Incompetent GOP grasps McCain as saviour

For the conservative, and even many more mainstream, Republicans, John McCain has been anathema: an unreliable, unpredictable maverick who cuts deals with the likes of Ted Kennedy and Russ Finegold.

That this is still a strong feeling in GOP ranks, you only have to look at all the primary votes since McCain sewed up the GOP presidential nomination: Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee, event though no longer active candidates, continue to draw a quarter or more of the vote in each primary.

(Interestingly, as conservative candidates like Romney, Huckabee, Paul and others divided up the main GOP vote in the early primaries, it was the Democrats and Independents voting in the Republican primaries who nominated McCain. Now the Democrats are screaming bloody murder because Rush Limbaugh is advocating the same thing for Republicans to vote in the Democratic primaries under Operation Chaos. Despite what they're saying, turn-about is fair play.)

Incompetent Republican leadership in the White House and Congress, as well as at the Republican National Committee, has managed to paint the party as a bunch of crooks and handmaidens of special interests. This has resulted in Democrats winning special congressional elections in Republican districts in Ohio and Louisiana, and nearly Mississippi. The GOP is clearly reeling, with the party mechanism failing to raise money, build basic organization on the ground or project a positive, clear message of leadership, confidence and integrity.

So now, the party is grasping McCain as a saviour, due to his popularity with Independents and Democrats, hoping he can not only be elected President, but develop long enough coat tails to stem Republican losses in Congress and governorships. This is a tall order, and all signs point to a dismal Republican year.

With all of Obama's baggage with rural white voters, Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan, weathermen Bill Ayres and his wife Bernadette Dorn, his angry, negative wife Michelle--he may well drop the election into McCain's lap. But this still may not be enough to save Republicans further down the ticket from their own ineptitude.