by Bruno Somerset

Created on: February 02, 2008

When he moved from a victory over Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani in the Florida primary to crushing Romney in the Super Tuesday contests, he cemented his place as the Republican front-runner. In a race where seemingly none of the Republican candidates could grab the people's imagination, McCain once again did it his way: avoiding the Republican base and going after independent voters. His continuing support for the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq initially alienated the independent voters who flocked to him in 2000. The positive results of the troop surge and reduction in violence in Iraq has helped him considerably.

As John McCain continues to win primary after primary, and with the Texas and Ohio contests on March 4th looking like the ones that will put him over the top in the delegate count, no one can be more surprised than the Senator for Arizona that his political fortunes turned so quickly. The roller coaster he's ridden from front-runner to left for dead to nominee is one of the more amazing stories in recent political history. While most considered him finished last year, and especially after his poor showing in Iowa, McCain always believed that he would win New Hampshire and move on strongly from there.

McCain has been a fixture of the American political scene for decades, and it was widely believed that his nomination in 2008 was a foregone conclusion. Then two things went terribly wrong for the Arizona Senator: he ran out of money, and decided supporting Bush's Iraq war policy was a smart thing to do. Yet even with those two obstacles, he has fought his way back into the race.

While most expected he would drop out, possibly before Iowa, that was never likely to happen. John McCain is a fighter, and always has been. He overcame odds most of us will never be able to comprehend by simply surviving over six years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, and he was not going to let something as insignificant as being out of money make him quit the race for President. Now, with more Republican leaders flocking to endorse him and skyrocketing poll numbers, it looks like after Super Tuesday he will be Republican nominee.

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