Opinion: John McCain embraces the role he relishes -- and predicted he would be in

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

It was just four weeks ago that a nip-and-tuck presidential campaign seemed to pivot in the Democratic direction -- in part because of a John McCain miscue.

After a weekend that drove home the fragile state of several leading financial institutions, McCain at a rally in Florida insisted the U.S. economy was fundamentally sound -- a claim that since then has been called into serious question.

Today, at a rally in Virginia, McCain sized up the state of the race, freely acknowledged being behind in the polls, anointed Barack Obama as a front-runner who is ‘measuring the drapes’ at the White House -- and eagerly proclaimed, ‘My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them.’

The Times’ Maeve Reston was at the event and has more from McCain, including the arguments it appears the Republican will focus on during the campaign’s remaining three weeks (in summary: Obama is a tax-and-spend liberal who will bend over backwards to help unions and ‘concede defeat’ in Iraq).

As McCain -- with a smile -- cast himself in a beleaguered position and eagerly accepted the challenge, it rang a bell with us. And here’s a quote he provided reporters in late June:

So partisans on both sides of the battle can take heed -- by his own lights, McCain has plenty of time for a stretch run.

-- Don Frederick