Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct. ~Thomas Jefferson

Although Presidential Primary season is still months away, the increasing rottenness of John McCain’s conduct is becoming clearer and clearer with each passing day.

The same principled, outside-the-party line mentality that drew him to independent voters in 2000 Presidential race has long passed, replaced with a moldy stench of a stereotype politician that is willing to sell himself piece by piece for a potential bump in his final vote tally. Even worse, he is selling himself to anyone, as long as they can deliver.

It seems not to bother him that he is now hitching his wagon to the falling star of George Bush. The same man, who not only has become the least popular president since Nixon, but whose 2000 primary campaign smeared McCain unmercifully with false charges. According to the Boston Globe, in 2000, “Bush’s campaign strategists, including Karl Rove, devised a push poll against John McCain. South Carolina voters were asked ‘Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?’ They had no interest in the actual percentages in the poll, the goal was to suggest that [McCain had a black child]. This was particularly vicious since McCain was campaigning with his adopted [dark skinned] Bangladeshi daughter.”

Putting aside the personal attacks, McCain now unwaveringly sticks up for the president. Even with Americans dying because of a war brought about by deceit and run with incompetence of historic proportions, McCain will not blame Bush. He somehow thinks the lonely 30% who still support George Bush’s policies will help him in the Republican primaries.

The vigor in John McCain’s voice in 2000 as he defended himself against then Governer Bush’s attacks is a far cry from what you will hear from him these days. Now he talks as if the President has a knife to his back forcing him to say in now his familiar unconvincing monotone: “I support George Bush and the Iraq War.”

It also apparently doesn’t matter if you are a member religious right who spews hate filled diatribes damning homosexuals and anyone who is pro-choice, like Jerry Falwell. He can still have a piece John McCain even though McCain once called Falwell “an agent of intolerance” for his extreme, hateful views and condemned political “pandering” to the religious right. Now McCain can be seen chitchatting onstage with Falwell before giving a speech at Falwell’s own Liberty University. Trying to fully capitalize on tactics he once shunned, he also has expanded his commencement address RSVPs to include schools like the Discovery that teach creationism instead of evolution.

And as McCain proved last week, even his signature political issue, campaign finance reform, cannot escape his recent hypocrisy.

The Senator from Arizona will even sellout to the financer of a group McCain himself took to court two years ago because “it was trying to ‘evade and violate’ new campaign laws with voter ads ahead of the midterm elections.” That man, A. Jerrold Perenchio, is new co-chairman of the Arizona Republican’s national finance committee.

According to the Washington Post, “McCain has embraced some of the same political-money figures, forces and tactics he pilloried during a 15-year crusade to reduce the influence of big donors, fundraisers and lobbyists in elections.”

And wouldn’t you know it: “That includes enlisting the support of Washington lobbyists as well as key players in the fundraising machine that helped President Bush defeat McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries.”

The list of backtracks and flip flops goes on and on and is lengthening virtually every day. The irony is that he could win in a landslide playing the same cards he couldn’t win with in 2000. It’s just too bad he seems to have folded those cards, along with his pride, a long time ago.

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer