Oh I wouldn't count him out. If anything, I'd say Obama has ground to make against him after this drag-out fight with Cuntillary. If he campaigns on stuff that makes sense, rather than campaigning on his opponents record, he will be a strong candidate.
I liked McCain better when he detested Bush. Hopefully, deep down, he's the same bitter sum'bich from 2000 and will flip the Repubs off when he's in office.
To nominate Hillary as VP after what she's said and done would be a sign of weakness that should be avoided. 80% of the people who said they'll "jump ship" are full of it. It was a petty attempt by her campaign to threaten the DP into doing what they wanted. "Count Florida and Michigan, and go off the popular vote and not deligates OR WE'RE NOT GUNNA PLAY WITH YOU NO MORE!" The focus on winning elctions these days has got to be taking votes from your opponents party. Don't waste your breath pandering to your own people, they're already voting for you anyways.
It is still my beleife that Hillary's success has been false. Of all the other hippy libs i know, not a single one voted for her, yets she's getting gobs of votes and "record turnouts". The record turnout, it seems, are largely registered republicans that switched to vote for her.... why? Because there was a call out to the Republican party when McCain clinched the nomination: "We don't need your vote in the primaries, go out and vote for hillary because we can easily beat her".
She got crossover primary votes from people who don't want McCain to have to run against Obama.