Barring serious shenanigans or a monumental upset, John McCain will lose the presidential election on Tuesday.
But it's not really his fault.
The 2008 election was the Democrats to lose, because -- for right or for wrong -- a majority of voters will blame the Republican party for the policies of the last eight years.
Unfortunately for him and partially by his own doing, McCain has been painted as a proxy for George W. Bush. All Barack Obama had to do was avoid a meltdown and hand over the keys to the White House.
To his credit, Obama was cool under pressure, composed under fire and he positioned himself in the center of a campaign as well run as anything Karl Rove could've orchestrated. For a change, the Democrats took a page out of the GOP playbook and executed it perfectly.
John McCain didn't really stand a chance, and as I blogged about this summer, his choice of Sarah Palin for vice president was the final nail in the coffin.
Thing is, desperation brought out a side of McCain that didn't really become him. The negativity, the weird attacks, the lame gimmicks like "Joe the Plumber" -- those aren't McCain's style, and he didn't do an especially good job of faking it, either.
Every time McCain threw a punch below the belt, he, too, cringed. He looked physically pained when he went for the jugular.
Back in the day, McCain was a politician who actually got things done in a bipartisan way, working with one of the Senate's most liberal members, Wisconsin's own Russ Feingold, to pass campaign finance reform.
But McCain's easy-going, collaborative demeanor wasn't going to win this election, considering he started out a serious underdog. He had to get ugly, and it's a shame, because at the heart of things, even lefties have to admit that McCain is mostly a good man.
Though it's easy for Democrats to forget it, McCain made two moves at the end of the race that showed his true colors.
The first, and most important, happened Oct. 10 at a Minnesota rally when McCain rebuked a crazy old lady who voiced her fear that Obama is an Arab. McCain took away her microphone and said, "(Obama is a) decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared (of) as president of the United States." That was a classy move, and though "decent" and "Arab" aren't opposites, McCain deserves a major tip of the hat for that line.
The second and more amusing moment took place this weekend when McCain appeared on "Saturday Night Live." The senator didn't just play along, as Palin did a few weeks ago; he got into the act with his own brand of self-deprecating humor.
In McCain's heart of hearts, he knows he will lose Tuesday, and this whirlwind final tour must be exhausting. For him to put in a classic late night performance this late in the game shows McCain hasn't lost his perspective. Keep in mind, too, that McCain hosted SNL in 2002, and he was really, genuinely funny.
Will these two glimpses into the man behind the political campaign change any voters' minds? Probably not. But it's worth pointing out that, regardless of your political persuasion, and despite a very ugly year, McCain's character is worthy of praise.
When Obama lauds McCain for his service to his country, he's minimizing a sacrifice few of us can even fathom. Not only did McCain volunteer for Vietnam -- something that I would have never, ever done -- he survived through years of torture, only to return to the service when he was finally released.
McCain's grainy, black and white prison camp video is truly heartbreaking, his mental and physical pain evident as he tearfully and grudgingly relays his condition to his wife. Though being a P.O.W. or even a veteran does not necessarily make McCain a more qualified president than Obama, the latter has never had to face such physical adversity. Calling McCain an "American hero" is trite, but every voter should acknowledge what he did for his country.
And I believe McCain is a true patriot, perhaps more so than nearly every president in my lifetime. To run for president indicates a certain amount of megalomania (or at the very least, egomania), and while most presidential candidates of the last few decades have had good intentions, they were in it as much or more for themselves than they were for the good of the country. Few major candidates have looked as reluctant as McCain. I believe McCain loves his country and is willing to end his political career to advance the ideologies he thinks will best serve it.
But in the end, McCain never really had a chance, and what little chance he had was spent bumbling from message to message, from "maverick" to "Joe the Plumber." He didn't spend enough time differentiating himself from Bush, and ultimately let the Democrats run out the clock until Nov. 4.
It's a shame it's come to this for McCain. Hopefully, with history and perspective as a filter, Americans will remember the senator more for the redeeming qualities of a long and dignified career -- and less for the forced, uncomfortable, ugly side that was foisted upon him in 2008.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
