John McCain As John Major

Ross responds to Poulos's comment on McCain's tactics:

It's possible, as James goes on to write, that "Obama's the softest landing the GOP is likely to get, at a time when a hard landing could smash it into a fiery wreck of pieces," and that a McCain Presidency would be the equivalent of John Major's PMship - the victory snatched from the jaws of defeat that sets you up for a longer exile later on. That's a scenario I've been wrestling with all year. But being something of a cynic about "honor" among competing political campaigns, I'm very, very resistant to the notion that the degree of truthiness on display in McCain's late-summer attack ads provides anything like a dispositive resolution to the question.