In response to my post on John McCain and the anatomy of an upset, candidate for the Iowa House of Representatives, and my good friend, Jamie Johnson wrote:

GUEST BLOG

WACO: You make a good comparison. Yes, the NCAA basketball circa-1980s upsets are worth pondering, especially the Volvano strategy.

John McCain is slowly and steadily rising despite the media's over-the-top coverage of Obama's Middle East trip. Don't count Johnny Mac out -- those who do usually lose. He is the closest thing to an energizer bunny that anyone has seen in modern American politics.

Remember where McCain was in the Spring of 2007? People told him to pack it in, that it was all over. He had to lay off his whole campaign team. He had to start carrying his own bags again in airports. And that was when it happened -- he reconnected with the common man, the guy who ultimately decides every election.

In the midst of all the Obama worship, we need to ask ourselves one simple question: WHO WILL THE COMMON MAN VOTE FOR ON NOVEMBER 4?

Let me rephrase it. Who will be the candidate of choice for the independent, 44-year old, white male who is married (perhaps divorced) with two teenage children; who goes to work in jeans and carries a lunch bucket; who worries about his kid's future and his own retirement; whose wife (or girlfriend) often puts only one slice of baloney on his sandwich; who loves the flag and the pledge and the soldier; who respects the Good Book, even if he doesn't always live by it; and who hates what is happening to his country.

Despite what he tells pollsters when they call, despite what he may say to union activists in the lunch room -- when he gets in the privacy of that voting booth on November 4, where only God can see him -- which man will he vote for?

Answer: John McCain. Why? Because he sees himself AS John McCain -- a survivor, a guy who everybody counted out, a salt-of-the-earth type with calloused hands, chapped lips, a slight weight problem, etc. He is the Michigan man, the Ohio man, the Pennsylvania man -- the man who, 28 years ago fell in love with Reagan, and now sees an arrogant Obama acting as if he were already anointed President.

WACO, you are right. McCain may be the political Jimmy Volvano of 2008. And if he is, who will he find to hug on election night?
~~AN IOWA POLITICIAN