On the Republican side, the conservatives, distraught at the likelihood of McCain being the nominee, are prophesying disaster in the November vote. An internal assessment circulating though the Conservative Political Action Committee meeting in Washington DC last week predicted "an epic landslide" by the Democratic ticket similar to Lyndon Johnson's obliteration of Goldwater in 1964. The memo attributed this likely outcome to recession, the war in Iraq and a terrible candidate. Republican senator Thad Cochrane has openly said he trembles at the thought of an unstable McCain in the Oval Office with his finger on the nuclear trigger. Whoever the Democratic nominee is, McCain should be easy meat, with scores of victims of his savage onslaughts ready to testify to his frenzied personal onslaughts and profanity-laden tirades. By insisting on using the word "gooks" about the Vietnamese, he's already well on the way to losing the Asian-American vote. To an electorate opposed to the war in Iraq by some 70 per cent, he enthusiastically prophesies a century of war.