With conservatives grudgingly in his camp (barring Bob Barr parachuting in at the last minute) and the far left having decided that, unlike 2004, a Vietnam vet as president just isn't their cup of chai, Jim Geraghty believes that John McCain is triangulating towards the great undecided middle, even as the Democratic primaries (onward to Guam!) continue.

On the surface, it may appear that Maverick is once again throwing conservatives under the bus, but as Geraghty writes asks in an earlier post, "Does no one else see what's going on here?"

How many other North Carolina Republican Party ads have you heard about this year? Last year? The year before that?

By criticizing the ad, McCain turned it into a national story, which means the ad is likely to be replayed on the cable networks and linked on YouTube and discussed on the talk shows and talk radio and written about in newspapers and magazines. This ad has 76,000 views on YouTube already, and it was posted online Tuesday.

And McCain gets to take the high road, saying he doesn't want to see negative campaigning done on his behalf.