Cross-Posted at Charlie Weis And The Chocolate Factory, where we're making the election accessible to college football fans. Go here for links to all of the candidate previews.
Much like preseason #5 Michigan, John McCain entered the 2007 season with high expectations. As a distinguished four-term senator, veteran, and POW (he can't raise his arms above shoulder-level because of torture), McCain appeared to be a giant in a field of midgets. While he had been an early leader in 2000 against George W. Bush, he suffered a bitter -- and decisive -- defeat in the South Carolina primary (someone, presumably Rove, started a whisper campaign claiming that McCain had fathered a black baby ... shockingly, this swayed a number of enlightened South Carolina voters). Michigan's 2006 season ended on a similar note, with a loss to #1 Ohio State (hahahaha ... #1 at the time) knocking them out of a potential National Championship berth. To the delight of Michigan-haters across the nation, the Wolverines followed this up by whining a lot, then bending over for Pete Carroll's USC team in the Rose Bowl.
But hey, 2007 looked bright. Henne and Hart were back, McCain's team was in place. The conventional wisdom was that both parties were experienced, battle hardened, and destined for big things.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand then things went south ... you might remember a certain upset in Week 1, and you probably helped John McCain not raise any campaign money.
Needless to say, nobody handled this particularly well.
Suddenly, the discontent started to fester. Republicans remembered that they hated McCain, a traditional Goldwater Republican (a popular breed in the Southwest, usually with libertarian leanings, especially on social issues). McCain had spent the last three years shamelessly/pathetically pandering to W, Falwell, and other assorted bigots, but it didn't take (Think Lloyd Carr toying with the spread). At the end of the day, the man just doesn't <span style="font-style: italic;">seem </span>hard-line enough on abortion, it's not crystal clear that he finds the homos distasteful ... and dear god, he doesn't hate brown people enough. Like the Michigan fan base, the Republican party had evolved (heh ... it's funny because Republicans don't believe in evolution).
And it seemed that both 'o7 Michigan and McCain would sink into oblivion, good only for a few snickers at OSU keggers or Jonah Goldberg-hosted cocktail parties (note that the respective events would be quite similar in both decorum and collective IQ of the attendees).
But after the initial period of embarrassing floundering, something strange happened: the beast didn't die. I'm sure we all remember looking in the paper in Week 8, seeing a "#15" by Michigan's name, and thinking "Wait -- what the hell?" It's mind-blowing to think about, but after losing to a I-AA team, Michigan had a chance to win the Big Ten and go to a BCS bowl (ed. note: thank God this didn't happen). After we left McCain for dead, the same thing's happening here -- all of a sudden, he's polling second in Iowa, and hanging around within striking distance in a number of early primary states. Could he really pull this off?
Now he's the party's presumptive nominee -- a feat at least equal to stomping Florida in a bowl game. The only difference is that national politics does feature a playoff ... but Obama and Clinton may be even stronger than LSU. This could get ugly.