A Shrinking McCain Cuts Down No Obamas

These days when I think of John McCain, I find myself humming the Jimmy Dean song "Big Bad John."

"Big Joh-n-n, Big Bad John"

McCain has to be big and bad--a larger than life soldier, patriot, reformer, and embodiment of everything American--if he's going to beat the apparent Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

But today, John McCain shrunk dramatically in stature yesterday as a result of New York Times and Washington Post revelations about his "relationship" with a 40 year old lobbyist named Vicki Iseman back in 2000.

Pictures of Ms. Iseman actually make her look much more like a Rudy Giuliani mistress than a "McCain Girl." Unfortunately for Ms. Iseman, Rudy was already involved with mistress Judy Nathan who became Mrs. Rudy no. 3 in 2000. It looks like Iseman settled for John McCain instead and that she was on her way to becoming Mrs. Big Bad John no.3 before she was derailed by McCain's staff.

That's what separates "patriotic and honorable" Republicans like Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and John McCain from "despicable" men like Bill Clinton--they marry their mistresses instead of abandoning them.

Notes from Underground argues that McCain's campaign planted the leak to get the story out of the way during a dead spot in the Republican campaign.

That may be true, but I don't think the story is going away. I believe McCain's "stature" has been diminished enough that it will take a lot of work for him to recover.

To have a chance in the fall election, McCain has to look so good to voters that they'll ignore his support for the war, opposition to abortion rights, his heavy reliance on lobbyists for his campaign,. and a bunch of other problems. But he won't stand a chance of doing that if his stature is being constantly undercut by these revelations.

And my bet right now is that McCain is going to have a rough ride. He's made a lot of enemies over his last 10-15 years as a reform-oriented media hound and there's a good chance those enemies might start feeding the media with juicy McCain stories.

If that's the case, McCain won't have enough stature to even give Obama or Hillary a good fight.