On Friday, Senator Susan Collins of Maine facing a tough re-election campaign herself urged McCain to stop making robocalls into her State linking Obama to 60's activist William Ayers.
"These kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics," said Collins' spokesman, Kevin Kelley. "Sen. Collins urges the McCain campaign to stop these calls immediately."
McCain's response? Just look at his facial expression when he answers Chris Wallace's question whether he'll stop them as Sen. Collins has requested:
WALLACE: But Senator back, if I may, back in 2000 when you were the target of robo calls, you called these hate calls and you said--
MCCAIN: They were.
WALLACE: And you said the following: "I promise you I have never and will never have anything to do with that kind of political tactic." Now you've hired the same guy who did the robocalls against you to, reportedly, to do the robocalls against Obama and the Republican Senator Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robocalls. Will you do that?
MCCAIN: Of course not. These are legitimate and truthful and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that -- things that this is -- this is dramatically different and either you haven't -- didn't see those things in 2000.
With Powell coming out today, will that provide the cover for any number of moderate good Republicans to jump ship and side with Obama. Hagel, Lugar, Snowe, Collins, we may see any number of them move away from the divisive politics of McCain/Bush/Rove and start working together to put this country back on track.