Can McCain Ride This Perfect Storm To Victory?

PRESUMABLY the lead time involved in arranging such things is quite extensive - especially if you're not the President - but John McCain's "surprise" visit to Iraq, while his Democrat opponents continue their undignified brawl, actually makes him look like one. Senator McCain's field trip will also take in London, Paris and Israel. A very presidential itinerary and the timing is about perfect. So tarnished is the Democrat brandname becoming that House Speaker and resurgent Dem mother Nancy Pelosi is now urging everybody in and associated with the two campaigns to smarten up the "tone". "I think their people are going at each other, and I think that that's wearing out. I don't think people are interested in that." Au contraire. Lots of people are interested in it - that's the problem. She has also redefined that often fantasised about Clinton-Obama "dream ticket." Ms Pelosi says there will still be one - "I just know it. I just know it" - but it will not include both protagonists. There's far too much bloody water under the bridge for that now.

Even though he's now nominee presumptive for the Republican Party anyway, some polls now put McCain ahead of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in Pennsylvania. The Arizona senator told journalists last week the unseemly competition between his two potential rivals makes it difficult to win headline attention but he's surely aware this might be to his advantage - if it isn't already. For one thing, his image as belligerent and old-hat gets a free make-over whenever Democrats trade identity-based complaining and polemics more evocative of the 1970s than now. John McCain is being made to look calm, relevant to what's happening in the wider world - even modern. In light of recent mythology-sapping events, moreover, Victor Davis Hanson's view of the possible contest to come is very credible: "And as for an against-the-odds candidacy, in postmodern America a 71-year-old survivor of communist torture and malignant melanoma seems to match the narrative of a young Ivy-League graduate of mixed ancestry."