Teepen: John McCain's cuckoo campaign

Has there ever been a more peculiar presidential campaign than John McCain's?

Like the cuckoo bird, which lays its eggs in the nests of other species — and in the colors of their own eggs, no less — McCain has brazenly swiped Barack Obama's "hope" and "change" themes, terms Republicans had elaborately disdained until the pulse behind the words began to show some endurance.

The Republican nominee managed to talk his way through the Republican convention without mentioning the Republican incumbents, neither George Bush nor Dick Cheney, by name. (He did once cite a certain "president of the United States," which may be taken as referring to, uh, umm... well, you know: Bush.)

And now, a campaign commercial for the Republican candidates boasts of McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin that "He battled Republicans and reformed Washington. She battled Republicans and reformed Alaska."

We are to take it, then, that the two are credentialed for election by their established ability to fight Republicans. This would seem to be, actually, a terrific commercial for Barack Obama, who is a Democrat and whose heart as a result would likely be more into the task.

You have to hold a little compassion for McCain in this muddle. He doesn't dare run on the Republican record of the last eight years.

The president has an approval rating just a tick better than cholera's.

Bush pushed us into a needless, grinding war in Iraq that has cost us going on 4,500 dead, is headed, some economists calculate, toward $3 trillion in real money and trashed our international standing on a fling of kidnappings, endless detentions and torture and thus squandered the very considerable strategic advantages of U.S. soft power.

That historic miscalculation cost us victory in Afghanistan, the actual frontline against terrorism, and has left the U.S. military so worn out and worn down that it is questionable we can redeem the neglect there.

And the Republican Congresses offer no better a foundation for McCain. They were enthusiastic partners with Bush in polities and practices that turned a budget surplus into record deficits, putting us so deeply in hock to China that we could end up scrubbing woks in a Hong Kong restaurant if Beijing ever calls our paper.

Millions are losing their homes. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two great struts of the mortgage market, are in federal receivership. Banks approach the failure rate of a geriatric ward. Unemployment is steadily rising, jobs are evaporating, workers have increased their productivity but have seen their incomes deteriorate, the money spread between the rich and everybody else has widened.

So get this: Republicans are putting forward a ticket billing itself as anti-Republican — in hopes of retaining Republican power. And who knows? Maybe the cheeky proposition that the answer to Republican misfeasance is more Republicans will sell. It is doing well so far.

But whatever the outcome, let's pause to savor the moment. It is historic. McCain is the first ever third-party candidate licensed to run against a major political party by that party itself.

Move over, Alice. We're all falling down the rabbit hole.

Tom Teepen is a columnist for Cox Newspapers. He is based in Atlanta.