It has been said that we have the best government money can buy. This is not Democracy but rather plutogracy. Senator McCain will have a difficult time getting his ideas across. It seems to me what is needed is a grass roots effort, like a vast write in campaign.

So Michael Scherer wants to shill for the man who physically and politically embraced George Bush in a campaign that saw the draft-dodging cokehead from Texas use surrogates to slander a Vietnam vet? He wants to promote the independent maverick with integrity myth about John McCain? What contemptible tripe. What absolute crap. Maybe Scherer should just quit Salon now and get a job with the McCain 2008 committee. This article is just loathsome.

McCain is a rightwing Republican whose loyalty this destructive, incompetent administration trumps all. Disagreeing with Bush on one issue or two issues does not make him Bush's nemesis. And this poor excuse for a reporter is Salon's Washington correspondent? What great political insight does it take to swallow McCain's PR hook, line and sinker? Look no further for an explanation for why, after six or seven years, my subscription is no longer on automatic renewal.

In 1973, when it all collapsed for Richard Milhous Nixon, who was

Gerald R. Ford? Some guy snuck in from nowhere when the scandal under Nixon took Spiro Agnew.

John McCain is the spiritual heir of Gerald Ford, so that if Bush survives the next three years without impeachment or worse, the Republicans have someone to trot on from the side.

Please, people. Wake up. These are deeply cynical people who are accustomed to manipulating you. The same group that walked the halls in the Nixon and Ford years are back again, very determined to hang on to power as long as it's profitable.

Next time, I almost hope the enemies are fascists instead of these tinpot criminals. I'd rather deal with men instead of these souless creatures.

Don't vote R on the ticket. Don't let your friends. Don't let your family.

McCain is a Republican. A nice Republican, apparently. But don't support nice Republicans. Support tough Democrats.

Call me cynical, but I don't believe redemption comes this late in life. Moderate McCain is a media creation. The guy's an extremist, and even if his views are more realistic than those of Bush, they're just as dangerous. Do we really need to be taking an aggressive military stance against Putin? McCain thinks so! Should we ban corporate campaign contributions? McCain says yes, now that he's seen what an effective political weapon it can be. I'll give him one thing: He's a master politician, but if he's elected in 08', a lot of people will be in for a rude awakening.

"Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father." -- John McCain, 'Maverick with Integrity'

I would so like to believe there is a Republican in Congress that has an oz. of integrity and a sense of ethics, especially where lobbyists are concerned. Whether John McCain is such a person I don't know, although if he has any integrity at all he's head and shoulders above the Bush regime. McCain is being spun into a hero on a white horse, charging forward to lead us out of darkness. It's too good to be true, and therefore probably isn't. McCain is much closer to Bush on many issues than it would seem, and I would hope that Salon would begin to report that. Bush's nemesis indeed. Nonsense.

No one doubts that lobbying is out of control, and needs to be reigned in. Will that happen in this Congress? Will the lobbyists just roll over and accept rules and limitations that should have been in place long ago? Will the bill McCain, et al are proposing do the job, or just be more eyewash for the gullible? This is all just posturing for '08 and we should see it that way.

Well, it may not be McCain, but I can think of one or two possibles. I grew up in Indiana while Dick Lugar's career developed, and I have enormous respect for him, although I completely disagree with his politics. And a few years ago I lived in Nebraska for a while, where Coach Tom Osborne, overly adulated of course, struck me as a very decent human. Lugar did make a run for president some years ago, and it seems a shame his campaign never caught fire.

By all means, preserve your right to be cynical, but don't let your fear of "the real McCain" prevent you from supporting a legitimate bill just to keep him from being a candidate for the White House in '08. That is still a long time away. There will be a 100 real issues for you to examine him on between now and then.

McCain has shown leadership on campaign finance reform in the past and has also been leading the fight against the U.S. using torture. If leadership on issues like this comes from either side, I am willing to give it a chance. Why not let your Senators and Congressional Representatives know of your support for this effort? Why not write to your local newspapers? Why not take up the issue at your company if it is one of the ones who regularly lobby in Washington?

Politics is the art of the possible. To put it another way, you go to the polls with the pols you have, not the pols you wish you had. (Yes, of course there's always the write-in -- if you value purity of conscience over having the possiblity of real impact in a nation where the difference in the balance of power can come down to less than 500 votes.)

Here are the two reasons I would still consider voting for McCain, despite everything he's done before and since. Both come from his 2000 run in the NH primary.

In one campaign appearance shortly before the vote -- about the height of the media fascination with him -- there were a bunch of enviro-activists there dressed as trees. McCain not only gave them a respectful listen (maybe it was only because the media were there in force, but still), he answered something to this effect: "I'm not convinced that there's a problem -- and I'm not hearing from you any proposed solutions -- but if you can give me both, I'll give them serious consideration. Here's whom to talk to in my office." Since then, McCain has been one of the few Senators of either party to accept the reality that there is global warming, that it is at least in part due to human impact, and that it is necessary to try to address it.

Second, in that same campaign, McCain was the only candidate -- again, from either party -- that I can recall voicing a specific concern over the widening ditribution of income, wealth, and opportunity. That buys an awful lot of points from me -- especially as craven Dem "leaders" allow themselves to be browbeaten by the charge of "class war" and remain silent on the issue.

Of course there's a class war -- and 80+ % of us have been on the losing side for the last ten years or more. For any national politician to accept that as reality, and express any concern for it, is a borderline miracle. Unless the Democrats can actually bring forth a candidate willing to do the same, I'll still deem McCain worthy of consideration, even given his sickening (but politically necessary) embrace of the boy-king.