MCCAINIACS. Word today is that former Dean for America webmaster and current EchoDitto CEO Nicco Mele is swinging into Camp McCain. Nicco is an old Common Cause guy, and retains the affection many campaign finance reformers have for McCain, so it's not an entirely surprising move. It seems, however, oddly tone deaf on McCain's side. EchoDitto is a political firm formed out of the ashes of the Dean campaign. It serves a variety of clients, all of them liberal, nearly all of them offensive to Republicans. We're talking Air America, the UN World Food Program, Jennifer Granholm, Barack Obama, and so forth. In the same way that Joe Lieberman's choice of a Republican pollster is being used against him by liberals, it would seem that McCain's choice of a Deaniac could be used against him in the Republican primaries. On the other hand, Mele is also a founder of Unity '08, the surreal effort to draft a third party presidential slate to do...well, no one's quite sure what, but definitely something. If Mele has McCain's ear and is committing to his campaign, is there a chance the Arizona senator is thinking of dispensing with the Republican primaries altogether?
--Ezra Klein
