The Mountain For McCain

Joe Gandelman on the weird dynamic:

[McCain] will have to do what most candidates don’t do during elections: move more to the right to try and appease the hard-line conservatives.

Victor Hanson speculates:

For McCain to win in this current anti-incumbent, anti-Republican climate of war and economic uncertainty, everything will have to break right the base will have to make a choice for the better, not the best, alternative and soon cool the rhetoric; the VP choice will have to be inspired; independents and moderates will have to be convinced that McCain’s unique life-story and national security fides trump all else; and he will have to wage an effective campaign, hope his opponents don’t, and trust that Iraq will continue to improve while the economy is stabilized.

Not too encouraging.