Some diehard Republicans like Sean Hannity (who admittedly doesn't realize he is one) are puffed up with excitement over the long, drawn-out knockdown battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

They figure that whatever is bad for the Democrats is good for Republicans.

And it certainly looks like the rancorous race for the nomination on the Democratic side is a slow trainwreck in progress. Most polls show that about one-fourth of Obama's supporters won't support Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination. An even higher number of Clinton's supporters, usually about one-third, say they wouldn't vote for Obama in the general election.

Taking it for granted that those numbers will decline after the nomination is settled, there is still considerable reason to think that Democrats are much weaker today than anyone expected five months ago when the primaries started.

Which is why the one-track mind of Mr. Hannity, radio talk show host and Fox News personality, envisions a glorious victory for Republicans in the fall.

The problem is that, even if the Republicans win, they have already ensured it won't be a glorious victory. Instead it will be a victory bought with abandoned principles, lost causes, and (almost certainly) personal attacks.

John McCain, the luckiest man on the planet, only stumbled into the GOP nomination because Rudy Giuliani imploded, Fred Thompson forgot the magic words ("We have ignition!), Mike Huckabee decided to "play nice," and Ron Paul pulled away conservative votes from other, more viable, alternatives to McCain. Indeed, it seems like most Republicans had coalesced around the slogan "Anybody But McCain," but forgot to find a "body" they could all agree on.

So the guy who engineered the national re-emergence of the Democratic Party with campaign finance "reform," who stalled conservative nominees from being appointed to court seats as one of the founders of the "Gang of 14," and who tried to give amnesty to 20 million illegal aliens against the wishes of the American people - this guy turned out to be the nominee of the once-proud Republican Party.

The pundits, of course, said that conservative Republicans would have to come home and vote for McCain because - after all - where else could they go? Hillary Clinton does appeal to working-class swing voters because, after all, she is pugnacious and mostly sincere in her beliefs, but she is also Hillary Clinton, and that's hard for most Republican voters to swallow. As for Obama, and his much-vaunted non-partisan "politics for a change," most people now give that about the same credence that Nixon's "secret plan" to get us out of Vietnam deserved.

The secret plan to get us out of Vietnam turned out to be to bomb the heck out of the Cambodians, the Vietnamese and anybody else who got in the way of our negotiated surrender. Obama's "change you can believe in" is apparently the change from corrupt, partisan Republican leadership to corrupt, partisan Democratic leadership. If you believe in more "change" than that - if you believe that Obama can really somehow stop conservatives from caring enough about their principles to fight for them, or can stop Democrats from trying to benefit from their positions of power - then you probably also need a change… in your medication.

But this column is not about the problem with Obama, but rather the problem with McCain, who seems to be constitutionally incapable of being on the right side of any issue that is important to his own party.

Of course, throughout the contentious early primaries, McCain kept his mouth shut so that he would not aggravate the Republican "base" - because the fact is, every time McCain speaks his own mind he sounds like he is doing the bidding of the Democratic Party. But for the past month, McCain HAS BEEN speaking his own mind, and Republicans - or at least the conservatives who usually vote Republican - have been cringing as a result.

Last month, McCain accused the North Carolina Republican Party of being "out of touch with reality and the Republican Party" for running an advertisement that used comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor, to raise questions about Obama's judgment, and thus the judgment of those who endorse Obama. The ad actually was intended to blast two N.C. Democratic gubernatorial candidates who had endorsed Obama, and suggested that Obama was "too extreme" for America."

McCain told the North Carolina GOP chairwoman, "we need not engage in political tactics that only seek to divide the American people." Apparently McCain prefers to engage in political tactics that divide his own party.

McCain's "holier than thou" moment was not his first, and won't be his last. He seems to be confirmed in his belief that Republicans are nasty, small-minded people who are the human equivalent of pit bulls - they should either be caged or put down. As to why he bothers to remain in a party that he seems to detest, that is an interesting question, but perhaps the fact that he was able to win the party's nomination for president is answer enough.

On the other hand, if he is going to win the general election, he almost certainly has to resort to ads very similar to the one that aired in North Carolina. We have not heard the last of Rev. Wright, and when the GOP and its allies start airing those ads in September, Sen. McCain is going to have to add hypocrisy to his list of character flaws.

But for many Americans, there is no need to wait for September to disown McCain.

Last week, the senator finally went too far for many Republicans (Sean Hannity not necessarily included) when he announced he would be attending the national conference of La Raza, a Hispanic lobbying group that doesn't just support amnesty for illegal immigrants, but also is the leading force behind the reconquista idea, which encourages Mexicans to settle in the Western United States in order to establish a majority presence and, in effect, reconquer these areas for Mexico. The name La Raza literally means "The Race," and even if it means "The People" (as its defenders claim) it is still a name which promotes separatism rather than assimilation for Mexican-Americans.

But maybe John McCain knows all this. He told the American people he "gets it" now when it comes to their anger about illegal immigration and non-assimilation, so this could be his chance to prove it.

On July 14, when he addresses the National Council of La Raza, McCain could surprise everyone and use some of his famous "straight talk" to tell all those assembled why a border fence is not just necessary but a good idea, why English should be our national language and why illegal immigrants are not welcome here. He could do that, but he won't, which is why Republicans don't have to worry about who the Democrat nominee will be; they have to worry about who the Republican nominee is, and just how they can possibly vote for him.

One amusing solution came from Gene Holt on the Internet:

"Now that John McCain is embracing La Raza, conservatives will not only need to hold their noses if they vote for John McCain; they will now need to walk into the polling place backwards with a bag over their head."

And even that may not work.

. Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake and writes a weekly column. E-mail responses may be sent to edit@dailyinterlake.com