Senator John McCain was once a media darling. His maverick streak and accessibility to reporters, cruising down primary state roads in his "Straight Talk Express" bus, gave many a sense of a different kind of politician, one who spoke his mind and pulled no punches.

During his 2000 bid, that image helped McCain win support from independents and Democrats searching for a reprieve from politics as usual. McCain's straight-forward personality and willingness to take on politicians of both parties spoke to many who had grown tired of the partisan bickering of the Clinton years. "He seemed independent of mind, and even though [independents] didn't necessarily buy him on all the issues, they liked his style," says Purdue University Professor Bert Rockman.

But in 2008, McCain is unlikely to find the same success among that group of disaffected voters; instead, they are flocking to Barack Obama.

McCain's success in 2000 came in states in which those voters could cast a ballot in the Republican primary. Instead of attempting to win the Iowa caucuses, attended by the most diehard party loyalists on both sides, McCain opted to gamble on states like New Hampshire, in which a voter can switch his or her registration on the day of the primary, and Michigan, where Democrats and independents can vote in the Republican primary.

McCain soon learned that what made him so popular with independents and Democrats -- his maverick streak -- would doom him in the Republican primary. "Those kinds of people don't win nominations," said Charlie Cook, of the Cook Political Report. After Michigan, McCain's campaign hit a brick wall, and Al Gore easily defeated Bill Bradley, setting up a matchup of what many saw as politics as usual. When faced with a choice between Gore and President Bush, independents split down the middle, with 45% choosing Gore and 47% voting for Bush.

Eight years later, the situation is almost exactly reversed: A Republican president is constantly doing battle with a Congress controlled by the opposite party. Now, like eight years ago, independents are looking for someone to inspire them to action and break the mold of the typical politician.

Enter John McCain, who began the race by trying to repair damaged relationships with conservatives. "Part [of McCain's slide] is trying to make the transition from the maverick independent reformer" to a base Republican, Cook said. That move caused irreparable damage to his relationship with independents and has not benefited McCain among conservatives. "Ironically, conservatives should like the decisions he made, but he hasn't made any headway with them," says Rockman.

The strategy has cost McCain dearly among those independents and Democrats who might choose a Republican ballot to vote for the Arizona Senator. "He's no longer the hero of the middle," pollster John Zogby says. "He ceded that to the likes of Barack Obama."

Indeed, those independents are looking not necessarily for the most moderate politician, but for one who doesn't quite remind them of George W. Bush's Washington. This year Barack Obama has inherited the mantle of the new and different politician. His promise to change Washington and his focus on unheard-of ethics reforms -- strikingly similar to McCain's affinity for campaign finance reform -- is attracting the same independent voters who once loved McCain's straight talk.

The national mood will likely help the Illinois Senator even more in attracting independents away from McCain. Wile independents split in 2000, the most recent exit polls, in 2006, show those in the middle favoring Democratic Congressional candidates by a huge 57%-39% margin. Certainly a Congressional race is different, in the minds of independents, from a Presidential race. But Zogby believes McCain's association with the war in Iraq, the issue that most drove voters into the arms of Democrats, is straining his relations with independents even more. "The surge hurt John McCain. He owns it more than President Bush does."

As many of McCain's senior staff turned in their resignations this week, the media concentrated on the overly ambitious fundraising assumptions the campaign had made. Hoping to raise $100 million this year, the campaign has pulled in just $24 million in six months. But Obama is well on his way to that mark, having raised more than $54 million so far.

McCain benefited in 2000 when independents gave him their money and their votes, and his success then may have fueled some of the assumptions leading into 2008 that he would raise so much money with such ease. But in 2000, as independent voters in New Hampshire chose Republican ballots, another candidate who played well among independents, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, was losing his race to Al Gore.

"Al Gore did not defeat Bill Bradley in New Hampshire in 2000. John McCain defeated Bill Bradley," Zogby says.

This year, independents' decisions to choose the Democratic ballot may harm no one more than their one-time hero, John McCain.