Should McCain be the Favorite?

The conventional wisdom seems to be that 2008 will be the Democrats year and whether it's Barack Obama or Barack Obama (sorry Hillary) that wins the Democratic nomination; Barack Obama will be the favorite come November.

However a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found John McCain leading both Obama and Clinton.

In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46% to 40%) and Obama by 2 points (44% to 42%). Neither lead is commanding given that the survey, conducted Feb. 21-25, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Ok, it’s within the margin of error, but it’s a good sign for McCain. I came across an interesting quote from McCain yesterday in an Arizona Republic article from last March about his early years in Arizona. It goes back to his first run for Congress when he was in a Republican primary against two experienced legislators. The fact that he had bought a house in the district specifically to run for the open congressional seat became an issue and he was accused of being a carpetbagger. Someone raised the issue at a candidate’s forum "for the thousandth time" and McCain “snapped” (McCain’s words)

"Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the first district of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi."

That response apparently won him the election and the straight talk express was born. From the same article I found this other really interesting story about that election. Mack was one of McCain’s primary opponents.

Mack contacted McCain's former wife Carol in hopes of digging up dirt on McCain. An offended Carol gave McCain a heads-up about the telephone call. (She also discussed the conversation with Kolbe, who ripped Mack in a Gazette column.) McCain confronted Mack after a subsequent campaign event.McCain recounts in his book: "When the debate ended, I walked over to the opponent who had attempted to mine some little nasty opposition research from my failed marriage and told him with as much steel as I'm capable of demonstrating, 'If you ever try to hurt anyone in my family again, I will personally beat the shit out of you.'"

McCain has a reputation for a fiery temper, something not normally seen as an asset. But sometimes at the right time it can work for you.