Took me until mid-to-late 2004.

His Daily Show appearances were so endearing... I believed the media maverick label (mostly because the right-wing was so hard against him)... He was following through on his most public vows about campaign finance reform.

It took a while for me to see the rest of McCain's platform and get around the big media boulder of "maverick". But eventually you see the data on his voting record (really conservative) and you catch on. I still think that the theoretical 2000 McCain would've been nice.