CommenTerry, March 9th, 2007
On February 28, during the Late Show with David Letterman, Arizona Senator John McCain confirmed what we had expected all along: he will be seeking the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.
Outside his political career, McCain is best known for his distinguished military career, during which he received the a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, a Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Flying Cross. As a navy pilot in Viet Nam, he spent more than five and a half years as a prisoner of war, mostly at the now-infamous Hanoi Hilton, after his fighter jet was shot down. He could have left after only six months, but refused to accept an out-of-turn offer of repatriation. Instead, he spent another five years there, where he was brutally beaten and tortured. To this day, he cannot raise his arms above his head because of the injuries he received. About three years after he was finally released, he became the Navy's liaison to the U.S. Senate and remained in the Navy until he retired as a captain in 1981.
Shortly after his military career ended, he found his way into politics. In 1982, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona's First District. When Barry Goldwater decided to retire four years later, McCain ran for his seat and was elected to the U.S. Senate. He has been re-elected to that seat three times since, with an ever-increasing vote margin. In fact, in 2004, he won with more than 70% of the vote!
This will be McCain's second run for the presidency. After sitting out the Iowa Caucuses in 2o00, he solidly defeated then-Texas Governor George W. Bush in the New Hampshire Primary. However, Bush recovered with a solid win in South Carolina. Then McCain countered with a surprising win in Michigan to regain his momentum. But then McCain inexplicably started attacking the Religious Right, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, prior to the Virginia Primary. That's when the wheels began to come off his campaign. McCain was badly defeated by Bush in Virginia. Bush's momentum then carried over into Super Tuesday, when he won nine of the 13 primaries held that day. McCain never recovered and, from there, Bush coasted to the nomination.
McCain has since set out to show that he has learned from his mistakes of 2000. He has been trying to "make nice" with the Religious Right, including giving the commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University last May. Recently, he's even gone as far as saying he now thinks that Roe vs. Wade should be overturned. All of this has been in keeping with is apparent overall strategy to move to the right on key issues to make himself more palatable to conservative GOP primary voters.
In addition, since the 2000 race, he has been one of President Bush's most loyal supporters, despite some differences of opinion on how to manage the war in Iraq. Like Bush, he believes the U.S. should stay in Iraq until it has achieved victory, only with more troops than Bush is currently asking for.
Of course, with his turn to the right and his loyalty to Bush, he is risking alienating moderate and independent voters. He had been a favorite among these voters for his independent spirit and reputation as a maverick. He is now not likely to get as many cross-over votes during the primaries as he did in 2000.
McCain is still considered by many pundits to be the frontrunner for the GOP nomination, despite the fact that he now trails Rudy Giuliani in almost every poll. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans often award their nomination to someone who has waited his "turn." A case in point is Bob Dole, who was rejected in his bids for the nomination in 1980 and 1988, only to finally get it in 1996. If enough GOP primary voters buy his shift to more of a right-wing stance and he doesn't come off looking like a phony in the process, 2008 may well be McCain's turn at the Republican presidential nomination.
