McCain: Still dead after all these months

This combined with this story from the other day are a pretty clear indicator that Senator McCain's presidential ambitions are effectively DOA at this point. From Dean:

“Lagging in fund-raising and under fire for his support of the Iraq war, Senator John McCain is overhauling his campaign finance operation and delaying the official announcement of his candidacy, his aides said Tuesday.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Team McCain has actually concluded that he’s “under fire” for his steadfastness on Iraq? How could they be so obtuse? McCain’s reliability on Iraq is quite frankly the only thing that’s keeping him afloat in conservative Republican circles. Or let’s put it this way – McCain’s not considered viable because of McCain/Feingold, McCain/Kennedy or his reputation as a loyal Republican.

This reads eerily like the mis-interpretation of Bush's approval numbers. When Bush's approval ratings sunk into the low 30's and high 20's, everyone assumed that the country had wised up and everyone was turning on the war; not so.

Here-to-fore steadfast supporters of the war were displeased at the seeming lack of will to prosecute the war. Folks haven't noticed but approval on Iraq has inched up, a result of good news coming from the Surge.

I'm with Dean on McCain. We're seeing the same kind of phenomenon here.

There is no more left-wing/Democratic opposition to Iraq. We see and hear it all, there are no Iraq-war foes in hiding. These people wobbling on McCain are Republicans and the good Senator has given us plenty of reasons to wobble.

But he doesn't have to take our advice (and rarely does). If the Senator wishes to turn left over Iraq, he is welcome to. He'll have no-one to blame other than himself when his numbers tank, however.