I saw this one coming a mile away. Slowly but surely, the crew that battled and outsmarted the GOP establishment to propel John McCain to the Republican presidential nomination is being shoved aside and replaced by old-hand Bush-Cheney political operatives. Oh, happy days for McCain.
It's all about money. Up until the changes in staff that put longtime Bush folks in charge, the "establishment" side of the GOP -- those who backed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, for example -- have been sitting on their wallets. They've been playing coy about whether and how much they would support McCain.
Trust me. The deal has been cut. Those who danced with McCain -- those who "brung him here" -- are playing secondary roles. And that makes me all the surer that no matter how many speeches Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty gives, or how many women Florida's Gov. Charlie Crist proposes to, Mitt Romney will be McCain's running mate, whether McCain likes it nor not.
Here's the big problem that no one wants to confront: The Republican electorate didn't vote for Mitt or Rudy Giuliani or the rest of the GOP field in the primaries because they are just plain tired of the same warmed-over GOP robots. They wanted someone who could appeal to moderates and mavericks. They wanted a sharp-tongued, quick-witted, no-games-playing nominee. They wanted John McCain.
The problem for McCain was that no one in the GOP establishment, as it has been reshaped and maintained by the Bush administration, wanted McCain. He beat them at their own game.
Their retribution is to withhold their full support from him and to make him tap dance for money. Some of them have pondered whether to just let him sink beneath the waves, as a way to clear the decks for a candidate more to their liking four years from now.
They want to rein in McCain, to bring "order" to his campaign. As Dr. Evil of the "Austin Powers" comedy films would say ever so slowly, "Right."
Who among this group or Republican elites came up with the brilliant idea of sending McCain to Mexico on the Fourth of July? Is this really in the candidate's best interest?
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