Over the next 60 days we find ourselves up against something that will be difficult to beat. We are up against John McCain the idea, not John McCain the man. The difference is something very important for us to understand.
Republicans want us to remember the John McCain of 4 years ago, who lit up a Republican convention with a fiery America first speech.
Republicans want us to remember the John McCain of 8 years ago, who would have stood up to Washington Gimmicks like the gas tax holiday, chanting drill baby drill, against Bush’s tax cuts which rewarded the wealthy and stymied the middle class.
Republicans want us to remember the John McCain of 40 years ago, the brave fighter pilot who gave America five and a half years of his life being beaten, tortured, and malnourished.
They don’t want us to see the John McCain of today. John McCain who panders to the religious right, embraces hawkish neo-conservative shortsighted foreign policy and a Rovian campaign style which so unfairly destroyed his candidacy in 2000. John McCain could not even stand up to his own party to pick the man he thought best could serve America as his vice president. John McCain of 2008 is everything he stood against.

John McCain boasts that he would rather win a war and lose a campaign, but John McCain would rather lose his principals than lose an election.