Juan Cole makes the case that John McCain is essentially running for George W. Bush's third term. I think this is a fair and apt viewpoint, though it may not be as we get closer to Election Day. Seems to me that McCain needs to wrap up the nomination, make the convention go as smoothly as possible and unite as much of the party as can be united, plus he needs to not provoke third-party runs to his right. Once he's got all that, and extracted as much as can be extracted from right-wing sources of campaign $$$, then he'll start finding ways to make himself more acceptable to those who think Bush has been a disaster. I suspect there are more of those than even the lowest poll numbers indicate and that their ranks will only grow.