Why wasn't McCain's POWness worth shit to Repubs in 2000?

[Franks Wild Years]

I mean, nowadays it's his giant selling point. It's all you hear about, and without it he'd be 15% down in the polls. To listen to his right-wing base, you'd think that McCain deserves a free pass to the White House for no reason other than that.

So why wasn't it worth a dime in 2000? Why, if it's such an incredible barometer of manliness, of leadership, of "commander-in-chief"ness was he routinely trounced - barring an early blip - by the Boy King in 2000, a pampered prat whose life experience at that point barely extended past frat parties, gifts from oil men and vacantly sending people to death chambers?