The GOP: Evolve or die

The party of personal responsibility is having an awfully hard time with that concept after the election.

Listening to Republicans nowadays is like booking time with a colicky baby. I haven't heard so much whining and crying since my daughter was 3 months old.

Oh, and have I mentioned they're angry? Really steamed, like savaging anyone who suggests they chill as godless socialists who want nonstop gay sex and baby killing for the next eight years (I think I hear my e-mail now). I look forward to adding them to my folder of paranoid messages that Barack Obama won't be inaugurated after all because there is *PROOF THAT HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE WAS FORGED.* And the threats from Republicans that they just might be moving to Canada.

There's little time for self-reflection in a pity party. And right now, the right is rapturously licking its wounds, sounding more than a little like the Dems in 1980.

There's scant acknowledgement that Obama ran a stellar campaign and Democrats have clearly become the party for moderate voters. No one wants to dwell on the fact that Obama won by 7 percent nationally, when George W. Bush topped out at 3 percent in '04 after losing the popular vote in 2000. And please don't bring up that Obama won nine Bush states, some like Nevada and New Mexico by double digits.

Ignore the state-of-the-art get-out-the-vote drive that made W's look like amateur hour. And pay no attention to the 200,000 tearful supporters in Grant Park, the collective world adulation and reports that Obama could draw a record-shattering 4 million to his inauguration.

No, it's not so much that the Dems won this election, but circumstances conspired so the GOP lost. Really, how could Republicans win with the economy tanking, Bush's legacy and the malevolent media?

It's never their fault. The country is still with them, despite irrefutable proof to the contrary with the presidency and two houses of Congress going very blue.

The clinical definition of this, of course, is denial.

Republicans still insist Obama would have lost without Wall Street going into a tailspin. John McCain was leading in many polls until then, which they attribute to their favorite moose-shooting mama, Sarah Palin. That ignores the fact this was a post-convention bounce and the first time the Arizona senator had posted a consistent lead.

While the economy is surely a tricky issue with a Republican in the White House, the fact is that McCain both lost on this issue due to his wild mood swings and stunts, and Obama won it with his cool demeanor that settled voters' frayed nerves. He also connected far better to the middle class.

As for the current president, he surely was an albatross, which was precisely why right-wingers were whining from the get-go how unfair it was to tie Bush to McCain. Why? They knew it was a powerful message and worried it would work.

Of course, it didn't have to. McCain differs from Bush on issues ranging from global warming to campaign finance and has a much more bipartisan disposition. But by veering to the right to shore up the base, he made those Bush-McCain morphs seem plausible and unseemly.

And there is a certain irony in Republicans ranting that the president isn't a true conservative anyway, what with his big-government Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind. Well, kiddies, most of you voted for them at the time. Talking heads used to screech that anyone who would dare question our commander-in-chief at a time of war should be charged with treason.

Bush's only real problem with the right is that his poll numbers plummeted.

And finally there's the media, or shall I say, the worldwide conspiracy to put Obama in the Oval Office. Look, it's a fact that Obama won a landslide in newspaper endorsements and won over a number of columnists, many of them conservatives like Chris Buckley.

I don't think this election with its nonstop horserace coverage was a high point for investigative journalism into either candidate, although Obama came out slightly ahead in this regard. There were more negative stories about McCain in general, but that's what happens when your campaign is wracked with infighting and you're losing.

But the idea that the media can determine elections is laughable. If that's the case, we wouldn't be hemorrhaging red ink, because everyone would want a piece of the all-powerful press. Our sales pitch would be devastatingly simple: We can make presidents, you know.
Here's the bottom line for Republicans: You lost. Own it. Learn from it. Stop focusing on what you can't control and fix the fundamental problem - you're not connecting with voters like Obama did. Your no-tax, social-issues-on-steroids message has grown stale.

Ronald Reagan hasn't ruled for 20 years and yet you're still looking back. Demographics can become destiny and you're losing badly with key groups like young voters, Asians and Latinos.

Change is hard for conservatives, for obvious definitional reasons. But the truth is, in the kill-or-be-killed world of politics, those who don't evolve - becoming stronger and leaner - die.

So far Republicans are resisting such heresy. Evolution is just a theory, after all.

Joe Sixpack snubs Sarah Palin

Doggone it, if it weren't for that George W. Bush, America would be head-over-heels for Sarah Palin.

They're both plain folks, who play up their folksy accents that are just as American as all get-out. Their unflinching, moral absolutist vision of the world is distilled into simple sound bites, unlike some snooty, professorial Harvard-types, Barack. They tap into our hopes and especially fears because they "don't blink" or ever "wave the white flag of surrender" to terrorists.

In this "American Idol" era, we're supposed to go for the guy we can chug a beer with or the gal we can giggle with over a skinny mocha latte.

But not this time.

Why? Been there, done that.

We've already rolled the dice on a president with a fatal allergy to intellectual curiosity, demanding only "yes" men who won't challenge his chillingly narrow view of the world. We tried likeable and down-home and wound up with war(s?) we cannot win, a $10 trillion debt and an economy that bears more than a casual resemblance to the one Herbert Hoover bequeathed to us in the 1930s.

So, ya know, we're kinda sayin' "thanks, but no thanks" to that sweet Sarah Palin.

As Joe Biden's mother might say, "God love her," but this ain't amateur hour, kiddies.

But this raises a more important question: How can we trust John McCain when he's willing to entrust the country he loves so deeply with someone so inexperienced and unintellectual?

That fancy-pants know-it-all Obama doesn't seem like such a bad guy to steer us through a financial meltdown no one seems to comprehend. As conservative icon Charles Krauthammer ruefully observes, the Democrat has a "first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president."

He won't lurch from stunt to stunt, as McCain jarringly has for his entire campaign. And Obama doesn't need flash cards to solve the crisis, like Palin brought to her debate last week.

Afterward, the talking heads (those evil Eastern elites) were convinced Joe Sixpack would go as ga-ga for Palin as they did, because the pretty lady said "Joe Sixpack," "hockey mom" and the Reagan classic, "There you go again."

We didn't. Why? Americans are smarter than a fifth grader. We do value substance over style. The fact that she can only spout scant talking points on the bailout and doesn't grasp McCain's position on Pakistan bothers us. That's why every poll showed Biden wiped the floor with her.

Deflated conservatives still insist the self-proclaimed Sarahcuda is connecting with Main Street Americans. Dozens of polls say otherwise; she can't win over women or independents.

No matter. Her flinty winks literally sent hard-up right-wingers like Rich Lowry into a fit of embarrassing ecstasy, mooning over the "little starbursts" he felt through the teevee. Ahem.

Sarah should have been the perfect focus-grouped candidate, down to the effortless way she drops her g's and winks at you (only you). The GOP couldn't have built a better veep if they'd finagled some of that sci-fi-style cloning technology the pro-life loonies warn will take over Michigan if the pro-embryonic stem cell Proposal 2 passes.

Palin would have killed in the heyday of Newt Gingrich, as the apple-cheeked, high-heeled embodiment of gun-totin' rugged individualism. But now we're back to the era of big government, aided by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The country has changed, snapping back to the middle and even (gasp!) the left.

For too many years, we've plucked presidential candidates with criteria fit for a glitzy Hollywood biopic, not the leader of the free world. That was part of the problem with John Edwards, a coiffed empty suit whom desperate Democrats projected their hopes and dreams onto because he came in a slick, Southern-fried wrapper.

On the campaign trail, Palin brings the heat to a movement running cold. "This is not a man who sees America as you and I do - as the greatest force for good in the world," she drawls (rhetoric that incited one cultured fan to shout, "Kill him!")

She's warned us. Obama "pals around with terrorists" and will maniacally raise our taxes. We know blood will be on our hands.

And yet, a clear majority of us are planning to vote for him. She doesn't do it for us.

Palin will soon be relegated to irrelevance, perhaps the de facto leader of the far-right fringe of a party teetering on the brink of combustion. That's why David Brooks calls her brand of anti-intellectual populism a "fatal cancer to the Republican party."

I hope it eats the party alive so it reverts back to the civil spirit of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower. But instead of looking backward to '80s-style solutions, the young Turks will have to embrace a 21st century realism to the staggering problems ahead.

Palin can serve as a parable for the dangers of always choosing glib politics over good policy. She can invigorate the GOP, perhaps by destroying it as Democrats take both houses of Congress, the White House, most governor's mansions and more state and local seats across the country.

And for that, let's salute ya, Sister Sarah.

All eyes shouldn't be on Michigan

"I want you to feel the pressure, because Michigan could be the Ohio of this election." - First lady Laura Bush pumping up state delegates at the Republican National Convention

Sorry to burst Mrs. Bush's bubble, but there's a slim chance this ungodly long presidential race will come down to the Great Lakes State.

I know, I know. The national pundits think Michigan's where it's at. We're a great story with the highest unemployment rate, a beautiful but unpopular Democratic governor and an African-American ex-mayor of our largest city heading to the slam.

And stereotypes? We got your stereotypes right here. There are bowling alleys galore to pensively interview those all-important blue-collar Macomb County voters, diehard deer hunters in the rustic U.P. to rhapsodize about Sarah Palin and patchouli-drenched students in the People's Republic of Ann Arbor to philosophize about Barack Obama.

Who am I to dissuade the national press corps from our exceptionalism? So let me sincerely roll out the welcome mat for Anderson Cooper, Joe Scarborough, Katie Couric and your posses. Please come revel in our Water Winter Wonderland and throw money at our hotels, restaurants and party stores - our Legislature will probably hand you a tax rebate. (Seriously, just ask the Hollywood set. We toss 'em away like candy).

As for Obama and John McCain, keep assaulting us with ads 24/7. Media companies are doing slightly better than Lehman Brothers and your assistance is greatly appreciated.

But the thing is, you'll be taking another girl home on election night. It's looking more like Colorado, Wisconsin, Virginia or even New Hampshire with her anorexic four electoral votes will tip the scales for that magic 270.

We were the belle of the ball for the bungled primary in January and those crazy Dems couldn't decide how to pick delegates for months. The fact that so many candidates boycotted us made us far more fun to figure out than Florida.

So the likelihood that Michigan will again be front and center Nov. 4 is small. There's always a chance, of course. Who could have predicted the camp-worthy pregnant chad thing eight years ago? Elections are a whacky business and a lot can happen in five weeks.

There could be another terrorist attack on American soil, for one thing. The housing crisis could continue to cramp the markets even with a $700 billion bailout. Or Kwame Kilpatrick could punch out a cop naked while shouting, "Long live Barack Obama!"

Now if McCain conquers Michigan, he'll be in prime position to win the Electoral College unless Obama steals Ohio or Florida out from him. But if McCain wins our economically mutilated state that's been reliably blue since 1992, I'll bet it's Johnny in a rout. He'll take Wisconsin, Minnesota and possibly Pennsylvania and keep his vulnerable western states.

Obama's turnout model of young and black voters will be declared a dismal failure and the Bradley effect will have reared its head.

That could certainly happen. But the McCain folks don't really think he'll bag the Mitten State, although they say publicly they have a "really good chance," as Mrs. Bush told the delegation at the RNC. Why not? They're happy to see Obama part with millions here. And they know it will be close, even though the Democrat leads in 11 of the last 13 post-convention polls.

But if McCain was truly serious about winning the Wolverine State, his veep would have been Mitt Romney, Bloomfield Hills' favorite son.

John Dunagan, President Bush's Michigan chair in '04, claims Palin will single-handedly flip the state red. His reasoning? We have 12 minor league hockey teams and the highest registration of snowmobiles in the country.

Um ... sure. Who can argue with empirical evidence like that?

Obama started at a disadvantage by not campaigning here for the primary. McCain has roots in Michigan dating back to his 2000 victory, although he lost badly this year to Romney. But Obama's ground game is far better - 40-plus offices, a massive voter registration effort and superior media operation.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm is Obama's biggest albatross here. In some polls, voters blame her more than Bush for the state's unparalleled economic woes. That could change with Wall Street's implosion, of course, but there's a reason she's not in the Democrat's stable of surrogates.

In the end, it comes down to the Detroit suburbs in vote-rich Oakland County, which has turned Democratic for the last two cycles. (Macomb was sooo '80s). Tensions in Detroit helped McCain post unusually high numbers here in a recent Time survey.

If Kwame was still the proud occupant of the Manoogian Mansion, I'd say that Michigan's traditional lack of racial transcendence, as Obama poetically puts it, would propel McCain to the White House. But Hizzoner's gone and he has no relationship with Obama to speak of.

I'm inclined to agree with former McCain adviser Mike Murphy, an old hand in John Engler's and Spence Abraham's campaigns, who thinks Oakland County is Obama country. Palin will appeal to the quirkily conservative Macomb crowd, but she's too much pitbull for Oakland's sunny soccer moms who aren't fond of guns but do like making their own uterine decisions.

Somewhere, Mitt Romney is shaking his head and plotting for 2012.

My dear John (McCain) letter

This is just to say that you lost my vote over the last few weeks and Barack Obama won it.

Sen. McCain, I know I'm just a simple single mom, but I do live in Michigan, ground zero in the Electoral College battle.

This wasn't an easy choice. I was with you when only five folks showed up to your town hall meetings in New Hampshire last summer as you stood up for a compromise on immigration. I cheered when you told Mitten Staters that those cushy auto jobs ain't a-comin' back before you tanked in our primary.

And I defended you against the loony left's bizarre assaults on your military service. You are, indeed, an American hero, and one of mine.

But your attack-happy, outrage-driven campaign - which is inexplicably run by the slimeballs who slandered you on behalf of George W. Bush in 2000 - is beneath you. You cannot blame the bombastic ads and barrage of smears on wily subordinates; you are the captain of this ship and you refuse to turn it around.

And as you have seen fit to appease the far right more and more each day, down to your extremist VP pick, I'm struggling to see you as the man on white horseback who's come to save the day. You seem like you only want to win - at any cost.

"This campaign isn't about issues," your campaign manager scoffed last week. Well, I think that insults the American people. And it insults me as a voter.

Because I'd like you to know that I will be voting for Barack Obama on the issues. And the economy is No. 1 for my family. I like that Obama's comprehensive economic plan is rooted in conservative ideas on tax cuts, which need to be broad-based. You don't have many ideas beyond extending the narrow Bush tax cuts and calling your opponent a tax-hiker.

I'm sure the few making over $250,000 approve, but even you knew those cuts would be fiscally disastrous, which is why you voted against them. Our country can't sustain this kind of lopsided tax code, not while the middle class is losing net income for the first time in decades, the gap between rich and poor is growing and the Iraq war drains $10 billion from taxpayers every month.

And speaking of the war, like the vast majority of Americans, I want to see it end. Here's my compromise to you: Declare victory and get out. I have no reason to think that Obama and his stable of bipartisan foreign policy advisers will go about this in a hasty manner akin to how Bush got us into this mess.

But Sen. McCain, you are even further out there than the president, who sees the need for a timetable after more than five years of morass. Violence is down now, hallelujah. But our military is broken, with some soldiers doing seven tours of duty in Iraq. The surge cannot be sustained. Nor do we have the manpower to truly fight al-Qaida in Afghanistan or Pakistan, much less start to tangle with Iran or Russia.

Your bellicose foreign policy is not the reasoned realpolitik of President Bush the Elder; it will bankrupt our budget and make us more vulnerable to terrorism. No one knows this better than our enemies.

And I appreciate Obama's willingness to include insurance companies, seniors groups and doctors into reforming health care, which is ridiculously inefficient and expensive. Your hands-off approach won't help the Big Three or small business being sunk by off-the-charts expenses. You're unwilling to even help uninsured children by reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

I know the new conventional wisdom is that we need to change the country by going with the GOP, which has been in charge for most of the last glorious war-ravaged decade that's culminating in economic devastation.

And I know that because I, too, have reproduced like Sarah Palin and people care more about my mug shot that what I write in this column, that I am automatically obligated to vote for your ticket.

But I'm just an average gal from Michigan who plans to vote my conscience.

Our country has been at war in Iraq since my daughter was six months old and I'm tired of having to explain death to her. Before the Bush presidency, I paid $1 a gallon for gas in Iowa, and I know as well as you do that drilling won't bring the price down one dime. What I don't know is how I'll scrape up $300,000 to send her to the University of Michigan in 12 years.

Now you're telling me that you're the maverick again, although you're certainly not on the biggest issues of the day. You have little to offer me and millions of Americans in terms of real policy change. What you can provide is a compelling life story and a superstar running mate.

Well, Sen. McCain, you warned us all not to vote on style and slogans over substance.

That's why I'm voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

A statesman for Obama

When I met Jim Leach for the first time, protesters were shouting down a speech he gave at the Iowa City Public Library under a hand-painted banner that read, "Killer Leach."

It was during the heady days of Newt Gingrich's Republican Revolution in 1995 and the mild-mannered, moderate congressman was an unlikely foot soldier. But it was the first time in his 19-year career that the GOP was running the show and he dutifully towed the party line. He truly believed Republicans could clean up Washington.

So when I caught Leach's speech at the Democratic National Convention Monday endorsing Barack Obama, I let out a little gasp.

My former congressman chuckled that as a veteran of five Republican National Conventions, he'd never expected to be at a DNC, either.

"When I was asked to speak, it startled me at first and I had to think about it for a moment," Leach said during a phone interview Wednesday. "But I made a commitment and I decided to go all out."

That commitment is to Republicans for Obama, also led by Sen. Lincoln Chafee. Both were swept out of office during the 2006 Democratic tsunami, but they interestingly haven't bought the idea that maverick John McCain will restore their party. Leach believes a record number of Goldwater Republicans and independents will cross over.

Most Obama backers on tee-vee look to be 18 if they're a day and gush about their personal connection to him. But there was no come-to-Jesus moment with Leach, who admits he doesn't know Obama well.

Dispassionate Princeton professor he is, he neatly laid out a historical and geopolitical case for the Democrat better than anyone I've seen, masterfully weaving in the ideals of Jefferson, Lincoln and Reagan with Obama's.

"The change Barack Obama is advocating is far more than a break with today's politics," Leach said in his speech. "It is a clarion call for renewal rooted in time-tested American values that tap Republican, as well as Democratic traditions."

Leach swats away the idea that the freshman Illinois senator is less ready to be commander-in-chief than McCain, whom he deeply respects.

"There's no doubt that John McCain has served in Congress longer than Barack Obama," says the man who was in Washington longer than both combined. "But it's important to look at judgment over experience and I am impressed by Barack's judgment."

Though he voted for the Gulf War, Leach was one of the few Republicans who didn't back the Iraq war, which he calls "a disaster." He's also troubled by the growing gulf between rich and poor and the middle class that's been left behind. What won him over to Obama was his non-ideological approach to issues and strong cast of bipartisan advisers, which he pointedly says is a break with the Bush administration.

But the most powerful part of his eight-minute monologue Monday was a devastating, and obviously tortured, indictment of the Republican Party he still calls home:

"The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years toward regulating values. The party of military responsibility has taken us to war with a country that did not attack us. The party that formerly led the world in arms control has moved to undercut treaties crucial to the defense of the earth. The party that prides itself on conservation has abdicated its responsibilities in the face of global warming.

"And the party historically anchored in fiscal restraint has nearly doubled the national debt, squandering our precious resources in an undisciplined and unprecedented effort to finance a war with tax cuts."

Unfortunately, the Iowan's measured and thoughtful soliloquy was drowned out by cable's talking heads and skipped by the networks, although once-Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman's GOP coming-out party next week will likely net great fanfare. Pundits are praying he puts on the same kind of loopy show that Dixiecrat Zell Miller did at the 2004 RNC that spooked small children and family pets.

But the reality is that Lieberman, though an eloquent and impassioned McCainiac, is swimming against a tide where Republicans are fleeing the party in droves. And the country is moving past the middle and gently leftward. Leach thinks it didn't have to be that way.

"If we had stayed true to our core principles, we could still be in control of Congress," he told me.

Leach, who considers Dwight D. Eisenhower to be the greatest GOP president of the 20th century, could have pushed back against the tide in '06 and probably hung on to his seat. But he nixed an anti-gay mailing and inflamed the religious right, who then worked against him. They're the same folks who call him a turncoat today.

Leach can still rattle off details about that Iowa City event 13 years ago, down to the obnoxious sign. Though the liberal college town is known for its sometimes raucous protests, he clearly didn't relish being the target. He wanted to dialogue with the demonstrators; they wanted to shriek slogans stolen from the '60s.

He deserved better then and he deserves more respect now. But being a statesman is often a thankless job.

Conduct unbecoming in McCainworld

During the last days before the Michigan primary, I stood next to Shane Farlin as he tentatively shuffled up the rope line at a John McCain rally in Battle Creek.

The U.S. Army specialist had lost his right eye in Iraq; his artificial iris was a glimmering American flag. I watched McCain's brown eyes lock on the 22-year-old's, seeming wholly unaware of the hordes waving signs and cameras all around him.

The former POW thanked Farlin for his service twice and listened to his problems with Veterans Affairs for several minutes. He gave him a top aide's cell phone number. I felt my breath catch at the intense exchange, where so much was left unsaid.

Farlin was clearly awestruck afterward, pledging to vote for McCain "without a doubt." I couldn't help but feel the same, especially after covering the focus-grouped affairs of Mr. Plastic, Mitt Romney, and the televangelist-smooth tent revivals of Mike Huckabee.

That was McCain at his best - refreshingly dignified and empathetic. He proved himself the embodiment of service to this country, a notion that has become disturbingly quaint in modern times.

Lately, however, we've been seeing McCain at his worst. When it comes to Barack Obama, he's petulant and personal, seemingly unable to come to grips that he's battling a cool wunderkind 25 years his junior who only recently set foot in the Senate. The same frustration is evident in hiss ever-loyal, bickering staff, starting with his surrogate son and speech writer, Mark Salter.

In a flash of that trademark candor, Johnny Mac would probably volunteer that his raccoon-eyed, unemployed blogger daughter, Meghan, meets the commander-in-chief test better than his rival.

That bitterness, which infected Hillary Clinton (and we all know how well that turned out) won't help him any with voters. Once a candidate seems to lose his mirth and perspective (Al Gore), it's a turn-off, often a fatal one.

Because as much as Americans claim to vote on the issues, personality often trumps all.

There's the non-stop drumbeat questioning Obama's patriotism (and the defensive, disingenuous denials) that's become the stomach-churning hallmark of McCain's campaign for the last few months. The goal is to make this election a referendum on Obama, not President Bush, because the Republicans can read the polls.

The attack machine is sharpest with surrogates like Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent who seems gripped by a somewhat understandable cathartic need to stick it to the party that all but abandoned him in 2006.

This race is "between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put his country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate that has not," Joltin' Joe declared recently.

Sheesh. Hard to remember Lieberman actually encouraged that ungrateful, unqualified kid to run.

Obama rightly fired back in front of the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention this week:

"But one of the things that we have to change in this country is the idea that people can't disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America's national interest. Now, it's time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same."

But McCain wasn't about to back down, sniffing that Obama was getting "a little testy on this issue. ... Let me be clear: I am not questioning his patriotism; I am questioning his judgment." Then the Republican launched into his deceitful spiel that Obama doesn't want to win the war in Iraq.

The assault ratchets up in the blogosphere and right-wing media, of course, where reasoned intellectuals like Michael Savage gently raise if Obama is a terrorist. Oh, and he's black, if you haven't noticed. You know, like gang-bangers and Kwame Kilpatrick. Just sayin'.

McCain has done precious little to denounce any of this, shrugging, "You gotta have a sense of humor" about the latest smear book on Obama by white supremacist sympathizer Jerome Corsi. In July, McCain shelled out $19 million in mostly negative ads (only $7 million less than he raised) and he is indeed closing the gap in polling.

But at what price? Has he resigned himself to run a campaign that falls far short of the honor and statesmanship he professes just to win? Sorry, John, that ain't putting your country first. I'd say that's conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.

The erudite David Brooks paints McCain as a victim of circumstance, having little choice amid the media hoopla around the Chosen One. My dear Republican friends tell me Obama's a thin-skinned lightweight who's not up to the job. In other words, the ends justify the means.

That's all well and good, only they didn't feel that way in South Carolina in 2000 when Bush ran a vicious whisper campaign about McCain's black baby (his adopted Bangladeshi daughter) that effectively knocked him out.

Now John McCain proudly says he'd rather lose a campaign than lose a war. It's time to prove it by running a race befitting of his character.

Losing the war against complacency

Everybody's against this war and pretends to have been since the start.

Yes, there's still a solid 20 percent of true patriots who back the war — a record low, making the Bushies yearn for the numbers Nixon pulled for Vietnam.

But let's get back to the majority, even as our voices are drowned out in the Oval Office and the halls of Congress.

And let's fess up. The polls represent a complete reversal from when we started bombing Baghdad to kingdom come on March 20, 2003. Back then, better than 80 percent of us joined the war pep squad, right down to the ubiquitous yellow ribbon magnets on our SUVs.

Now we've ripped those babies off as quickly as we slapped them on, without even chipping the customized paint job.It's a somber and potent symbol of our complacency.

Complacency marked our initial euphoria with the war — bless the troops, don't send my boy and hand me another tax cut.And it's the hallmark of our current revulsion with the conflict that has left more than 3,600 U.S. troops dead and another 26,000 wounded. Can't protest now; "America's Got Talent" is on.

We've come a long way from rocking the nation with rallies during Vietnam.

The Iraq war appealed to the best of our nature — love of country and those who protect it, faith in freedom and the desire to help those suffering.

But this war also appealed to the very worst in our psyches — the visceral need to kick some ass, even if innocent people (say, 650,000 Iraqis we were supposed to be liberating) die in the crossfire.

It was the wrong war. But it felt right.

The pain still throbbed of almost 3,000 Americans being incinerated; al-Qaida and Osama had proved slipperier targets than we thought and somebody had to pay, dammit.

We just knew Saddam Hussein was laughing at us dumb Americans. Boy, did our bunker busters wipe the smile off his mustachioed face.

When we invaded Iraq, three-quarters of Americans believed Saddam was behind 9/11. More than 90 percent thought he possessed weapons of mass destruction.Both were dangerous lies propagated by a delusional, demagogic administration.

And we bought it.

But who today admits they did, aside from requisitely remorseful Democrats duking it out for the presidential nod? Even their normally bellicose Republican counterparts have backed away, sheepishly muttering something about "mistakes being made" in Mesopotamia.

We insist Sen. Hillary Clinton flagellate herself at the altar of smug sanctimony — "Forgive me, Father, for I have pandered" — but who among us is without sin?

We bought President Bush's Shock and Awe ad campaign that he'd made us safer since 9/11 — and gave him four more years as the Leader of the Free World.

More than 1,000 U.S. troops died in Iraq by Election Day 2004. But three-quarters of Americans believed the country was doing better than under Saddam's rule, and more than 60 percent thought he had posed a serious threat to U.S. security.

By the next year, we came down with buyer's remorse and the president's polls plummeted. It wasn't because everyone collectively pored through the 636-page 9/11 Commission Report and realized the Iraq-al-Qaida link was a neoconservative hoax.

It was the wrenching site of flag-shrouded coffins carried through our hometowns. They kept coming — with no end in sight.

And the high-decibel defense of this war — usually by those who had skirted their own duty to serve, like Vice President Dick Cheney — sounded terribly hollow against those caskets.

The Bushies continue to muddle the issue and unleash a new marketing strategy every few months. (Was al-Qaida in Iraq before the war? Who knows? You know how hard it is to muddle through the intelligence bureaucracy. The important thing is, the terrorists are there now and we're blowing 'em to bits.)

The administration is still desperately trying to exploit the worst in our nature. Its latest tagline is Americans may want to high-tail it out of Hilla, but they really want victory more.

It's too late. We ain't buying. But that's not enough.

The troops are being asked for superhuman sacrifice. Some are on their fifth deployments in a war that cannot be won militarily and whose objective and justification constantly change. And the sickening part is, the intelligence shows Americans aren't any safer.

Our troops will fight as long as we ask.We need to stop — now. All of us own this war and its eventual $1 trillion price tag.

We need to tell our leaders in Washington — however many times as it takes — that we want them to end the war. It's not enough to do that via osmosis while sitting on the sofa snickering at "Big Brother 8."

Our silence doesn't protect us. And it doesn't protect our troops.

We were supposed to have learned painful lessons from Vietnam. But perhaps only our cynical politicians have: No draft, no demonstrations.

And no accountability.