I wonder to what extent his overly sensitive responses to any questions raised about his “honor” is rooted in secret guilt for his performance as a POW?

Don’t be silly. Everybody knows that McCain is the Manchurian candidate.

Add a collapsing economy, an unpleasant withdrawal (or at least drawdown) from Iraq, instability in countries that are heavily dependant on high oil prices (Iraq, Iran, Russia, Venezuela), stir, and serve bloody.

The opponent is a black man with a foreign terroristic sounding middle name. This election is going to last longer than Bush/Gore.
If Obama wins we can look forward to the ‘One World Order’, “black helicopter’, ‘coded road signs’, militia and conspiracy movement from the 90′s to come back with a vengeance. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Randy Weaver run for national office.

In retrospect (well, we aren’t in retrospect just yet, I shouldn’t be counting chickens just yet I suppose) the combination of the financial/economic environment with a preexisting toxic environment for republicans may have made the race hopeless anyway, but with all of that, and an Obama team that has, in retrospect, run a very effective campaign, he’s still only 6-7 points back. So one wonders whether a more effective and consistent message might have made the difference. There ARE issues regarding which McCain could have made some appealing arguments. Education, certainly. His health care plan, while IMO problematic in some respects, has elements that could have been deployed in a politically effective manner. Perhaps more to the point, a more consistent day to day message would reinforced the “experienced, steady hand” frame.

As I said in another thread, maybe McCain is incapable of running that sort of campaign. But it is certainly true that lack of message discipline has been the biggest downfall of the McCain campaign.