McCain's Resilience

Like him or loathe him, you have to hand it to GOP Presidential candidate John McCain--the man is the epitome of resilience.

Countless are the times that political pundits, the news media, and the general public have counted him out, giving him up for dead. Yet he keeps coming back stronger than ever.

No one knows this any better than this writer.

From the start I thought the McCain candidacy was a terrible idea, and I gave him absolutely no chance of winning the GOP nomination. I had even written at one time, 'McCain will never be President.'

I am not so sure about that anymore.

When the candidate was fresh out of cash and had laid off most of his campaign staff, I was one of the first to say it was all over for McCain. But in a very short period of time the candidate was raising money again and winning some primaries.

First thing you know, he was at the top of the heap with more delegates than any of his GOP rivals. And even more money started rolling in.

When McCain went over the top with more than enough delegates to secure the nomination, he was being written off by most pundits and reporters who claimed he was 'too old,' or 'too closely tied to Bush' (what a laugh!), or that 'he is so lackluster when compared to the "rock star" candidate.'

But the rock star never really caught on the way the Left wanted everyone to believe he would.

Despite female news media groupies, large crowds that chant to him as if he is a god, and the unanimous adoration of the news media, Obama has failed to garner a 50% preference in national polls, though he had led McCain for weeks on end.

And even after the rock star candidate went to Europe to greet the praises and swoons of the masses who never really knew how to pick leaders (they gave us Chamberlain in England, Hitler in Germany, and Mussolini in Italy), Obama still could not manage to gain a 50% approval in polls here at home.

In fact, Obama has actually slipped since he returned from Europe.

For the very first time during this campaign, a general poll of registered voters shows that Obama and McCain are tied, dead-even. But when polls are taken of likely voters, McCain is in the lead by 4 percentage points.

Those same polls show that Obama is struggling with the very groups he needs to win--white women, retirees, and blue-collar white males. And with that, the candidate is struggling in some of the battleground states and even in some states that traditionally go to the Democrat.

In addition, McCain reached a new threshhold in the campaign that spells trouble for Obama. McCain is now the most popular destination for the YouTube set.

Gee, I thought that only rock starts and Paris Hilton groupies got all the attention on YouTube.

This was not supposed to happen. With gasoline hitting 4 bucks a gallon a few weeks ago and
food prices rising, along with the housing and mortgage crunch, and an unpopular President who has presided over an unpopular war, under normal conditions Obama would be ahead of McCain by double-digits.

Yet the candidate still has not reached that all-important 50% mark in voter preference.

To be sure, Obama is a seriously flawed candidate. So is Hillary Clinton. But the explanation for the the McCain surge goes far beyond the problems with his opponents. McCain's almost mythical tendency to rise from the ashes of defeat is a story that resonates with the American public.

His candidacy mirrors his story as a young fighter pilot who was captured, imprisoned, and tortured by the Viet Cong. Who would have expected his survival?

Yet somehow McCain managed to return from the ashes of near-death. He is still doing that in his political career.