Betrayed by Bush and Cheney

There must be quite a few so-called 'swing voters' who must feel betrayed after voting Bush/Cheney in 2004. I suppose they were duped into thinking that the war was worth 'winning' and that it was indeed a part of the 'war on terror.' Now, after watching the mess become even more entangled and the end-game not in sight, surely they regret casting that vote 4 years ago. And with the economy tanking and the housing market a mess along with stagnant wages and rising prices, they have to put the blame somewhere, and Bush and Cheney are easy targets for their anger.

I feel a bit sorry for John McCain in this whole mess, as the mood of the nation, and especially these 'swing voters' has shifted away from the Grand Old Party this election cycle. He ought to have been the candidate back in 2000, but he was the victim in South Carolina of race-bating and push-polling. "Did you know that John McCain fathered a black baby?" was the line used by the Bush people in their robocalls to the potential voters. The push-poll, not a poll at all but a message disguised as one, asked whether they would vote for a person who had mental problems like John McCain. Dirty stuff. It worked and South Carolina ended the presidential hopes of McCain.

We will never know if he would have defeated Al Gore or whether he would have led us into a preemptive war on Iraq, or how he would have responded to the PDB that lay on the presidential desk in late August 2001- the one titled, 'Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S." Surely, he could not have made all of the blunders of the Bush-Cheney Administration.

Now is his opportunity, albeit 8 years too late. Like Bob Dole's run in 1996, there is little chance for another 4 years with a Republican at the helm. John McCain is past his prime and running at the wrong time. If only...