McCain's the Man (of the minute, at least)

John McCain has had a good few days, to put it lightly. The endorsements keep rolling in, including The Des Moines Register, Boston Globe, and the New Hampshire Union-Leader. New England's favorite pitcher, Curt Schilling, has joined the effort as well.
But today, the most interesting of endorsements came from the "Independent Democrat," and one time running mate of Al Gore, Joe Lieberman.
Republicans would do well to sit up and take notice (as Bill Clinton notes). McCain is almost certainly the single most electable candidate they have. He can easily hold together the "Reagan coalition" of social, military, and fiscal conservatives. Year in and year out he has one of the most conservative voting records in the Senate, but he is also well-known for his "maverick moves" that buck the party line and endear him to independents. Who else could win endorsements from Joe Lieberman (for his stands war and terror and bi-partisanship) and Sam Brownback (for his stands on life and judges) and very nearly, Andrew Sullivan, who writes:

And what these two mavericks [John McCain and Ron Paul] share, to my mind, is a modicum of integrity. At one end of the character scale, you have the sickening sight of Mitt Romney, a hollow shell of cynicism and salesmanship, recrafted to appeal to a base he studied the way Bain consultants assess a company. Paul and McCain are at the other end. They have both said things to GOP audiences that they knew would offend. They have stuck with their positions despite unpopularity. They're not saints, but they believe what they say. Both have also taken a stand against the cancerous and deeply un-American torture and detention regime constructed by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. In my book, that counts.
I admire McCain in so many ways. He is the adult in the field, he is attuned to the issue of climate change in a way no other Republican is, he is a genuine war hero and a patriot, and he bravely and rightly opposed the disastrous occupation policies of the Bush administration [the Rumsfeld strategy] in Iraq.

John McCain is known for integrity in a country hungering, I think, for some authenticity.
He will fight corruption and spending. And he is pro-life, to which Brownback's endorsement testifies. He lost a lot of support on immigration, no doubt, but now tells audiences that he has gotten the message that border security must come first, while admirably recognizing that the immigration issues will require a lot more fixing than simply enforcing current immigration laws and building walls.
The most recent polls have him rising to a mere 3 points behind Huckabee and Giuliani nationally. Here's the McCain strategy, and now more than ever, it seems entirely plausible, especially if Huckabee knocks off Romney in Iowa. Win New Hampshire and take that momentum into Michigan (where he won in 2000) and South Carolina, and then to Florida, who just might get to play the role of "kingmaker" going into Super-Duper Tuesday.
If McCain train got rolling, one question that comes to mind: Would he consider Lieberman as a running mate? That might be a little too much for the conservative base to handle in spite of Lieberman's steadfast support of President Bush, but if anyone had the hutzpah to do it, that would be McCain.
What a race, folks. Let's pray the best man wins.