The Jedi Candidate

John McCain seems to be emerging as the front runner in the crowded Republican field.

This is interesting on a number of levels.

This last summer his candidacy was considered all but done. As a result he abandoned Iowa and focused on New Hampshire. This strategy worked and coincided with the rise of Huckabee and the perceived demise of Romney. As a result the establishment which didn't take to kindly to those uppity religous folk pickin' one of there own, started to welcome McCain back into the fold. Remember that the McCain-Train of 2000 was the outsider candidate. Of course in 2000 he was as establishment Republican as they come, often referring to himself as a Reagan Republican. It was just that he didn't always vote with Tom Delay or his brothers in the House that made him a rebel.

Which brings me to the 2000 election. You may recall that McCain scored some early victories, including New Hampshire, and seemed poised to knock off the Bush juggernaut (oh, how things could've been different.) Then South Carolina came along, Bush sicked Rove on those poor people and scored a victory for his boss.

The next day speaking in front of high schoolers in Michigan, John McCain gave his usual stump speech about being trapped inside the Death Star (read Bush) and how he was Luke Skywalker trying to blast his way out (I always wanted to be the Wookie for some reason.)

Except, that day he was kind of angry and had a Howard Dean moment (before Howard had his.) You can read some of the text here or watch the video below. (Credit to good old Michael Moore for including this on one of his DVDs. By the way, he added the song by Rage, not McCain's camp.)

Some in the blogosphere have been pointing out that McCain does quite well nationally against Hillary and Barack. In fact (if you can believe polling data) he would probably win if the election were held today and he was up against one of those two. Scary.

This brings me to my last point, the significance of the lazy Fred Thompson. Yesterday he had an aid announce that he was dropping out of the race, (one that he was never really in, figuratively and literally) which, as the Votemaster (one of my favorite pundits out there) pointed out is actually good for democrats. This is because he was drawing votes from Huckabee and Romney. Now that Thompson is out, the thought is that those voters will go to either Huckabee or Romney, and with the glut of winner-take-all states fast approaching, this could be the necessary boon to either Huckabee or Romney (sorry Thomas) and a knock out McCain. This is good for dems because both Hillary and Barack mop the floor with either Huckabee or Romney (plus Thomas would have a lot more to blog about if Romney somehow won the nomination.)

So here's to the Jedi and his attempts to get out of the Death Star.