Today, The Hill notes that John McCain was "was close to leaving the Republican Party in 2001, weeks before then-Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.) famously announced his decision to become an Independent."

Ouch.

Listen we all know that John is a maverick, but I always considered his objections to the party to fall short of abandonment. My impression was that John's stints with the gang of 14, the McCain-Feingold bill, the fiasco at the end of 2006 and most recently the McCain-Kennedy bill were simply John... feeling his independent oats. I had no idea he had serious GOP misgivings and was ready to leap ship.

Dean Barnett believes that the Straight Talk express is now derailed. I'm not so sure. As we've noted in these pages... ground game is all important here and John still has that going for him.

But this is definately a blow to the gut in a campaign fraught with eagle-eye attention to every nuance.