Man of the Year 2008: John Sidney McCain

Almost two months, but how soon others forget. Some would argue, how can you pick over Barack Obama, the first African-American President-elect? Simple: Obama had a very limited track record (e.g., no votes on Iraq to explain), a superstar launch as the keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic Convention, was the only charismatic candidate in a weak field, and outorganized his main competitor in caucus states, winning the lion's share of those. He came into the general campaign with a united party and a huge campaign funding advantage, facing a candidate very unpopular with elements of his party's base and at the same having to distance himself from one of the most unpopular Presidents since Nixon--when a struggling economy gave way to a financial tsunami, which put the challenging party at a huge advantage, and his Vice Presidential choice, a two-year governor, badly bombed in two sets of  interviews with the major national networks and never broadened her appeal beyond the media conservative base. The latter point was important because many independent and moderate voters were concerned about McCain's age, and the Palin choice did not reassure them.

But what in particular disqualifies Obama from Man of the Year consideration was the fact that he backed out of a public commitment to accept public financing of the general campaign, which McCain had agreed to. He also didn't keep his commitment for joint appearances at townhall meetings, and after promising a nonpartisan change in tone, engaged in the same old same old.

There was something noble about McCain's improbable quest. When the Democrats rejected a change in the Iraq strategy after the 2006 election, emboldened by growing frustration among the American people, McCain, who carried the water for the new strategy, lost his frontrunner status, and his organization and financial backing imploded. Adding to his woes was the 2007 immigration bill he helped sponsor, which died under a media conservative onslaught. Somehow he resurrected his campaign against better-funded candidates without a track record to defend

McCain then found one of his principal trump cards against the Democrats, the fact of the success of the Petraeus strategy and Obama's strident rejection of it from the get-go, all but ignored during the general campaign. He also had navigate the politically tricky waters of racial politics as Obama made a thinly veiled smear that the McCain campaign was going to remind folks that Obama doesn't look like those white guys appearing on the nation's currency and Congressman John Lewis accused the McCain campaign of inciting racial hatred when one person at a rally shouted "Kill him!" (after domestic terrorist Bill Ayers' name was raised by Palin), but the liberal media reported that the attendee meant Obama, not Ayers.

But those of us who were and are the true believers in John McCain--I was backing him from the get-go, even when he was riding coach and carrying his own bags and taking out life insurance to borrow campaign money--at least initially were buoyed by McCain's typical maverick swerve move of nominating Sarah Palin, but after the tsunami, the fact that Obama showed enough poise on the debate stage to hold his own with McCain, and Obama's big money advantage, it was clear that McCain wasn't going to win.

What really solidified my choice for McCain was what happened once it became clear to everyone--with most polls showing double-digit leads for Obama, that McCain's chances required an improbable string of state victories, including grabbing aa blue state like Pennsylvania. McCain, on multiple occasions, came to Obama's defense during rallies, for instance, reassuring a female attendee that she didn't need to fear an Obama presidency. And McCain's graceful concession speech rates as one of the greatest American speeches of all time.