Q: Is John McCain really Luke Skywalker, or is John McCain what Luke Skywalker eventually turned into? And if so, wouldn't he have been better off staying on the Death Star and being blown up with his father?

A: Whatever you do, don't ask the senator himself. He just might have a laser pistol in his coat.

~ ~ ~

So: we've seen how the Democrats tried to subvert the early GOP primaries, and how McCain was a willing accomplice to it; we've seen how McCain has attempted to follow in Bill Clinton's footsteps more than George W. Bush could ever have dreamed; and we've seen how the GOP's Rockefeller winglet has attempted to use McCainia to take the party back to oblivion (again, with McCain's active cooperation).

The thing is, none of it has worked.

The most obvious reason why is that the bulk of GOP primaries/caucuses are still limited to GOP voters, as they should be. And for all the hoopla that McCain was bequeathed by the media in New Hampshire and Michigan, the fact remains that even there Bush was competitive among Republicans in the former and stomped "Sailor" decisively in the latter - and everywhere else.

New Hampshire was supposed to sweep McCain to victory in South Carolina. It didn't. Then Michigan was supposed to be the beginning of the end for Bush. But it wasn't.

Bush won Virginia in an open primary, as expected, but also routed McCain in North Dakota and, most noteworthy of all, Washington state, where one would have thought McCain had the best shot at an upset. Yet Bush won the overall vote narrowly and the GOP vote by a better than 3-2 margin.

And now looms Super Tuesday, where McCain stands to lose at least nine of thirteen contests, including Ohio, California, and New York. It is not an exaggeration to say that after this Tuesday, the competitive phase of the Republican primaries will be over.

How did the candidate who was, so we were told, the spearhead of an unstoppable "insurgency" which would sweep out the last vestiges of moribund conservatism and usher in the long-awaited "rise of the center" flame out like - well, like any of the warplanes he crashed? The answer is as simple as it is sublime: he's as crummy a national candidate as he was a pilot.

That fabled temper, admirably kept under control in his rise from obscurity to Republican presidential contention, has finally done him in. It is the real source of his decision to wage a campaign against Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, whose negative consequences for him go well beyond his defeat in Virginia, North Dakota, and Washington last Tuesday.

Ten days after he lost to George W. Bush in South Carolina, McCain still could not get over it. He was furious about political opposition from leaders of the Christian Coalition. Mainly because of his rage, McCain missed an opportunity to appeal to the Republican hard core after his bogus victory in Michigan.

His strategic situation now can be described only as bleak. His insatiable assault on the Christian right will produce nothing in the high-population Super Tuesday states. And it surely leaves him with a hopeless position for the Southern Tuesday primaries a week later on March 14, where Governor Bush could conceivable clinch the Republican nomination.

The McCain who BSed New Hampshire in 114 town meetings did not sound typically Republican themes, but neither did he open fire on elements of his party's coalition. It was South Carolina that changed him.

Not even victory in Michigan cooled McCain's ire over his treatment down south. Michigan's 51% turnout of independents and Democrats overrode heavy Republican support for Bush, but it was clear he needed to improve his standing in his own party. A curious thing to realize in a primary campaign, but then this one is quite unlike any that have ever preceded it.

He started that night by calling himself a "proud Reagan Republican." The most incongruous declaration since, well, Gary Baeur called McCain the GOP's "best hope."

And then McCain unloaded on Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell at Virginia Beach. Something Ronald Reagan never did, but never mind, it seems few even remember what Reagan stood for anymore; his is now little more than a brand name practically anybody can suck off of to leech legitimacy they don't have.

Whether or not this was a write-off of Virginia, the overriding strategic concept - if one could call it that - did transcend that state. It was intended to generate support in Super Tuesday contests--especially, yes, California, New York and Ohio. While Virginians were voting, McCain was in California continuing the excoriation of Pat Robertson. When the Virginia returns came in, McCain commented that Bush is a candidate who can win only in the South - a silly judgment immediately contradicted by the results, as mentioned above, from North Dakota and Washington.

Indeed, the case can be made that, other than his home state of Arizona, McCain can't win outside the Northeast. This is the real worry by some of the senator's few thoughtful supporters. The Robertson-Falwell assault has hardened the certainty that even if McCain survives Super Tuesday, he faces disaster in the South a week later. His problem is that he seems to have declared war on the GOP's most important constituency group in the party's most important region.

Whether McCain could ever have actually captured the GOP nomination is at best debatable. But the track he has taken, whether driven by arrogance, temper, or bigotry, shows just how poor his judgement is, and how unsuitable he is to ascend to the highest office in the land.

Perhaps nothing better symbolizes the presidential candidacy of John McCain than his by-now famous interview on the Michael Reagan radio talk show, where Reagan - already leaning toward supporting McCain - attempted to engage the senator in a discussion of issues, before a large and presumably friendly audience. And all "Sailor" could talk about was Pat Robertson. Reagan patiently tried to move the interview forward, but McCain was simply obsessed with Robertson. And when the senator's cellular phone began breaking up, Reagan hung up on him, tore up his list of questions, and announced, "You've lost my vote."

Ladies and gentlemen, it's over for John McCain. And in more ways than one.

I harbored the assumption, for a while, that, after Governor Bush clinched the nomination, he would naturally tap Senator McCain for his running mate. It seemed inevitable both as a gesture of party unity after the bitter, divisive primary battle and a move to bring McCain's apparent appeal to so-called independents and cross-over Democrats onto the ticket. That's just the way the GOP establishment mindset works, and just the kind of stunt they'd be likely to pull.

But now? It seems unlikely.

First, why would Bush choose the man who did his level best to ruin his reputation by accusing him of anti-Catholic bigotry? Sure, Reagan chose W's dad, but "voodoo economics" kind of pales as a charge in comparison.

Second, though it has been largely forgotten, Governor Bush has a substantial track record of his own at mounting a broad appeal across party lines and demographic groups. He has run consistently as a unifier. Pursuing McCain would not only concede the latter's criticisms of Bush as being "a vassal of the religious Right who would lose to Al Gore," but also that McCain, the unquestioned divider in this primary campaign, can better unify a winning coalition - an absurdity on its face.

Third, choosing McCain would be the final straw for religious conservatives who have turned out en masse as much to stave off McCain as to prop up Bush. It'd be the worst betrayal imaginable, and would all but guarantee that they'd sit out the fall campaign, with predictably disastrous results in November.

Finally, could Bush really trust McCain to be a loyal team player, much less even maintain the thinnest modicum of public decorum? After "Sailor's" behavior of the last few weeks, I don't see how W could.

For conservatives, this multi-faceted backfire is a sight to behold. The Democrats have to face not just Bush, but a Right more energized and excited than any since 1988 (the choice of Alan Keyes for veep would only send it percolating higher); the cause of liberal Republicanism has been set back years, if not decades; and the Christian Right itself, written off for dead by some, has been reinvigorated at least - and, yes, perhaps even "re-born."

It's not the way I would ever have imagined that John McCain would have served the Right.

But then sometimes, true heroes come home in coffins.

Hopefully "Sailor" will stop himself before his entire political career, and not just his presidential hopes, get toe-tagged.