DERAILED? McCain

In 2000, McCain's unorthodox insurgency campaign very nearly sent George W. Bush limping back to Austin. Now, he's sifting through the ruins of what was supposed to be a coronation, and Washington, D.C., has officially entered into a McCain Death Watch. "He's cooked," one veteran Republican operative tells Radar. Politico and the New York Times are skewering the focus and planning of McCain's campaign. Now, the question is a simple one: How did this happen?

One need only recall an early summer morning in 2004, the day Captain Straight Talk turned down an offer from presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry. Kerry, a fellow Vietnam vet, and one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate, wanted his pal to join him on a bipartisan Unity Ticket. A vice presidential slot seemed like a natural fit considering McCain's familiarity with Kerry, his contrarian ways, and his long-standing feud with President Bush. "Senator McCain never seriously considered joining Senator Kerry's ticket," a rep for McCain's '08 campaign says. But one veteran political operative with ties to both men (who, because of involvements with an ongoing campaign, asked for anonymity) says Kerry's courtship, though dismissed in ensuing years as old friends throwing out ideas, was a lot more serious than either man let on.

"They talked about it, their people talked about it, and it was closer to happening than anybody thinks. But in the end, [McCain] couldn't pull the trigger. He outsmarted himself." This, as the source puts it, was the pivotal moment when "John McCain stopped being John McCain."

Along with giving McCain an opportunity to wreak some Old Testament havoc on the Bush team that infamously swept his legs out from underneath him in 2000 in South Carolina, Kerry's offer brought with it an unprecedented perk: Kerry was prepared to also appoint McCain secretary of defense, and was ready to give McCain "overall control over foreign policy."

It was an aggressive, heady plan that would have shaken up the dynamics of American politics for generations to come—and John McCain said no. Sources say he just wasn't prepared to face the fallout of leaving the Republican Party, especially when it looked like he would be the front-runner when 2008 rolled around. "[Doesn't he know] what I just offered him?" Kerry was heard to remark to an aide. "Why the fuck didn't he take it?"

Coincidentally enough, McCain may be asking himself the same question these days.