that it could've been interpreted as a covert endorsement of those douchebags. As his is wont, McCain doesn't stand up when it counts, and allows political tactical considerations to override principled behavior. I really can't think of a more unprincipled person carrying a halo of integrity and independence invented by him and perpetuated and distributed to the masses by the corporate media that just can't stop sucking up to him and glorify a politician who doesn't deserve any glory.

McCain will get the votes of angry white males who want to fight all foreigners, he'll get the votes of the loony faction of military veterans who get a hard-on when a bugle is playing. He'll get the votes of older people who believe that the world is full of accented enemies wanting to bring this nation down. Many of his voters would be delusional, paranoid and xenophobic. The big question on which the future of this country and the world depends is whether there will be enough rational, sane and clear headed minorities, women and whites to offset them, how many of them will be allowed to get to the polling stations and how many of their votes will be counted, and counted properly.

We are taking about McCain's attitudes and mentality vis-a-vis war, US military aggression and imperial militarism in tis thread, not about McCain's positions on immigration reform, the economy or global warming. McCain never met a war he didn't like. It's also clear that he believes in using military force t settle international disputes and that he has very little patience for diplomacy. His attitude is very neocon in those matters:the US is the Force of Good and is entitled by virtue of its inherent exceptionalism to attack and invade anybody, any time, regardless of international law or common sense. In that sense, there's no different between his crazy and extremely dangerous mentality and that of the architects of the Third Reich, who sincerely believed in German exceptionalism and that they did not have to be abide the same rules and conventions other nations had to. His "bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran", more than a stupid campaign gimmik was a prefect reflection on how he thinks.

The "maverick" image associated with John McCain is a something that McCain has carefully and deliberately developed and created over many years, with the enthusiastic cooperation of the mindless corporate media for the sole purpose of catapulting him to the presidency. McCain has never been a maverick, actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Dull Republican politicians like like Arlen Spector have been more maverick than McCain. McCain has always conformed to GOP orthodoxy, and pretends to break ranks with the GOP orthodoxy only when he knows he will not have to actually do anything beyond pretending to be unorthodox. McCain is a typical GOP extremist who pretends to hold dissenting views while not holding any. Everything about him, including his war hero image is mostly cultivated and calculated mythology. He is cunning, but fairly stupid and has an explosive temper and intrinsic meanness and is singularly just as unqualified to be president as Bush ever was.

It was actually one of this country's best journalists of the last 50 years, the late NY Times journalist Johnny Apple, who admitted that the US media, including himself, is in love with McCain and is heavily biased in his favor. A footnote-even when McCain's campaign was doing well last year, the main stream media was very supportive of him and I suspect that the unviersal MSM adulation of him, coupled with the very low quality of the other GOP candidates, helped his revival.

McCain is phony. Always has been. A disingenuous politician who's been more than eager to change his positions according to popular support. This "maverick" reputation he's so carefully cultivated is a sham; he's as entrenched in Washington gamesmanship, and as beholden to corporate interests, as any longtime legislator with little or no scruples.

Google "Keating Five", and see how the maverick felt about "straight talk" and fighting corporate influence over electoral politics 20-25 years ago.

remember his calling televangelists like Falwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance" during the 2000 race, a couple election cycles before he gave the commencement address at Liberty University.

Ask him why he's backed off his fervent support for the immigration bill he co-sponsored just last year, and he'll as much as admit it's because the voters don't like it, and NOT that he believes it's the wrong bill to pass.

The fact that he's even still in it, much less the front-runner, shows what a weak field of candidates the Republicans have this time around. As much as I despise Romney, another phony, the glee on McCain's face as he was jabbing him while utterly distorting Romney's words regarding an Iraq pull-out time-line, demonstrated how mean, angry and combative he is, just like a snake.

In the general elections, Obama would win every blue state Clinton has won. He would have a fighting, reasonable chance of wining a number of toss-up(pink) states like Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, New Mexico, etc, because he's so appealing to independents and disgruntled Republicans, while Clinton does rather poorly with them. When one looks at ST with the general elections in mind, Obama is the clear winner because of his appeal in states the Democrat traditionally don't do well in during presidential elections. This is the only thing that counts, since the Dems would win MA, NY, NJ, CA, etc, no matter who the candidate is. For the first time since 1992, Obama gives them a chance to win several states which would make it impossible for McCain to become president create a Democratic landslide. Latinos, Asians and white women would support Obama in the general elections, but there no indications whatsoever that indpendents or disgruntled Republicans would vote for the Clinton in November.