John McCain is losing this election, and that more than likely won't change by the time November rolls around, baring some pretty major October Surprise.  The question is... why?  The answer is... John McCain ran left when he should have ran right.  As I predicted 2 years ago, the Republican party learned the wrong lessons from losing control of Congress.  Instead of realizing that they've lost their way, and need to recommit to small government and fiscally responsible principles, we have John McCain who is suggesting more liberal policies in some areas than Barack Obama.  We have one of the most principled (at least formerly principled) Republican House members (Paul Ryan) tucking his tail like a coward and voting for a massive bailout which is leading to forced nationalization of our banking industry.  Republicans are still acting like Democrats.

The debate behind the bailout ought to have been a clear look into the public's strong desire for a real Conservative.  Before the first vote, citizens of all political persuasions were rejecting the ideas of this bailout.  When the bill was first voted down in the House, and the stock market took that first tumble, people were still rejecting the bailout.  How did John McCain react?  He demanded that the President ignore the legislature, and act without Congressional approval.  He became more in favor of large government.  He demanded more bailouts.  He offered to buy up the mortgages of people who acted irresponsibly and allow them to profit from it.  Lately it seems as if McCain and Obama are in a competition to see who can give away the most to who.

In short, McCain is suffering because of a lack of market differentiation.  He sounds like a Democrat, suggests large government solutions to problems... for all intents and purposes, people see him like a Democrat.  He looks like an Obama copy cat, but compared to Obama and the Democrats, he's not as good.  He's older, not as well spoken, and has baggage from associations with the previous administration.  So when faced with a choice between a Democrat and a faux Democrat, why wouldn't those undecided voters pick the real thing?  And they are.

John McCain needed to use the housing crisis as a spring board to explain to the population how bad government policies created this mess, not to say that innocent people were victimized by greedy Wall Street investors.  Instead, McCain has sort of owned up to bad government intervention, but only in so far as he can try to tie it to Obama, and then says that the solution is more government intervention, but somehow this time we'll get it right.  John McCain needed to attack Obama's alternative energy policies, not saying that alternative energy is foolish, but that government has a poor track record of picking the right one.  Anyone remember Carter and SynthFuel?  Instead, he wants government to do the picking and then give it to industry.  Once again, thats hardly any different than Obama, so why not pick Obama?

But how did we end up in this position in the first place?  How did John McCain, a candidate who few people considered a real Republican anyway, win the nomination?  I think it was because, at the time, Hillary still looked like she was going to win the nomination, and for some reason, in a battle between McCain and Hillary, people viewed McCain as stronger.  I think a lot of people voted strategically for McCain, instead of for a more principled Conservative (Ron Paul, Romney or Fred Thompson).

As the old saying goes, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.  And it would seem that being a true conservative is one trick that this old dog just can't learn.