His come-from-behind victory to win the 2008 GOP nomination echoed McCain's prior acts of survival — most remarkably, his emergence, maimed but not broken, from the North Vietnamese prison camp known as the Hanoi Hilton. He later weathered a 1980s financial scandal that could have killed his career and endured various battles with the right wing of his party that would have sent a lesser man looking for a golf-on-the-weekends job in the private sector. Republicans seemed to calculate that if anyone in their party could survive a year of recession, war and fascination with the cool man from Illinois, a fiery warrior like McCain could. He didn't. Now that he can be an outsider again, everyone looks forward to seeing the lion re-emerge.
—John Cloud
See pictures of Barack Obama's college years.
See pictures of the Civil Rights movement from Emmett Till to Barack Obama.