John McCain is a war hero and an acomplished pragmatic senator from the state of Arizona: That being said, his candidacy for President if effectively over. (even before it officially began) Here is why:

1.He only raised 12.5 million dollars in the first quarter. This not only puts him well behind Clinton and Obama who raised 26 million (36 million if you include transfered funds from the senate election) and 25 million respectively, but Mitt Romney (23 Million) and Rudy Giuliani (15 million). In terms of momentum, this is not good.
2.He is not conservative enough for Republican Primary Voters on key issues such as immigration where he co-sponsored a bill with Ted Kennedy (or as I call him the other Teddy K) who may as well be the antichrist in conservative circles.
3.He has lost his straight talk appeal of the first campaign because he is perceived as Bush’s lap dog on Iraq war policy.
4.The been there, done that, factor: All the media attention that so helped McCain on his first run for president, is going to abandon him and barely give him any coverage compared to the fresher and more interesting faces who are running for president.
5.He is too old. He is 70 years old and would be 72 when he would theoretically take the oath of office in January of 09. Even worse, he is showing his age by lacking a lot of energy on the campaign trail. Recently he was photographed with a odd black mark on his head, that had people concerned his skin cancer returned. His publicist stated that it was merely caused when he bumped his head when getting off a helicopter. Not exactly reassuring. Some will point to Ronald Reagan and saying age is not as big a factor as I am making it out to be, but with today’s non-stop media attention and need for fundraising, running for president is a lot more draining then in the past.