Marc Ambinder has gotten ahold of the latest secret strategy memo out of the John McCain for President campaign. Reading through the first section Ambinder quotes, I can already tell that the only thing this is going to do for McCain is make him increasingly unpopular, both around the country and specifically in his home state of Arizona.

The first phase of our September strategy is to take ownership of the surge and demonstrate again that John McCain is the only candidate running for President who is prepared to be Commander-in-Chief from day one. [emphasis added]

With the opposition research team now spending more time and effort looking at and hitting Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson -- and rightfully so due to the relatively higher likelihood that they will be the next Republican presidential nominee (though he's to holding out for Newt...) -- it seemed to me that it would be incumbent on at least some group to work to make clear tot he American people that John McCain is Mr. Escalation. What I didn't expect was for that group to be the McCain campaign.

Well shouldn't becoming Mr. Escalation help McCain with the GOP base, whose support would be necessary for winning the Republican nomination (even if would make him supremely less electable in a general election)? Common wisdom would say yes. But remember, Republican polling out of Iowa shows that a majority of likely Republican caucus-goers in the state indicate that they would like to see all American military forces out of Iraq -- and within 6 months. With numbers like these, it's little wonder that McCain is running fifth in the state, behind the three GOP frontrunners as well as Mike Huckabee, averaging a mere 5.6 percent support.

And not to completely write off McCain's chances at becoming the next GOP nominee, because I'll never underestimate the wackiness of the Republican Party and because people have come back to win their party's nomination in the past, but one cannot and should not forget that every move like this one that McCain makes is hurting him more and more in his home state of Arizona, where he is up for reelecction in 2010. Whether it's among all voters in the state or just Republicans, McCain's standing in Arizona is deteriorating -- and fast. So amazingly enough, McCain could find himself to be the Rick Santorum of the 2010 cycle -- an incumbent whose extreme conservatism makes him unelectable at home, even notwithstanding previous wins in a purple state.