PATTERICO ON

It's my view that McCain only seems electable because of his media image, which will collapse once the country actually gets to know him in the general election.

For example, the clueless boobs at the Los Angeles Times endorse McCain with this comment:

But the Arizona senator's conservatism is, if not always to our liking, at least genuine.

They obviously haven't bothered to read their former colleague Matt Welch's book on McCain, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick. Welch demonstrates that McCain is far from a straight-talking maverick and Man of the People. Rather, he is a condescending elitist, prone to bending the truth to a remarkable degree, and unnervingly trusting in the power of Big Government to change our lives for the better.

For a taste of Welch's views of McCain, go here for a recent article by Welch on McCain's re-emergence. Keep in mind: these are not the rantings of some disgruntled conservative. This is the informed opinion of a libertarian with some lefty leanings, who knows more about McCain than 99.9% of the people in the country:

Here's the funny thing about independent voters: They still love John McCain, think he's a straight talker. No matter how many times he claims to run a positive-only campaign on the same day he releases an attack ad; no matter how many ways he violates the spirit of his own campaign-finance legislation (do yourself a favor and Google "The Reform Institute"); no matter how unconvincingly he stammers his way through wanting to make permanent the same tax cuts he eviscerated in 2001 and 2003; no matter how inaccurately he slimes Romney and others for insufficient support of "our troops"; no matter how many immigration bills bearing his name he now opposes; and no matter how many times he confesses to manipulative, ambition-driven lies in his own damned books, independents still come out for their maverick -- 42 percent of them in open-primary South Carolina, and 39 percent in New Hampshire.

.. Many voters will eventually learn that McCain's image is nothing like the reality. People who know nothing of McCain except his image are finally going to sit down and watch a debate. At that point, a lot of them are going to say: "Holy crap! That's the guy I thought I liked?!" The antiwar crowd will finally realize he makes George Bush look like Neville Chamberlain. And everyone will see McCain's smug condescension, born of a background of elitism and privilege. It will manifest itself in that self-satisfied mockingly contemptuous grin that he can't hide.