McCain is dead to me

I was actually going to write something nice about him again, actually having second thoughts and warming to him. No more.

MCCAIN: We can and must complete this legislation sooner rather than later. We all know that this issue can get caught up in extracurricular politics unless we move forward as quickly as possible.

Senator, that "extracurricular politics" is called the people who elected you to office desiring their Constitutional Right to redress of grievance. But we know you already had issues with that. This is a huge wedge for Giuliani and Romney if they want to take it - in spite of what they supported in the past. McCain is done. Look at his weakness in the graphs from The Ides of May.

As for the immigration bill itself, I am close to Capt. Ed on this - it is probably as good you are going to get with GWB and a Democrat hold on the House and Senate. My major problem with Senator McCain (R-AZ) is his attitude towards the voter as quoted above. I have had enough of that. Kate O'Beirne is right in a large sense, this will push down the Republican base and pro-enforcement Independents and Democrats from supporting the Republicans in '08. And yes, you can put this in the lap of GWB.

I just talked with a veteran conservative activist whose group doesn't engage on the immigration issue but who is glum about the expected reaction of the conservative grassroots to the immigration deal. "We'll all be hurt. They'll just stay home," he predicted. "They'll figure they didn't support Republicans in order to federalize education, create a big, new entitlement program, and grant amnesty to illegals."

I will wait for the vote to see who up in '08 supports this growing bucket of FOD - but right now I am calling a Democrat pick-up of 5 seats in '08 at a minimum. The Republicans already have I think 7 more seats to defend than the Democrats - and they are just digging that hole deeper. In every Republican Senator's playbook "Top 5" should be; when in doubt, if Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) is a co-sponsor of a piece of legislation, oppose it. He gave us the present nightmare, in case you didn't know.

Oh, and if you want to stew in your anger, go over and read Mickey Kaus.