I wrote this as part of a series for my friend Karol at AlarmingNews.com. Reprinted here in full:

I was a Fred guy in the primaries. I worked for the Fred Thompson campaign before there was a Fred Thompson campaign. I flew down to Atlanta on my own money to help run a Draft Fred effort at the Georgia GOP Convention last May, and then moved to DC to volunteer for the campaign full time for more than a month before they finally put me on payroll. I spent last fall and winter in South Carolina running the ground game in much of the state.

I believed that Fred was the answer to the vacuum of leadership in the conservative movement. I felt, like many did, that his entry into the Presidential race and surge to the top of the polls were meant to be. He was, and is, a great leader, and a solid conservative.

When Fred lost, I was devastated. Not that I didn’t see it coming, but even when in late December it became apparent that there was almost no way we could win, I still held out a shred of hope that things could somehow turn around. Part of that was probably that I needed to to keep doing 80 hour workweeks.

But even before it was over, I knew that once Fred was out McCain was my man.

If you had told me four years ago that in 2008 I would be enthusiastically supporting McCain for President to the point that I cut a check to his campaign, I would have told you you were crazy. But I have come to believe that he is the answer to the Republican party’s current doldrums.

McCain has been at the forefront, in many ways, of the fight to return the GOP to the core principles it has swayed from. He’s been out in front on curbing earmarks, he’s been a leader on entitlement reform and budget balancing. He voted against the 2003 prescription drug bill. He is the single most responsible person in Washington for garnering the political support to turn things around in Iraq.

And of course, he is an American hero. I challenge any Republican to watch his “Man in the Arena” ad and not be proud to have this man as the standard bearer for our party.

Now, I don’t agree with him on a lot of things. But I know where those differences lie. I’m not voting for him because I think he’ll be a down-the-line conservative. I’m voting for him because I know where he stands and what he believes in, and I’m comfortable with our differences of opinion. There are others who could have been the Republican nominee whom I could not say the same for.

Granted, my decision also has to do with my intense dislike of Barack Obama and his policies, and my belief that Bob Barr is simply not a credible alternative. But the bottom line is that John McCain is a great man, and I believe he has it in him to be a great President.