McCain Inflicts Further Damage

John McCain is determined to create animosity within his party by continuing to target the North Carolina GOP with stupid comments:

WASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) - Republican U.S. presidential candidate John McCain accused North Carolina's Republican Party of being "out of touch with reality" over its refusal to pull an advertisement criticizing Democrat Barack Obama.

In an NBC interview aired on Friday, the Arizona senator said he has done all he can to persuade the state party to cancel the television ad that criticizes Obama as "too extreme" because of controversial remarks made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"They're not listening to me because they're out of touch with reality and the Republican Party. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and this kind of campaigning is unacceptable," McCain told NBC's "Today" Show.

"I've done everything that I can to repudiate and to see that this kind of campaigning does not continue," he added.

Asked if the state party's unwillingness to heed his call raised questions about his leadership, McCain replied: "I don't know exactly how to respond to that."

The state is unwilling to heed his call because they don't have to and they disagree with what he's demanding. McCain is forgetting something pretty important - he is neither the party's nominee nor is he the leader of the party. He will be the nominee after the convention, but all he is now is the presumed winner and making demands of local GOP committees is overstepping his authority, something McCain is known for.

If he continues this idiotic attack on the North Carolina GOP over a pretty innocuous ad he's going to damage his position with every local GOP committee in the country, and when the real push hits later this year, they'll just concentrate on their local races and let Mr. Straight Talk sink under his own campaign problems.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin makes a good point:

Update 9:13am Eastern. McCain attacks the NC GOP as “out of touch with reality.”
Has he ever attacked Jeremiah Wright this way?

No.

Never.

That is the McCain way.

Who is out of touch with reality? Pot meet kettle.

McCain only has enmity for Republicans. Democrats are untouchable.