encourage offshore drilling, here's John Dickerson in Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2193749/ The energy plan was supposed to showcase both McCain's boldness in facing hard problems and his party-challenging, solutions-oriented approach. An ad released along with the kickoff speech heralded the fight McCain had with his party five years ago over whether to confront the challenges of global warming. (Did I mention that today was supposed to be about being bold?) Instead, critics won ammunition for a line of attack they've been pushing for the last year and a half. "I think John McCain has exhibited the ongoing debate in his own campaign between John McCain and John McCain," said John Kerry, no doubt relishing the chance to tar a Republican with the brush that killed him. "You don't know what he means on torture, taxes, tolerance of Jerry Falwell, changed on drilling. … Here you have a flip-flop by John McCain, flipping to the right and then flipping backward."
I don't know if JK relished saying that (though I imagine he did), but I sure relished hearing it.
Edited to add that there are other Kerry mentions in the article, and it's worth a read.
There's a risk here, too, though: John Kerry reeled off a pretty good list of McCain reversals. You can add McCain's evolution on issues like the estate tax—or the snafus that come from his fatigue, his light familiarity with new policy details, and the probability that when you talk all day long to reporters, you're going to slip up sometimes. At some point, the list of slip-sliding becomes too long for voters. They'll no longer buy the argument that they should overlook McCain's inconsistencies because they can trust him in the end to do the principled and honest thing. Voters consistently tell pollsters they want change, which means they want politicians who do business differently. People may not stick around long enough to hear McCain's energy-plan details if Barack Obama can make his opponent's drilling proposal look like a business-as-usual sop to oil companies.