Does McCain Deserve Another Look?

Liberal columnist E.J. Dionne is feeling sorry for John McCain these days:

John McCain's 2000 campaign for president failed, but it was an unruly and joyous romp. His campaign this time feels quite different: carefully planned, meticulously calculated -- and a tragedy.

Tragedy, not a word to be invoked lightly, typically involves a morally admirable person who struggles toward a goal and experiences suffering as his own choices collide with forces unleashed by the gods or by circumstance. The distinguished theater critic Walter Kerr once wrote that the tragic man "is free to free himself of obeisance to any power."

McCain's political trajectory over the past seven years might best be understood as a conflict between his desire to resist the Republican powers that be and his need to appease those forces lest they block his last chance at the White House.

His efforts at appeasement have muddied his image as a heroic dissident while bringing him little gain. And so he runs behind Rudy Giuliani in the polls and Mitt Romney in fundraising.

There is another tragic element: McCain suffered mightily during the 2000 presidential primaries at the hands of George W. Bush's political machine, which smeared the senator on everything from his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam to the racial identity of his adopted daughter.

Yet McCain is being dragged down now by his loyalty to the very same Bush and his policies in Iraq. Earlier in the war, McCain was a fierce critic of the president's strategy and tactics. But those criticisms count for little now. Bush destroyed McCain's candidacy by design the first time and is smothering him by association this time.

Having a liberal columnist bemoaning the failure of your campaign to gain traction is not the best way to appeal to the conservatives, many of whom are wary of McCain to begin with. There are conservatives such as Jonah Goldberg who want his brethren in the GOP to give McCain another look, but why? What is it about McCain that will make him a good general election candidate, let alone a good president? He's too old, too fickle with his loyalties, and the damage he's done in the eyes of many conservatives is beyond repair. The wounds he's suffered from conservatives are self-inflicted. He's simply not the best choice for the party or the country. In the words of the famous wacky left organization, it's time to "move on".