For most of the last twelve months, John McCain has been the luckiest man in American politics. As the Democrats self-flagellate their way towards an elusive nomination, he stands ready to ride a second wave of political infighting all the way to the White House. A few months ago he was an outsider in a large field of younger, better-funded and more traditionally conservative candidates. Then, in a series of peculiar misjudgments, his rivals lost their footing in unanticipated, often inexplicable ways. Fred Thompson’s allegedly Reaganesque charms never showed up; Rudy Giuliani foolishly sat out too many early primaries; old-fashioned fear-mongering brought out the Christian vote for Mike Huckabee against Mitt Romney, and soon there was enough chaos in the system for the nearly bankrupt McCain campaign to parlay an early win in New Hampshire into a Cinderella story.
