McCain's new campaign strategy - Embrace Bush

It's a slow news morning, so I thought I'd flesh out an idea that's been bumping around my head the last couple of days.

John McCain is losing his primary bid. I recognize it's way to early to take "horse race" polling too seriously, but overall trending is important. If a candidate drops twenty or thirty points in a month, that's important, and that's exactly what John McCain has done. In the latest LATimes/Bloomberg poll, He polled 12%, and, perhaps more troublingly to his campaign, he's now looks to be third in the "outsider/maverick" category.

So, when I see McCain defending Bush's Iraq plan over the top and meeting with Bush and Condi Rice very publicly yesterday after years of criticizing them both, I have to wonder if we're seeing a new McCain primary strategy, embrace Bush.

Within the context of the Republican primary, such a strategy may make some sense. Everybody on every side is running against Bush, so there may be a whole lot of political space running with Bush.

A significant majority of Republicans still approve of Bush's job, and of those crazy ones that do, they are far more likely to vote in primaries. (and I feel quite sure that independents will turn out for the Dem primaries.) You figure that Republican primary voters will probably "approve" of Bush higher than even the Republican polling.

So, why not try to take advantage of that "pro Bush" space that no one else wants? Certainly it won't pan out in the general election, but for a flailing primary candidate whose losing on the anti-Bush side, why not take the shot?

(PS. I would encourage McCain to run and win the primary on a pro-Bush strategy.)

I don't know if there's anything to this. Just thinking out loud.