There seems to be an idea out there that McCain has hurt himself politically with his little “bomb Iran” crack in a way analogous to Howard Dean’s infamous “scream” (which was, in fairness, more of a yelp).  This seems to be wrong for two reasons: 1) the episode merely confirms that McCain is apparently as nonchalant about the consequences of war as he seems to be much of the time (which many Republican voters consider to be one of his greatest traits), while Dean’s scream hinted that the man might be a little unstable and unfit to hold great powers; 2) the voters McCain most needs to win over right now are Fred Thompson-adoring Persophobes who believe, as the members of the audience in the video believe, that bombing Iran is the obviously right and necessary thing to do. 

What may work in his favour even more is the response to this episode and his response to the reactions the episode causes.  In and of itself, the episode would be quickly forgotten and of no importance whatever, but now that MoveOn has thrown itself into the mix and antiwar activists are drawing attention to the video, McCain will be able to spin the episode as a bit of humour or, better yet, as a bit of allegedly Reagan-like levity of the old “the bombing starts in five minutes” variety.  In fact, expect that to become a standard McCainiac talking point before too much longer. 

There will be those who find this incredible.  Surely, the Iraq war is dragging down John McCain, they will say.  So how can more warmongering help him?  My answer to these objections is this: the Iraq war is dragging down McCain’s reputation among journalists who are against the war but deeply want to stay in love with the “maverick” McCain they have idolised all these years, and it hurts him with independents and moderate Republicans, who have traditionally formed McCain’s core of support in national politics.  It helps him enormously with those voters to whom the name McCain is normally anathema.  Sad to say, these voters are the sort who not only think the “surge” is working (which makes McCain of McCain Doctrine fame look good to them) but they are also the sort who think that Mr. Bush has generally done a bang-up job all around.  The risk that McCain has with these voters is that they will think he was not being serious enough about the threats from the “mullahcracy” or “the terror masters” or whatever sloganeered name they have picked  up from the main anti-Iranian pundits.  In any case, these are the voters McCain needs to win the nomination, so he needs to remind them as often as he can that he is the most pro-war (not just in Iraq, but in general) candidate out there. 

I can already see Romney’s desperate bid to shore up his superior anti-Iranian credentials: “Bombing Iran is no laughing matter–I’m deadly serious about it!”  He will then point out that he refused to provide state police security to Khatami during his visit to Harvard and remind everyone of his sabre-rattling at Herzliya.  You can almost hear the pro-Romney spin now: “Gov. Romney was in Israel declaring enmity against Iran, but where was John McCain?  He was probably singing a tune and making jokes about our national security!”  Do I think Romneyites are that sorry?  Generally speaking, yes. 

Can something so trivial change the course of a campaign?  Maybe not, but then at the time I didn’t think a YouTube  video would bring down George Allen, either.