erudity.net prattlings on via nattering nabobs

This political season has been decidedly… meh

Seriously.  While I'm excited about the Obama candidacy, no one really likes seeing "their" candidate move toward the middle.  It's the politically expedient thing to do and everyone of the major candidates do it but at the end of the day you're still left with that kind of sinking, empty feeling.

Contrast that with the outright pity I feel for my friends across the aisle who, in John McCain, seem to have a guy that would have been great to run in 2000... but is now far past his prime and struggling to keep his head above water.  Witness the extent to which he's staking his campaign on his foreign policy experience - and then witness the extreme and repeated gaffes such as "Iraq-Pakistan border," "Czechoslovakia," and then the latest issue of the timeline of the surge vs. the Anbar Awakening and effects of one upon the other.  The fact that the Iraqi PM explicitly endorsed Obama's stated plan for withdrawal from Iraq vice the muddle that is the McCain plan only serves to further push McCain out to the edges of electability. 

Indeed, it would appear that right now, he only has a few things going for him: fear of an Obama presidency, fear of a Democratic presidency, his reputation from his pre-2000 actions and the fact that the press fawns over him.  At the same time, that just might be enough - get him some decent handlers and gifted speechwriters (along with a LOT of practice at speechifyin') and who knows what situation we'll be looking at in October.