V B Bart; hdgreene: Putin needs Obama but will be rooting for McCain.

The reason? Read your King Kremlin Bible.

“Yea verily, I Your Lord God and Tsar/Commissar say unto ye; ‘Only The Russian Is Annointed To Be The Head Nigger’”. (Pun not intended).

Those people have an overwhelming compulsion to be the center of attention. (That is why trained actor Reagan let Gorbachev show off contenting himself with “Best Supporting”.)
Obama hogs the limelight, Putin would be virtually invisible. Big no-no. Vis-a-vis McCain, Putin gets center stage. Thus the preference for McCain.

Nothing new here. Ike Eisenhower was a tough, wily opponent who got the better of the Soviets more often than they bested him.
John F Kennedy was a naif with a drug problem.
He was easy pickings for the communists.
Yet, they feared JFK and wished Eisenhower back. Simply because the Kennedy charisma made them into second bananas instead of the headliners compared with Ike’s low-key style.

Statecraft takes a back seat to ego gratification. One of the reasons that Ayn Rand noted that failure was NOT un-Russian.