THE ONE WHO CAN RUN ON HIS RECORD:

John McCain: Born-Again Supply-Sider? (Robert Novak, 2/05/07, Real Clear Politics)

"I've never voted for a tax increase in 24 years," he told me last week. "Never, ever, not under any president including President Reagan, and I will never vote for a tax increase, nor support a tax increase."

He wants to make permanent the Bush tax cuts. ("If I didn't vote to make those tax cuts permanent, it would have the effect of a tax increase.") He supports radically scaling down the estate tax and does not now favor upper income increases in the Social Security tax. McCain gets tax policy advice from conservatives, including supply-side founding father Arthur Laffer. "I may have changed some of my views," the senator said in an interview. "You learn over 24 years."

Thus, McCain passes the tax litmus test for Republicans, as he did not in 2000. That may be why McCain has lost liberal journalists and other non-Republicans who were entranced by his campaign against George W. Bush. McCain pained these former admirers by making peace with Jerry Falwell and advocating more troops in Iraq, but it is his current position on taxes that most aggravates them.