Jonah, I wouldn’t be so sure about Arianna’s line on McCain and Iraq. Yes, you’re right: Mitt, Rudy, Fred, etc all support the war, too. But they’re all more or less conventional Republican candidates supported by various parts of the Republican base. McCain in his 2000 Mister Maverick incarnation was sustained by a chorus of media groupies otherwise antipathetic to Republicans but who rode around on his “Straight Talk Express” having a terrific time. Seven years later, after McCain had burned his bridges with Republican primary voters on everything from campaign finance to immigration, he went and burned his bridges with his surviving constituency – the media – on their absolute bedrock issue. And, if it’s a choice between winning Bush’s war or losing McCain, they’ll take the latter.

That’s the difference: Mitt and Rudy’s line on the war is between them and the Republican base. McCain’s line on the war is between him and the media. Arianna herself is a good example of this. The last time I saw McCain “live” was in Philadelphia in the summer of 2000 when he was the keynote speaker at Arianna’s ridiculous “Shadow Convention”, where he was introduced by the Greek glamorpuss herself as an example of a rare politician who transcended narrow partisanship. The McCain-Feingold-type stuff was politely received, but McCain’s very qualified and tepid praise for then-Governor Bush roused the crowd to a frenzy of jeers and boos. Arianna was delighted, McCain less so. “This is the convention that can’t be controlled,” she declared triumphantly, as the Senator left the stage to cat-calls such as “You’re all middle-class whites,” yelled by a protester against the Navajo-Hopi Relocation Act, which McCain had apparently sponsored.

In other words, Arianna & Co were the enthusiasm and energy in his base, and the enthusiasm and energy is gone. Incidentally, one of the things I liked about the “Shadow Convention” was the way she’d gone to such trouble to paper the room with fetching specimens of the poor and disenfranchised, who’d been given exquisitely designed placards emphasizing the brutal injustices of the political system: “DISENFRANCHIZED,” said one. “DISRESPECTED,” said another. My favorite was “2POOR4ACCESS.”

2 of the people 2Poor4Access asked if the seats next to me were reserved 4 anyone. “Not at all,” I said, letting them squeeze past. “Hey!” said the security guy, bounding down the aisle. “You can’t sit there! They’re for the media. You have to go over there.” So the 2Poor4Access losers were led away by security, just in case Al Hunt showed up.

Seven years later, Al and Arianna have moved on, and, primary-wise, it’s McCain who’s 2Poor4Access.