So Long, Maverick

From Ambinder's and Green's article on the campaign:

The truth is that, as the country begins a slow migration leftward, McCain now hews more closely to a rightward partisan line than at any point since his career began.

In campaign style: McCain and his staff have developed the reflexive contempt for the national political press corps that’s in the DNA of regular Republicans. In tone and policy: In 2002, McCain opposed a permanent repeal of the estate tax. Now he supports an almost complete repeal and calls it “one of the most unfair tax laws on the books.” His speeches are studded with conventional Republican policy talking points. There are remnants of apostasy, but not on the economy or Iraq, the two most important issues facing the country. Good luck finding an important McCain economic policy that could not have been devised and proposed by the Bush administration. McCain’s support for the surge, which was mavericky at the time, has transmogrified into support for an even longer war.