McCain to drain RNC funds, like some kind of tick or leach

From Boston.com:

In national elections, Republican candidates count on a big money advantage over Democrats. Not this year. Fund-raising by Republicans is down sharply from past election cycles.

But the Republican National Committee is quietly banking millions more than its Democratic counterpart, hoping to amass $120 million to fund an RNC campaign on behalf of John McCain and help offset Barack Obama's vaunted money-spinning machine. Democrats expect the rival party to run a more aggressive anti-Obama ad campaign than the McCain campaign would, but Robert M. "Mike" Duncan, the chairman of the RNC, told the Globe last week that the party intends to abide by McCain's desire for "a respectful campaign."

The RNC is the GOP's only bright spot these days in the money race, holding a $26 million cash-on-hand advantage over the Democratic National Committee in most recent reports. The party's House and Senate campaign arms are being trounced by their Democratic counterparts, and McCain, the party's presumptive presidential nominee, has struggled, raising less than one-third as much money as Obama, his likely Democratic opponent in November.

And here we have the latest humiliation, the latest calculated insult. John McCain has focused himself with laser-like precision on the goal of damaging the Republican party and destroying its conservative element. And now the party's national organization is set to repay his betrayal, his black-hearted Judas treason by taking almost its last dime and pouring it into his campaign to take the White House and use its power to finish the destruction of the Republican party, at least as a conservative party.

It is simply not possible to have any respect for the RNC, for the Republican congressional leadership and for most elected Republicans any more. I long ago lost respect for the conservative/Republican blogs that couldn't wait to jump into the tank for McCain.

I come more and more to realize that most people in the two major parties view their party in the same way that a sports fan views his favorite team. You may not like your team's quarterback. You may have opposed the trade that brought him to your team, but once he is wearing your team's jersey then he is "your guy" and you want him to win. You may still dislike him, but you want him to win because when he wins your team wins and that means that you win.

That kind of thinking is fine for football but is disastrous for politics.

In politics winning an election can be far worse than losing it - if the winning candidate is the wrong man for the job. What if Ford had beaten Carter in 1976? That would have meant no Reagan in 1980. No massive tax cuts, no military buildup. No fall of the Berlin Wall. What if Gore had beaten Bush in 2000? His inept response to 9/11 would have made him a Carteresque one termer and we would today be planning the reelection of a real conservative Republican.

Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Barack Obama. Each of them is, in their own way, equally wrong for the job. Let the Democrats swallow the poison pill this time around.