Opinion: Does John McCain know something Democrats don’t?

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Now that his race is effectively over, Republican Sen. John McCain telegraphed tonight that he thinks the Democratic contest might be, as well.

In his speech celebrating his presidential primary victories in Virginia, Maryland and D.C., McCain clearly had Barack Obama -- not Hillary Clinton -- on his mind. Speaking to his supporters in Alexandria, Va., McCain directed a barb at Obama (who just minutes before had wrapped up his remarks at a raucous rally in Madison, Wis.) and appropriated one of the Illinois senator’s best-known lines.

Hope, McCain told his listeners, ‘is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men’s hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience.’

After that obvious reference to his travails as a P.O.W. in Vietnam, McCain elaborated for a few sentences on the power of hope, as well as his ‘faith in the American character.’

But then he turned his sights toward Obama, who titled his autobiography ...

‘The Audacity of Hope’ and a politician who, as he had jokingly told his Wisconsin crowd, delivers a campaign message that has caused him to be dismissed as a ‘hope-monger.’

Said McCain: ‘To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude.’

Be that as it may, he borrowed one of Obama’s catch phrases just a few minutes later.

With a sly smile on his face, McCain finished his remarks by promising his audience: ‘I am fired up and ready to go!’

Obama worked into his speech a direct reference to the presumptive GOP White House nominee, scoffing at the policies of what he called ‘Bush-McCain Republicans.’

-- Don Frederick