Running Scared

Reihan checks in with the latest McCain campaign:

McCain has scrambled to crush the [J.D. Hayworth] insurgency, raising money and rallying the troops with a robocall from newly minted Republican folk hero Scott Brown. He's even scheduled campaign appearances in March with his former running mate Sarah Palin, the woman some believe made his slim chance at winning the White House even slimmer. Hayworth's flacks are crying foul, telling anyone who'll listen that McCain is being too tough on a man who until recently made his living as a minor-league radio shock jock. Polls aside, it's very clear that McCain is taking Hayworth's candidacy seriously.

The man has been in politics for decades; he's 73; he has run two presidential campaigns; why is he running again - and turning once more to the hardest right - to stay in power? Is politics his entire life? I prefer my politicians to have some kind of perspective, some kind of sense of when it's time to leave the stage with grace. But McCain? No grace. Just bile and hunger for power.