John McCain won't win this fall. My guess is that it won't be close. Some Republican apologists are already whining that it would be impossible for any candidate to overcome a bad war, a bad economy and the Prez's astonishing trashing of the GOP brand. They want everyone to know that bad luck, rather than terrible ideas and even worse execution of those ideas, is the reason for a dreadful 2008.

Sure, times are bad for Republicans--so bad that they're losing special elections in the deep south in districts that the Prez took by 60 percent in 2004. That's almost unthinkably bad. But if there's one Republican who had a shot at derailing all that and still capturing the White House, it was John McCain.

Strangely, back in 2006 McCain decided to take over the Bush campaign machinery--and the Bush themes. He repudiated his previous (negative) views on the Bush tax cuts and emphasized his approval of the war over his disapproval of how it has been conducted. There are even those Bizarro World photos of Bush and McCain hugging at various events. The grins are frozen and the arms are stiff, but hugs they are, nonetheless.

The Democrats ran a great ad last Tuesday while the returns came in from the primaries. It showcased some of the Prez's greatest hits (the Iraq War, the Katrina recovery, etc.) and then ended with a shot of Bush and McCain with their arms slung about each other. It was too wordy--all they need to say is "Four more years?"--but that's precisely the sort of ad that will win the election for Barack Obama. There's really no way that McCain can escape the shadow of Bush.

McCain didn't have to be standing here like this. Appropriating the Bush machinery drove McCain's campaign broke last fall. He fired some of his closest advisers and soldiered on with a skeleton staff that didn't even get paid. He quickly won the Republican race because all of the other candidates are exceedingly flawed, not because of his supposed connection to the Prez. The "old" McCain would have won the nomination just as easily, without all the baggage associated with the Prez.

But now he's stuck. Every time McCain invokes the Prez, he risks losing more and more of the independent voters who are supposed to love him. If he does decide to repudiate Bush, he'll be left with-perhaps--20 percent of the electorate that would even consider voting for him.

I think he plays out the string, hoping that Barack Obama does something incomparably stupid. Inexperienced candidates are known to do such things, after all. McCain's embrace of the Confederate flag before the 2000 South Carolina primary comes to mind, and just about everyone remembers "tank boy" Mike Dukakis.

But I don't think Obama will screw up so badly as to lose the race, and I simply don't see how McCain can change the math. He's for the war, and 70 percent of the country isn't. Republicans aren't trusted on economic issues, and McCain hasn't shown any willingness to move away from GOP dogma. Those two things are more than enough to send him to his doom.

Worst of all, though, McCain continues to physically hang with the Prez from time to time. Sure, he criticized the government's wretched response to Katrina--a few years too late. By and large he has done little to differentiate his policies from those of a Prez whose approval ratings are at historic lows.

And just wait for the first debate. It doesn't matter how catatonic Obama might be or how feisty McCain might be. McCain is 73 and Obama is 46. McCain is short and a bit stooped and Obama is tall and straight. Such things should be irrelevant in a presidential election, but they never are. People vote for the person, not the position papers. And a young, composed (even dull) man who speaks eloquently against the war is going to do much better than an old, energetic man who froths at the mouth while speaking for the war. It's just that simple.

As for the electoral math, my own little prediction is that Virginia is a lock for Obama, as are New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. McCain might pick off Pennsylvania and maybe Michigan, but he's going to face trouble in states like Georgia, North Carolina, Idaho, Montana and maybe even Arizona. Senate seats in the south and mountain west will go to Democrats. Democrats will win seats in pasty-white southern House districts. The map is going to be really jumbled up on election night. It might look like America is inverting itself, but that's not quite right. What America will be doing is reinventing itself.

And as long as you're reinventing yourself, you might as well bring along a new guy at the top.

Jon Worley was sure Mike Dukakis would pull the 1988 election out of the fire. Oops.