No Chance In Hell

Larry Sabato is delusional:

"McCain has been playing a double high-wire act," Larry Sabato, director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Virginia, said in an interview Monday.

"He's staying on the wire that got him where he is, and that's the maverick wire that pleases the moderates. But he's decided to take his right foot off and put it on the conservative wire, aligning himself more strongly with President Bush and the Iraq war than any of the other Republicans (eyeing the presidency)," Sabato said. He noted that McCain's Senate voting record is solidly conservative.

"The key question is, which McCain do Republicans buy?... And I think that will determine whether he gets the party nomination. If he's the Republican regular, he will win the nomination. And if he's still the maverick, he will not."

Sabato is forgetting something: Pachyderms have verrrrry long memories. Darth Queeg's Sith mind tricks won't make us forget his 2000 villification of religious conservatives, campaign finance "reform," opposition to tax cuts, pushing Kyoto, and the "gang of 14" sellout on judges. The GOP base has had its fill of putting up with ideological infidelity for the sake of the "big picture" (mostly the war) from the current White House occupant. A conservative party is going to want a conservative presidential nominee, and "Sailor" McCain won't fit that bill in 2008 any more than he did eight years earlier.

No chance, that's what he's got. No chance in hell.

I guarantee it.