"EXPERTS": STILL OPERATING UNDER THE DELUSION THAT REPUBLICANS ARE RATIONAL AND THAT THE '08 ELECTION WILL BE DECIDED ON THE ISSUES

At the Huffington Post, Thomas Edsall, a Big Kahuna Expert on American politics, says John McCain can revive his campaign if he takes a bit of a risk:

Strategists Agree: McCain's Only Option Is To Turn His Back On Bush

...The only place left for McCain is to be the anti-Bush Republican. This was his turf in 2000, and it is far more fertile ground today.

... McCain could argue that Bush not only failed to win a winnable war, but that conditions in Iraq are so terrible that withdrawal is now the only reasonable alternative....

You've got to be kidding me.

What possible reason is there to believe that this would work? Is there a clamor on the right (or anywhere else) for a Chuck Hagel presidential bid? Has Ron Paul's percentage in GOP poll moved out of the low single digits?

Maybe Edsall and his strategists are looking at headlines like this, from NBC last month:

Republicans Abandoning Bush

"Abandoning"? Yeah, right. Do you know what NBC's definition of "abandoning" is? This:

Back in April, 75 percent of Republicans approved of Bush's job performance, compared with 21 percent who disapproved. Now, only 62 percent of Republican approve, versus 32 percent who disapprove.

Yup, they hate him so much that nearly two-thirds of them still love him.

And 62% was Bush's approval when they were furious at him for betraying right-wing principles on immigration. His numbers within his party are going to go up soon.

Oppose Bush on immigration? Fine. Say we should be even meaner (e.g., "double Guantanamo")? No problem. But suggest withdrawal? Join the surrender monkeys? The Defeatocrats? That's the experts' big tip for McCain?

These are the folks who are constantly telling us that crazy radical hippie freaks regularly force Democratic presidential candidates dangerously to the left -- but apparently they think Republican primary voters are even-tempered, cool-headed moderates. The truth is, GOP voters want blood. They want a nastier war; they want war against anyone who looks at us crosswise. They like folksy-snarly Fred Thompson and snarly-snarly Rudy Giuliani and neo-snarly Mitt Romney. Giuliani's still their #1 guy -- hell, they wouldn't mind if he took the oath of office in a dress, with two gay married guys holding the Bible, if he'd just promise to kill more Muslims.

Mr. Edsall, you and your strategists are smoking crack.

****

Then we have another Big Kahuna Politics Expert, Larry Sabato, saying something that sounds sensible but is wrong:

...There will be many factors producing the 2008 November result, but none so critical as the state of the Iraq War.... Any Republican candidate--any Republican candidate--is going to be held accountable for Bush's policies, no matter how much the presidential hopeful tries to distance himself. ... That is the way our party system works, and arguably should work.

(Emphasis in original.)

No, that isn't the way our party system works. Here's the way our party system works: A Republican most reporters would like to have a beer with runs against a Democrat they wouldn't like to have a beer with. The Democrat loses. It will almost certainly happen again in '08.

And I'll repeat what I said in May -- Iraq won't be the #1 issue in '08, at least in the presidential campaign.

It can't be -- because if it is, the Democrat will win handily, and the Beltway Establishment doesn't want that to happen. So when the Republicans try to change the subject -- try to make the election about John Edwards's money and alleged vanity, or about Barack Obama's foreign roots or his pastor's political beliefs, or about all the things in the Gerth/Van Natta and Bernstein books [about Hillary Clinton] -- the Beltway press will do everything in its power to aid and abet them. That's because the press wants Rudy or John or Fred or Mitt to win. The press has some fondness for Obama, but it can be talked out of that. And the press hates Hillary Clinton and enjoys picking on John Edwards. (And forget Gore -- the press doesn't like him, either.)

...The election will be a referendum on one of the items the GOP floats as the '08 version of Willie Horton or Kerry's time on the Swift Boat. It's going to be about trivia.

Sorry to keep repeating myself, but I don't want you to be surprised when this happens.