Meanwhile, I’m waiting for pro-life voters to remember this guy named John McCain. ~Matt Yglesias

In a different cycle, this might have actually happened.  David Corn has made a similar proposal, arguing that McCain is in a good position because he is just marginal enough now that other candidates aren’t attacking him, but he has the credentials, at least “on paper,” to appeal to the party.  Corn makes the good point that McCain should have reserves of support based on his views on the war and the political support he has lent the war over the years.  I think he is grudgingly respected because of this among core Republican voters, but it doesn’t outweigh what they see as his flaws.  “The answer is right in front of your face!” Corn declared to Republican voters, but I don’t think they are going to go that route.  As Jim Pinkerton reminded Corn during that episode, immigration and campaign finance reform (important to the activists who have an outsized impact in Iowa) are the dealbreakers for McCain.  Unlike Huckabee, whose immigration views are probably still not widely known, and unlike Giuliani, who can pretend that he cares about border security, McCain has been the standard-bearer for deeply unpopular immigration legislation and his allies (such as Graham) pushed for that legislation by denouncing the party base as racists.  Being on the wrong side of the party on immigration is politically dangerous enough in the primaries this cycle, but McCain is prominently and inextricably linked with one of the most hated pieces of legislation of the last ten years.  He might turn in a decent result in New Hampshire, given the role of independents in the primary and his history of popularity in that state, but the virtual consensus at the end of summer that he was finished was probably right.

P.S.  Of course, I have had such a lousy track record this cycle of picking winners and losers that whenever I am ready to dismiss a candidate, he begins to make a comeback, and when I predict a candidate’s victory it is a sure sign of his impending doom.  For instance, the RCP national average shows McCain gaining.