So, does this mean that in 3 and a half years, we'll see McCain passionately embracing president Obama and carrying his water? Because that's the other part of the McCain-Bush cycle (see also Falwell, Jerry, etc.)

Don't be fooled - McCain still holds Romney in contempt, and why shouldn't he.  Here was this dilettante, this former Governor of the People's Republic of Massachusettes trying to position himself to the right of Genghis Khan with his moralizing, preachy tone.  This Mormon missionary who sat out the Vietnam War in the jungles of Paris trying to act tough with his talk about "Doubling the size of Guantanamo" while McCain had urged that it be closed. Romney the Great Warrior on Terror, he with the 5 strapping military age sons who haven't got a day's service between them.  I could go on and on, starting with Rommey's ridiculous assertion that he was a lifelong hunter.  McCain was already having problems with his party's right wing, and here  comes Romney who in 1994 tried to run to the left of Ted Kennedy re-inventing himself.  It drove McCain nuts.  Just because McCain is playing nice so he can tap into Romeny's cash and fund raising acumen doesn't mean a thing.   Ditto for McCain and George Bush.  You think McCain has forgotten or forgiven 2000?  No, to protect his right flank and national security creds, he pretends to cozy up to Bush - to a point.  And I wouldn't feel too superior about "whip[ping] themselves into a moralistic frenzy against anybody who stands between them and the presidency."  Same could be said about the Obamaniacs at TNR.

Doesn't everybody have contempt for Bush and Romney?  It may just reflect good judgment on McCain's part.

Oh, for goodness sake.  Have you ever worked on a political campaign?  Good luck finding one where the volunteers _don't_ hold the other side in contempt.  

I'm a moderate who crosses party lines a lot, and it's always awkward because I am always surrounded by people who are badmouthing folks I like on the other side, no matter what side I pick.

But whatever.  GOP bad!  Obama good!  

McCain is the easy hero and the awkward anti-hero. Who won by default, through no fault of his own. Who wears his heart on his sleeve and his disease on his face. Who knows what to do with the gun on the mantel in Act One of the script he was handed and thinks he must follow. Who is everywhere at once and nowhere in particular, everyone's father and nobody's dad. Who crawled from his prisoner's cage to spread his wings and beat upon the screen like Nabokov's moth, eternally tempted by but separate from the light--kept in, then kept out.

"GOP bad!  Obama good!"

I think we have the first DNC bumper sticker slogan for the fall...

Mr. Chait, you obviously haven't been paying attention to the denizens of Plank and Stump.  As dubyadoubte strains to remind you above (and I'm sure teplukhin will be along any time now to reiterate), it's the Obamaniacs who are the entranced Moonie-like cultists in this campaign.  Anybody planning to vote for Obama this fall, no matter how many other Democrats they may have passed through first, must be presumed to be starry-eyed, naifs, incapable of rational thought where Saint Barack is concerned.   McCain followers are just good tough-minded 'Murricans who don't like posers and johnny-come-lately wannabes.  Get with the program, Mr. Chait.

That sounds about right, wmyard. To me, in addition, in his desire to get through the screen, he punched holes in his own wings. Not working.