Earmarks are indicative of McCain’s two bete noirs: political corruption and financial irresponsibility. Focusing on the most visible and indefensible of these problems is an indication of intelligence, not disinterest in measures that go beyond tackling earmarks. And, indeed, McCain has been at the forefront of ethics reform.

I find the idea that a McCain presidency and an Obama presidency would come to the same kinds of deals with Congress laughable (and this assumes that Obama would even engage on the same sorts of issues as McCain, which is highly dubious). Finally, I think it’s difficult to point to anything except foreign policy where McCain has inclinations to magnify Bush’s errors. That’s important, but hardly the sum of Bush’s errors.

It’s true that McCain isn’t Bush. McCain is demonstrably worse than Bush in almost every area where Bush has been a disaster, and he is more inclined as a matter of habit and temperament to collaborate with Democrats than Bush was.

What is McCain going to reform? Entitlements? Please. Pentagon spending? Nope. He will tackle the ungodly foe of earmarks. How exciting and important. Actually, how absolutely trivial as a matter of fiscal discipline. At best, the domestic case for McCain is largely a negative one–he probably won’t raise taxes, and he probably won’t sign off on nationalized health care or anything like it and he *might* occasionally veto a budget that is too large–and I don’t think that’s very persuasive or compelling. It’s got little to do with reform of any kind. We’ve been down this road before. We are where we are today because the “reformer with results” won in 2000. Given what Bush has actually done in government, why would anyone want to rely on Republican reformism right now?

I agree that there will be a lot of split ticket voting in many of the old Border states and in the South, and in some other parts of the country, but I now think there will probably not be enough of it to lift McCain to victory.

McCain is not Bush and there is every reason to believe that he would act as a check on Democratic excesses (and vice versa). The electorate know this which is why the race is tight and why they have split their ticket so often in the past.

But when electing a President, you’re electing one man. You can judge the character of one man, whereas the character of a crowd is almost certain to be the same as just about all crowds. I think the record of McCain lends credence to his desire to reform, and his character suggests that he might well be the one to carry through. You want anger, a willingness to offend, and stubbornness.

So, in short, McCain’s pledge should at least be considered as a good reason to support him; it’s a rotten reason to support Republicans in the House or Senate (or Democrats for that matter).

The people have wisely provided for divided government often enough in the past.