An interesting article by Jonathan Martin on Politico today describes an increasingly worried GOP as turning to John McCain to “reinvent the party.” Martin delves right to the 71-year-old core of the issue, however, rightly terming the very notion a “delicious piece of irony.”

This is, after all, the man many (if not most) conservatives least of all wanted picked as the Republican nominee. Remember the supposed savior Fred Thompson, or the preacher president Mike Huckabee? Even the fascinatingly uninteresting Mitt Romney was better than McCain . The (gasp) “Reformer.”

Now, however, with McCain having locked up the nomination, and with the GOP having suffered its third straight defeat in congressional special elections, the party is seemingly willing to look for hope in just about anyone other than Barack Obama.

“So…McCain, ‘ol buddy…”

Delicious.

The problem is, in order to “reinvent” the Republican brand, conservatives must first distance themselves from the most unpopular president in modern history. To do that, it is critical that Republicans distance themselves from the war; and while at one point McCain did offer a believable alternative (according to the LA Times and NY Times, he did not vote for Bush in ‘04), the McCain of 2008 is not the reformer of 2000.

He has, as Martin points out, taken a few symbolic steps away from Bush Republicanism, most recently by truly terrifying fellow conservatives in embracing climate change as a mainstay of his environmental policy.

McCain also does the things he has to do, like criticize the federal government, railing especially against the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina and decrying massive spending. Those are givens. But they will not be enough.

If McCain wants a chance at winning in November, he must immediately and forcefully reject the Bush doctrine. Step one is to denounce the war in Iraq as the terrible and failed idea he’s known it was since 2003. A 71-year-old candidate will not be able to win if he cannot convince voters that he’s capable of fresh-thinking. If McCain is to defend himself against Obama’s poisonous assertion that he represents either four or eight more years of George Bush, he must do something radical. He cannot afford to be anyone other than himself.

Barring some unforeseen watershed, a pro-war McCain CAN NOT win in 2008. If McCain continues to campaign in this manner, he will suffer a catastrophic defeat. That’s what happens when the Maverick follows.