<McCain would have probably trounced Gore and kept Republican control of Congress by not alienating moderate Republican [Jeffords]. I think McCain would have been more the DNC's nightmare than dream candidate.

That's the story, and they're sticking to it.

Democrats crossed party lines to vote for McCain because they would rather see him for president than Gore.

Right.

The media, Democrats almost down to the last individual, gushed all over McCain because they really wanted him to beat Gore in November.

Right.

Once McCain had won the nomination, all his Democratic "fans" would have turned on him like rabid pit bulls, and he would not have known what hit him in November.

I wish I had a dollar for every time Democratic politicians and their toadies in the press have "advised" Republicans, for their own good of course, to "compromise" and become more "moderate"--words which have only one meaning now: "move closer to Democratic positions."

The hoped-for result: an election where the voters get to choose between a consistent, solid leftist Democrat and a wishy-washy, inconsistent sort-of-leftist Republican. A faded carbon copy of a Democrat.

Republicans would stay home in droves, and Democrats would, not too surprisingly, vote for the Democrat.

It's good to remember that when your political enemies tell you how to win an election, you might want to take it with a grain of salt.