Not much of an Implosion as McCain is still a presence.

John McCain had a rough July, With what the media is calling an "exodus", McCain's key staff diminished in matter of weeks. As everyone seems to be awaiting the paper tiger campaign on Fred Thompson, McCain, oddly, is still a presence in the polls.


Senator McCain leads the pack when it comes to who Americans trust more to be commander-in-chief during a war. It seems that the rest of the field, Republican and Democrat, have avoided war talk in the hope of being pleasant enough to be elected. McCain ran into the fire with Iraq, and while overall, it has cost him, he still is the most trusted to lead our armed forces in the War on Terror.


And while Money Man Mitt is leading in fundraising, he cannot seem to get ahead of McCain in Florida polling. As the far right gets squeamish on Giuliani's social conservative flipflopping, McCain still enjoys a comfortable third place in polling. If each of these top tier candidates take a primary state or two, we might just have an interesting Republican National Convention in 2008.

After the Sunday Morning ABC News debate, it is clear that McCain is still a contender, despite the bad press. He is still the most articulate on the seriousness of Islamic terrorism, the only candidate who is serious about pork spending that will burden generations of Americans with the cash and spend mentality of Congress, and the only candidate who has been consistently conservative throughout his career. All of that, without a fraction of Money Mitt's machine in Iowa.

And of course, all of Mitt's spending in Iowa is pretty meaningless when most Iowa Caucus goers have shown a relative indifference to this field of candidates. We have a rather boring slate of flip-floppers, has been's, never-will-be's, and one constant in John McCain.

Americans ought to look to McCain's candidacy in the same manner the College of Cardinals did when choosing a successor to John Paul the Great. McCain is the most experienced, most readied, and most consistent candidate of the lot. He is senior, and may only serve a term, but that term, the "interregnum" between the neoconservative failure of George Bush and the next generation of actual conservatives, too green to lead our nation, is critical. No candidate on either side of the aisle sports McCain's resume, and right now, we need a consistent warrior for freedom. That choice is still John McCain.