McCain and a History Lesson

As I’ve been reading the blogs, I’ve been noticing a certain stream of consciousness concerning John McCain-and that is, that his campaign is over.

Now, I do think his campaign is in crisis, but we all might want to wait calling McCain a corpse at this time.

Let’s have a history lesson, shall we?

Back in 2003, long before a person casted a vote, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean was considered the front-runner for the Democratic nomination in 2004. He received a huge amount of media attention. Meanwhile, John Kerry’s campaign seemed to be sputtering and it seemed that he was going to lose.

And then the people voted.

Howard Dean came in third in Iowa and it went downhill from there. He went from being the presumptive front-runner to become a joke. In the end, the only primary that Dean won was his home state. John Kerry, who was considered a goner, went on to become the Democratic nominee.

I say this because we are still several months from the primaries and caucuses. In the end, that’s the only poll that matters. McCain might well implode and fizzle out before January 2008, but we don’t know that yet and it’s pretty stupid to declare him dead when no one has voted yet.

I still think McCain needs to retool his campaign to widen the base instead of pandering to the GOP as it is. And yes, I think McCain is in trouble because of trying to become the establishment candidate. But the thing is, we don’t really know what is going on in the mind of potential primary voters. People in media think they might know this, but in reality they don’t know anymore than the average joe on the street.

So, I will just sit back and not make any predictions on McCain’s future until the people have spoken. Maybe I will be proved wrong and McCain is done, but my guess is that McCain is not done yet. If this guy could survive the "Hanoi Hilton" he can survive a presidential campaign.