John McCain campaigns in a postulated future

Very, very weird. John McCain gives an entire speech fantasizing where we will be in 4 years if he is elected president.

• "The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced."

• The Taliban threat in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced.

• "The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants," McCain said. "There still has not been a major terrorist attack in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001."

• A "League of Democracies" has supplanted a failed United Nations to apply sanctions to the Sudanese government and halt genocide in Darfur.

• The United States has had "several years of robust growth," appropriations bills free of lawmakers' pet projects known as "earmarks," public education improved by charter schools, health care improved by expansion of the private market and an energy crisis stemmed through the start of construction on 20 new nuclear reactors.

• Democrats are asked to serve in his administration, he holds weekly news conferences and, like the British prime minister, answers questions publicly from lawmakers.

It's not unusual for a candidate to say "I will do X," but it is unusual for a candidate to create an entire fictional future.

Then again, it's not like he can run effectively in the present.

(Ambinder has large chunks of the speech, and it really is a fictional future.)

Later: The RNC has issued a weird ad to support this titled 2013 which depicts a McCain caused utopia (without explaining how any of it happens.) Talk about your fantasy.......