I wouldn't vote for McCain because of his policies and voting record, but I think you underestimate his appeal. He speaks and acts like a leader, has shown more independence than most politicians, and projects more integrity than most. Those characteristics could carry him far, particularly with independents who swing elections.  

McCain is a Republican and an anti-choice Republican at that.  His appeal seems to be that he takes positions that are actually based on his beliefs and not political expediency.  I agree with Purple State that Matt is underestimating McCain's potential appeal in a general election.

However, McCain is suffering from presidentialitis.  He wants the job too badly now.  The result is that in order to get the Republican nomination, which I think he has no chace of, he is trimming and overly supporting Bush.  This ironically will undercut the basis of his appeal.

Who else do the Repugs have? Everyone else has far too many strikes against them. Maybe an unknown gov from Arkansas will ride in and save them...

You vastly underestimate how far media love will go. Ask Gore how far media hate will go. 

The result is that in order to get the Republican nomination, which I think he has no chace of, he is trimming and overly supporting Bush.  This ironically will undercut the basis of his appeal.

This is a good point, too, Daniel. I am a political independent, and while I generally have voted for Democrats in the past few years I do look hard at moderate Republicans (and have voted for them in the past). There was a time when I might have considered McCain, but anytime I hear him spouting Bush administration talking points I get turned back off. And then there's the problem of his voting record, which is too far right for me.

I do, however, admire his tenacity on the torture issue--and have written him often to praise him for that good work.

I think McCain will get out in front of distancing himself from Bush. This pic:

http://cbaker.org/blog/bush-mccain.jpg

should be plastered everywhere. 

McCain's chances of winning the Republican nomination depend to a very large degree on what happens over the remainder of the Bush presidency. If the 2006 elections go badly for the GOP and Bush remains highly unpopular, then Republican insiders will want a candidate who already has some public distance from the President. McCain is miles ahead of any other possible nominee in that regard. If, on the other hand, Bush makes even a partial recovery, Republicans will feel far more comfortable choosing a more typical Republican, and McCain's chances will plummet.

If McCain does succeed in winning the nomination, I think his chances of winning the general election are excellent. Matt's post essentially makes the point that McCain (unlike most Republicans) will honestly put forth his agenda, and since that agenda is fundamentally unpopular, his personal popularity will suffer.  I think this analysis significantly overestimates the impact of a candidate's agenda or policy platform on his performance at the ballot box. Elections simply are not decided by which candidate's policies are more popular. They are decided on the overall impression voters have of the candidates. Because of this, McCain has an enormous advantage. He is already broadly perceived as moderate, tough, honest and independent. It will be very difficult, perhaps impossible, for Democrats to reverse these perceptions. This is particularly the case, given that the media tends to reinforce this view.

I see two plausible (but not probable) scenarios where McCain loses in a general election.

1. There is a credible third party candidacy by a social conservative. If this happens, all bets are off.
2. The situation in Iraq deteriorates badly enough that McCain's strong support for the war simply becomes radioactive.

While I will almost certainly not vote for McCain, I must admit, I don't find the possibility of a McCain presidency all that upsetting. Yes, McCain is conservative. But I can live with an honest, serious conservative. The biggest problem with the Bush administration (in my view) is not its conservatism. It is its recklessness, dishonesty and incompetence. While I would certainly prefer a competent and honest President, who also happens to be a Democrat, I would consider any competent, honest President a major improvement. 

These are all very good points about McCain, but nomination is a race against others, and I would encourage commenters to evaluate McCain's chances against specific candidates.

For all his weaknesses, doesn't McCain still seem more likely to pull it off than, say, Romney, Giuliani, Frist, Pataki, Jeb, Condi?

Just wondering. 

Of course, both parties have a history of nominating sure losers, like Mondale, Dole, Goldwater, and so perhaps a freakozoidal cold fish like Frist will be the nominee, but if any of you wants to argue why X would win over McCain, please do. I am curious to hear your arguments.

What does it say about our electorate that it would even consider voting for a Republican after what we have seen in the last five years?

As I have been attempting to point out to various star-struck Democrats for the last six years, McCain is merely Orrin Hatch 2.0.

After complaints in the mid-to-late 90's from consumers about Orrin Hatch 1.0, the biography module was replaced, the charisma routines were re-coded from scratch, and, most importantly, the entire press API was re-written.

As for the rest, SOS.

John McCain is Windows for Politics™.

Popular and easy-to-use GUI, laid over old, crap, legacy code.

Or Orrin Hatch is the command-line John McCain.

Your choice.

I quite agree...the wild card is how viable the Hard RIght -BushWing is two years from now....can he pull off an Arnold scam and get the True Believers to swallow their nutty ideology for a win...


I don't think so...neither have the talent...Hagel might

What does it say about our electorate that it would even consider voting for a Republican after what we have seen in the last five years?

What is left to be said about our electorate after the 2004 election? I can't see how that body can look any worse. Another election like that one and the world will view us as the world's biggest joke. (And, correctly so.)

McCain is extremely talented at inserting himself into the news cycle, and has successfully cultivated a kind of national image as a "maverick" Republican, but his political skills are of a limited range. During the 2000 primaries he was slow to respond to the Rove war machine, and quick to publically vent his distaste for certain wings of the GOP whose favor every successful Republican candidate must carefully cultivate. I don't know what the path to the 2008 Republican nomination will be, but I suspect the real threat to a Democratic victory would be Giuliani (who is a much defter politician), not McCain.

Isn't McCain the Republican version of Howard Dean? I say this as a supporter of Dean, someone who I think would have been an ideal candidate and an ideal president. But, the voters didn't agree with me.

Both men are/were anti-party establishment. Both were/are perceived by their supporters as honest, tell it like it is politicians. Both are misinterpreted by the public as more liberal than they were/are. And, in my opinion, both did/will meet defeat in the primaries.

I agree with others here who say McCain faces a lot obstacles in gaining the GOP nomination. The issue of his chances in a general election is a different matter. There are a number of variables to consider here, not least of which is the name of his Democratic opponent. I guess the conventional wisdom would have to be that McCain's chances improve should he face a Democrat from the party's left wing. But I'd say all the leading potential candidates are mainstreamish enough to run as centrists. I doubt very much McCain would be facing Al Sharpton in a general election.

My own guess is it will be the Democrats' election to lose in 2008, because after two terms of a controversial Republican president with high negatives, the country will likely be ready for a change. The political conditions present in 2008 are very unlikely to emulate those of 1988. And should the economy be shaky three years from now, it would take a miracle for the Republicans to retain the White House. If the economy were in decent shape in 2008, or in the late stages of a boom, then I'd guess McCain would be about as strong a candidate as the Republicans could hope for. Yes, he's conservative, but his penchant for noisy maverickism has given him an aura of sincerity, and people of all political stripes tend to suffer from slick politician fatigue. This allows many a moderate or liberal to forgive McCain his more right-wing positions. And McCain does depart from the party line on several issues.

Reagan won what, 47 states in 1984? Look at this compared to George W. Bush last year. The latter wasn't even competitive in New York, California, or Illinois. McCain theoretically should be a much more formidable candiate than George W. Bush or a strongly conservative candidate such as Sam Brownback, because the Arizonan would force the Democrats to defend blue state territory.

If my hunch is right about 2008, it may not make much of a difference who the GOP puts up, but they could certainly do a lot worse than John McCain. It's getting the nomination that's the real hurdle. For the senator, that hurdle may well be insurmountable.

Quite frankly, the candidate everyone keeps not mentioning is Sam Brownback, the candidate of the American Taliban.  Sure, we all know he's about as electable as Barry Goldwater was in 1964, but we aren't paying attention to the mutterings from that wing.  I happen to have an old friend from high school who is one of Them, who put me on an e-mail mailing list (which I first thought of turning over to a young hacker I know with the admonition "don't burn down their houses with people inside" and then decided I would just "let ride," which has been quite educational).  We think these people would have "learned their lesson" from all the failures this year, but what I'm reading is they think they just have to get stronger.  They take Alito as a bigger victory than Schiavo was a failure.  They want a fight.  And they hate McCain.  Hatehatehatehatehatehate McCain.

I too, as with a few other posters here, could live with McCain, who I totally disagree with, on the grounds he's an actual Conservative, not a Taliban loonie, not a far right fascist masquerading under the title "conservative." 

Given all that, I think the 2008 Republican primary will see a fight (hopefully to the death) between the "real" conservatives, the traditional Republicans, supporting McCain, and the "movement" conservatives and Taliban Christian Wrong, supporting Brownback.  Were McCain to win, the "movement conservatives" might stick with him, but the Christian Wrong is so far up on their high horse they would promote an independent "Christian candidate."  This would set up a modified 1992 scenario, with the independent drawing off the looney-tune far right from the Republican candidate.

Now if we can just avoid nominating the unelectable-under-any-scenario, totally incompetent (her way of running the health care campaign in 1994 - keeping it her own and not bringing on allies as co-authors - is instructive of how politically dumb she is) Hillary Clinton - let her become a "stateswoman" the way the unelectable Ted Kennedy became a "statesman" - we might just have a chance of winning with a good candidate the way we did in 1992.  I'm not sure who that is, but I think a lot of us lefties need to learn how to say "Mark Warner" with genuine enthusiasm in our tone of voice.  I don't know about anyone else, but right now I am for anyone (other than Hillary) who isn't a Republican and isn't tied to this idiot "invasion of Poland."

I think McCain will be just that, a mirage.  His maverick image will be oblitierated when he kow-tows to the RR in the run-up to the 2008 election, who won't support him in an event.  He 's been demonized by the RR, I don't see them turning around for him.  He has an ultra-right voting record, way outside the mainsteam.  His integrity was blown for me with his lovefest with Bush after the vicious, racist, antipatriotic campaign Bush ran against him in the 2000 South Carolina primary.  He's too old and he has health problems.

I think the best bet for the Repubicans would be Chuck Hagel.  He sounds moderate, is a Viet Nam veteran, is telegenic and hs good communications skills and has dramatically broken with Bush over Iraq.  I have no idea what his voting record has been, but he seems more principled in his positions than an opportunistic and scandal-ridden Frist.  Guilani is a nasty person which I think he would be unable to hide during a campaign and the only highpoint of his mayorality was right after 911.  Maybe that makes him a surefire loser in the primaries. 

On the Democratic side, Clinton is a sure loser and would energize the Right.  Even though she seems more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, I don't think any woman could be elected in the massively militarized America we have now.   I think the best bet is Mark Warner/Westley Clark.  Americans like to vote for governors and generals.  They would also make the South more competitive.  The problem is that neither of them is any longer in the political spotlight.    

I have little doubt that arguments like these will sway me back towards the Democratic party through a full campaign.  However, at this very moment I envision myself holding up a "Democrats for McCain" sign at a local rally and punching every "D" on the 2008 ballot, except for McCain.

In fact, I'm seriously considering registering with the republican party to vote in the presidential primaries provided that the Dems don't need steering on environmental issues.

Ever notice how on the Daily Show McCain will openly mock positions he continues to promote as GOP truth in his day job? McCain's a phony, though he merely pales in this respect compared to his prominent colleagues.