If a man told you for years that he didn't love you, essentially had no regard for you at all, and then suddenly, when he needed you, told you he adored you, would you fall for it?

That's the opening graf of Jon Ralston's column today looking at John McCain's about face on Yucca Mountain. McCain has been a longtime supporter of the nuclear waste repository site at Yucca Mountain, but he's had a bit of a change of heart now that he's looking at a potentially very tight general election battle where Nevada's small stash of 5 electoral votes could prove pivotal.

In his speech on nuclear power earlier this week McCain blew a not-so-subtle kiss at the Silver State:

I would seek to establish an international repository for spent nuclear fuel that could collect and safely store materials overseas that might otherwise be reprocessed to acquire bomb-grade materials. It is even possible that such an international center could make it unnecessary to open the proposed spent nuclear fuel storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

So will the candidates' respective positions on Yucca Mountain matter this fall? Probably not. Nevada has traditionally voted Republican, with the exception of Bill Clinton who carried the state barely in 1992 (37%-35%-26%) and again in 1996 (44%-43%) - narrow victories that many attribute to his promise to veto any bill authorizing Yucca Mountain.

But George W. Bush won the state in 2000 by four points (50-46) margin without promising a veto and, even more tellingly, won the state again in 2004 (50-48) after signing legislation approving Yucca Mountain in 2002.

So despite McCain's longtime support for Yucca Mountain, it'll most likely be other factors that drive the outcome in Nevada this fall, but it could be razor close. The most recent poll, a Rasmussen survey from May 20, shows the Arizona Senator leading Obama by six points, 46% to 40%.