This shouldn't but much of a competetive election. Look at Obama's two main weaknesses, a controversial preacher and his minor connections to some people who are on trial. McCain has those same two problems as well as a slew of others.

First, he is starting to show hints of an aging mind in the examples that francois listed. Age is going to be a major hurdle for his candidacy.

Seconds, he has far too many close connections to Bush. That image of the two shaking hands after Bush endorsed him was pure gold for the Democrats. McCain is already being billed as Bush 2.0.

Third, he supports the Iraq War with all his being. Other than Vietnam, the Iraq War is the most unpopular in American history. Obama has already begun calling the Iraq War the Bush-McCain War.

Fourth, while he was at first mistrusted by conservatives, he has quickly bowed to their demands and alienated his moderate base. I origionally liked McCain to a certain degree, but he's managed to sell out his beliefs in a matter of months. He went from rouge to stooge in a heartbeat.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama is such a popular figure that he is drawing record numbers of young people and blacks into the voting booth. These are two groups of voters that are routinely ignored by politicians as they historically have low voter turnouts. Watch for Obama to win 95%+ of black voters in November and 85%+ of voters 18-21. While this is probably not surprising to anyone who has followed the Democratic Primaries in the smallest degree, Obama's biggest worry in November will be what Hillary does this summer and possibly fall.

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"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
~Plato