Follow the bouncing logic...

If!

1. McCain DOES want to run, and
2. McCain DOES vote against the rule change, and
3. McCain isn't stupid...

THEN..

He must know he can't win the Republican Nomination.

IF the above are true, Then he must be planning an eventual party switch.

There is your "conservative Democrat"

Just a thought bubble

If he switches no one cares that he votes with Democrats and the media hates him when he votes with Republicans. There's nothing in it for him.

From Thursday's Hardball (via Captain's Quarters) it appears McCain has decided either he's not running for president, or he is, but people will forget about all this 2 1/2 years from now or the positive spin he'll get from the media will be enough to push him over the top against a field of lesser-knowns:

MATTHEWS: But bottom line, would you vote for what’s called the “nuclear option,” to get rid of the filibuster rule on judgeships?

MCCAIN: No I will not.

MATTHEWS: You will stick with the party?

MCCAIN: No, I will vote against the nuclear option.

MATTHEWS: You will vote—

MCCAIN: Against the nuclear option.

MATTHEWS: Oh, you will?

MCCAIN: Yes.

The video transcript of the interview is posted over at the MSNBC website. If he sticks to it and does plan a 2008 run, I think it will do for his candidacy what going back on the "no new taxes" pledge did for Bush 41, even though McCain will never face the same sort of media hammering over this move (unless of course he did win the primary. Then all this stuff would come out of the media during the general election, and John would be dazed and confused, wondering why his friends in the press don't love him anymore).

If he goes against the party (again!), McCain will be joining Jeffords as founding members in the senatorial persona non grata club.

McCain's stand is really no surprise. The Republican nomination would be worthless to him if he won it, and he knows it. The evangelical base has never trusted him; they know he is not one of them. Too many people fail to remember that for decades it has been a struggle just to get the participation rate of evangleicals up to average turnout rates for other groups. Many evangelicals see voting as optional, and simply won't go to the polls if they are not convinced they have a "Godly" candidate to vote for. That is a visceral test, and McCain can't pass it.

McCain's hope for the White House, if he has any, has always been some sort of fusion between non-Deaniac Dems and secular Republicans. And I still hear from a few people that he is not interested in running for President at all, but knows that if he makes a Sherman statement the Hardball and MTP invitations will slow to a trickle.

McCain seems to be letting his fighter-jock go it alone personality get the better of him. If he opposes the nuclear option, he will alienate conservatives angry at the court system, not just evangelicals, making it impossible for him to get the nomination. If procedural niceties mean getting tied up by Sheets Byrd and Leaky Leahy then, we can live quite happily without procedural niceties.

The idea that McCain would cross the aisle is laughable. There is probably no one in the Senate who is more of a 'send the Marines' interventionist than he is. The Deaniacs and the MoveOn crowd can't deal with that. If he were to cross the aisle, it would be seen at home in Arizona as a grandstanding move and he would not be re-elected, unless Evan Mecham got nominated by the GOP.

From where McCain sits it must look like the Dems will be ecstatic to have him. We know that Kerry offered him not just VP but basically complete control of Defense as well, in what must surely be an unconstitutional move. Hillary is a cinch for the nomination in '08, and is going to have to do something to establish some national security bonafides, or she's going to get about 1/4 of the total male vote (choosing the empty-suit Obama! would make her white male share about 10%) . And what current Dem has any credibility on the issue? The left will go along out of desperation to get back into the White House. And it would let Hillary make speeches about how important faith is, while McCain repeats his attacks on the "Religious Right"(TM).

"The evangelical base has never trusted him"

Because of moves like this, no one trusts him, and that would include the Democrats if they weren't blinded by their despirate desire for a return to power.

Senator Keating continues to be tiresome, and has become, like Kennedy and Byrd, a living argument for term-limits.

McCain's problem is that his shirts and jackets are probably 2 sizes too small, and his brain just isn't getting enough oxygen.

He must think it looks butch, but I think it looks silly.

With a wife like his he should be thinking about retirement ... and that's a sincere compliment ... to his wife.