A McCain Surge?

Larry Kudlow and Steve Moore both thought John McCain was the winner of last night's debate. I'm not sure that's true and given that Kudlow and Moore are both crazy people, I'm not sure I should take their judgment seriously. On the other hand, the purpose of Republican primary debates is to make yourself look good to an audience of crazy people, so maybe I should take Kudlow and Moore very seriously.

At any rate, in the event that a McCain surge does materialize, the antidote is Matt Welch's new book McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, a comprehensive dissection of the man who for a long time held the title of America's most overrated politician and who still in many circles is viewed as something of a sympathetic, tragic figure.

In the book, Matt builds upon some earlier writing of his on McCain through the revolutionary (given the subject matter) method of actually examining McCain record and views than the more traditional approach of wishful thinking and ideological projection. In essence, it's the story of a man who succeeded in turning his own life around through embracing hard-line American nationalism and then decided to adopt this as a governing philosophy before becoming a media darling in a way that left him simultaneously overexposed and underanalyzed.