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to be spending more time listening to advisors and putting their phalanges to the wind and testing out different positions McCain would have none of it. When advisers told him that the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Bill was something that was drawing majority support in polls amongst seniors McCain still expressed dismay with it. McCain called the bill a government boondoggle saying it only helped the pharmaceutical companies and their wealthy lobbyists.

McCain also took heat for saying that he felt that climate change was a serious issue that the country had to deal with. Once again, many advisers and Washington insiders pleaded with him not to take this view. They were afraid it would turn business owners and executives away from donating to the campaign.

McCain had a strategy and a goal. That goal was to win the New Hampshire primaries and then do extremely if not also win the South Carolina. Well, his old friends from New Hampshire who made sure McCain was a serious contender back in 2000 by giving him a victory then, granted the same favor in 2008. Then came the vaunted task of overcoming the demons and challenges that eviscerated his 2000 campaign in the Palmetto State of South Carolina; McCain's camp was determined to see a different outcome. The same support of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham that he received in 2000 was again paramount. The fact that McCain had many of the same folks in the state that had backed then Governor Bush in 2000 was an interesting twist. The one ex-factor that would make sure that his campaign would not putrefy again would be a political wing man or surrogate. This is about the biggest political comeback of the year, well the biggest political assist of the year would have to go to former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee. Thompson would play McCain's supporting actor for the short time Thompson was in the political drama known as the 2008 Presidential Race.

McCain needed an attack dog for when the debates got rough. Thompson would be his man who would occasionally chime in with criticism questioning the other candidate's logic. McCain needed someone to siphon off votes from ordained Baptist minister Mike Huckabee in South Carolina. He called on the other candidate his good buddy Fred Thompson to do the dirty work. Thompson had the conservative bona fides on immigration and the southern drawl that McCain lacked to beat Huckabee on his own. McCain took full advantage of the Thompson card in the poker game of primary politics. Thompson was able to take just enough socially conservative Evangelical voters away from Huckabee to guarantee McCain the win in South Carolina. Once Thompson's work was done this hired mercenary (in the political gamesmanship sense) who of course had supported his buddy John McCain in 2000 could go back to the private sector. So that is the story of how John McCain made the best political comeback of 2008, by sticking to his bedrock gut feeling, saying no to advisers and with a little help from his friends to quote the Beatles or John Cocker depending upon your personal preference.

Learn more about this author, Tyler Mills.
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