Has Republican presidential candidate John McCain sold his soul on Ebay?

That's the unusual claim conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan made in this weekend's issue of "The Sunday Times of London."

According to Sullivan: "McCain sold his soul a long time ago; in the past few weeks he has been auctioning it on eBay."

Sullivan feels that however hard McCain tries to change personality and policy to meet the next news cycle and polling, "he cannot escape the simple fact of his Republicanism."

"He cannot play the maverick now – after abandoning his previous common sense to embrace the Bush-Cheney economic madness of the past eight years. If he had stuck to his principles of 2000, he might have had a chance as these Bush chickens came home to pelt the Republicans with droppings six weeks before election day."

In other Ebay news, locks of blondish hair reputed to be those of famed actress Sarah Jessica Parker also hit the Ebay auction block over the weekend -- but the auction was mysteriously halted once the bidding had reached $2300. According to Sullivan, such a practice typically occurs "when a private deal has been cut between buyer and seller so the seller can avoid paying Ebay's high commission fees."

No word yet on how much McCain's soul might fetch. But according to Sullivan, a decade-old toasted cheese sandwich said to bear an image of the Virgin Mary that sold recently on the eBay auction website for $28,000 offers a good basis for comparison.

Sullivan feels that McCain's soul "might match or even exceed that amount."