In The Denver Post, David Harsanyi writes:

Those Republicans anticipating a fourth-quarter comeback during the debate were instead hit with a wet fish. Did the putative Republican candidate just propose that the U.S. Treasury renegotiate millions of mortgages at a better price?

Was McCain simply unable to articulate a more complex position? It sounded a lot like a comprehensive nationalization of the mortgage industry. It sounded a lot like hundreds of billions of additional tax dollars.

Yep, he meant it. It's called the American Homeownership Resurgence. It will stabilize the economy. And Obama will stop global warming. And McCain will find bin Laden, even if he has to do it with his bare hands. And . . . well, at this pace, we're about two debates away from being promised free lemonade and snicker doodles.

None of these promises have worked. So now the McCain campaign will set its sights on Bill Ayers, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko and other members of the Legion of Doom. All of them are legitimate topics for conversation, but with less than a month to go, the conversation reeks of desperation.

In fact, the entire campaign has been one big act of publicity stunts. McCain's shining moment this campaign, as far as I can tell, was a funny ad comparing Obama to Paris Hilton.

What McCain's candidacy does tell us is that the Republican Party -- even if it somehow miraculously pulls this one out -- is in need of some creative destruction. Not ideological purity but ideological renewal.

Because being a "maverick" is a political slogan, not a political philosophy.