Brand X-pired

Like I've Been Saying, Gollum was once a hobbit.

No Longer New and Improved:

McCain has diluted his rare reputation

It wasn't too many years ago that "maverick" was the cliche of choice in describing him.

But that term didn't even make the list this year when voters were asked by the Pew Research Center to sum up McCain in a single word. "Old" got the most mentions, followed by "honest," "experienced," "patriot," "conservative" and a dozen more. The words "independent," "change" or "reformer" weren't among them.

Voters have notoriously short memories, but it could be argued that McCain cheapened his own brand.

He embraced President Bush and attempted to become, like Bush, the choice of the Republican establishment. In the process, he helped obliterate recollections of his first run for president, when he became the first Republican in a long time with strong crossover appeal to independents and Democrats.

Losing his reputation for independence could prove particularly costly this year.

The current campaign environment is among "the worst in modern history for Republicans," McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said recently.

Simply driving up turnout by the Republican base - a strategy good enough to win the past two presidential elections - won't work as long as Democrats continue to hold a double-digit advantage in party identification. Instead, McCain's chances of becoming president will depend largely on his ability to persuade independents and disaffected Democrats to back him over Barack Obama.

"The most important thing that McCain can do in this campaign is reoccupy that change and reform territory," says Todd Harris, who worked for McCain in 2000 but isn't on his campaign payroll now.

McCain's popularity peaked in 2004, about the time he threw his energy into re-electing Bush, according to the polls. Last week, McCain's negatives among registered voters hit an all-time high of 34 percent in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey. Voters who don't like McCain are, by an overwhelming margin, rejecting his political beliefs, not the kind of person he is, a recent Pew poll found.