Posted on 02/04/2008 3:56:47 PM PST by Graybeard58
To explain the startling success of Senator John McCain in the fight for the GOP presidential nomination, talk radio hosts and columnists who loathe the Arizona Senator cite an alleged split on the conservative side between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. According to this reasoning (explicitly advanced by Laura Ingraham, Hugh Hewitt and many others) if only Huckabee withdrew as a candidate, Mitt Romney could unite conservative cadres and pull out an upset victory on Super-Duper Tuesday.
Of course, Huckabee won’t leave the race (in at least six of Tuesday’s state contests he’s running well ahead of Romney) and the argument that he should rests on distorted history and illogical assumptions.
Some of my fellow commentators on the right seem to believe that the minority “moderate” wing of the party has united behind McCain because they had no other candidate, and the much larger conservative base in the GOP fatally split its votes among a number of once-viable alternatives.
These conclusions are flat-out wrong--- both about the party’s ruling conservatives and its remaining moderates.
WRONG ABOUT CONSERVATIVES
To believe that Huck and Mitt are dividing conservatives, you have to believe that Huckabee is a conservative --- which Romney, Limbaugh, Igraham, and countless others have been denying (stridently and strenuously) for months. Romney spent millions on negative ads in Iowa trying to label Huckabee as a liberal RINO—slamming him as soft on immigration, soft on crime, a big spender, a tax hiker and so forth (the same sort of attacks that they’re now applying to McCain). Fred Thompson pronounced Huckabee a “pro-life LIBERAL” and Rush delivered daily diatribes about how the former Arkansas governor was not “a conservative.” So, has Huckabee now suddenly morphed into a true conservative just to give Romniacs an excuse for the failure of their guy to rally the rightwing base?
Either the elite commentators were wrong when they labeled Huckabee a “liberal populist,” or they are wrong now when they say he’s stealing conservative votes from Romney. The only other alternative is that they view conservative voters as just too stupid to see Huckabee for what he really is.
As to the idea that rock-solid, true-blue Reaganites were divided by too many candidates on the conservative side of the party, where’s the evidence of that?
It’s true that a lot of candidates tried to rally the base but most of them (Tom Tancredo, Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, Tommy Thompson, Jim Gilmore, Alan Keyes) got absolutely nowhere.
Nor did Fred Thompson (who co-sponsored McCain-Feingold, and compiled a voting record virtually identical to McCain’s during his years in the Senate) draw significant conservative support that hurt Romney. In Iowa, where Huckabee smashed Romney by nine points, Thompson and McCain tied for third. Did Thompson really take more votes away from Romney than McCain took away from Huckabee? In South Carolina, Thompson again finished third – and Romney finished fourth. Even if every one of Fred’s votes had gone to Romney, their combined total still would have fallen 3% (40,000 votes) behind McCain.
WRONG ABOUT MODERATES
But the analysis is also dead wrong that says that McCain’s been winning because he had moderate voters all to himself while conservatives divided their support among several candidates.
Through the entire campaign, Mac has had to compete for moderate or centrist Republican voters (and independents, in those primaries where they could vote) with Rudy Giuliani. Unlike McCain, Rudy has a long background as a moderate on issues like abortion, gay rights, and gun control, where Mac has been solidly conservative. Rudy also ran ahead of McCain in virtually all polls last year, and raised triple the money the Arizona Senator managed to put together. At one point, Rudy held the polling lead in South Carolina, and was competing with Mitt Romney for the lead in New Hampshire and Michigan and Nevada.
In other words, it makes no sense to say McCain had moderates to himself while Mitt had to struggle with other conservatives – especially since Rush, Sean, Savage, Laura and countless others relentlessly labeled Huckabee as a “moderate” or a “liberal,” who would be competing for those votes with Mac and Rudy, rather than drawing conservative votes from Romney.
In Florida, McCain’s victory was all the more impressive because Rudy was a powerful factor – investing far more resources into the state, and drawing more votes (15% to 13%) than Mike Huckabee. In other words, even if you assume that Huck and Mitt split conservatives (a very dubious assumption, as noted above), then Giuliani took even more votes away from McCain. Just for the record, the allegedly “moderate” vote in Florida (McCain plus Giuliani) totaled 51% while the allegedly “conservative” vote (Romney plus Huckabee, PLUS Fred Thompson’s 1%) totaled 45%. In other words, even if you combine the votes for all the purportedly “conservative” candidates it doesn’t provide enough support to top the “non-conservatives” who backed Mac and Rudy in a very high turn out primary.
Here’s the SLAM DUNK regarding the stupid argument that if only Huck dropped out, Mitt would surge to victory:
All of the three major national polls taken in the last three days (Fox News, ABC/Washington Post and Gallup) show that even if every single voter who backs Huckabee, switched to Romney (an impossibility, of course), McCain still wins across the country. The numbers, if you’re interested, of McCain supporters vs. the combined total of Romney and Huckabee supporters --- 48 to 39% (Fox News), 48 to 40% (ABC News/Washington Post) and 43 to 42% (Gallup). Meanwhile, all indications are that for many of the Huck-a-nuts—perhaps even a majority – their second choice would be McCain, not Romney.
WRONG ABOUT McCAIN
If you can’t explain McCain’s success by arguing that there’s been a big split among the party’s conservatives, then how can the Senator’s critics come to terms with his surging campaign?
Maybe they ought to recognize the obvious – they’re wrong about Johnny Mac and his appeal.
In state after state, Exit Polls show McCain drawing substantial backing among self-described “conservative” voters. It’s true that he’s weaker with such Republicans than among so-called moderates, but he’s strong enough (drawing over a quarter of conservatives, consistently and reliably, in the divided field) to indicate that many conservatives are simply ignoring the howls from talk radio that McCain is a secret liberal.
Sure, Ann Coulter claims that Hillary Clinton is “more conservative” than McCain, and says that she plans to campaign for Hillary (won’t that be fun?). But who knows the Arizona Senator better – Ann C. (who has very possibly never met him) or the solid, conservative Senate leaders (Tom Coburn, Johnny Isaakson, Saxby Chambliss, Richard Burr, John Kyl, Trent Lott, Phil Gramm, John Thune, Norm Coleman) who’ve worked beside McCain every day for years and have come forward to endorse him for the nomination? These guys earn nearly perfect voting records from the American Consrvative Union--- Trent Lott, for instance, got a lifetime 92% (even better than McCain's 82.3%), but he vouches for his long-time colleague as a solid, courageous pro-life conservative. Fred Thompson had a less consistent conservative record than Lott (86%) and very close to McCain's, and yet commentators readily embraced him as a "consistent conservative."
As to Mitt Romney, he is certainly a good man and a good candidate and a strong standard bearer for conservatives. Those who back Mitt deserve respect, and should proudly work hard for their guy on Tuesday.
But don’t pretend that McCain is only winning because divisions among conservatives have allowed some squishy moderate to sneak to victory.
It’s true that conservatives are divided in the upcoming primaries.
Some (perhaps a plurality) back Mitt Romney, a strong conservative.
Some back Mike Huckabee, a strong (though much maligned) conservative.
And some of us back John McCain, as the strongest and most consistent conservative in the race.
May the best man win.
DITTO
Medved saying they are all Conservatives...none of them are.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA!!!
I can’t buy into that. If you’re a conservative you can’t don’t vote for McCain. No split about it. If you’re voting for join, find another descriptor to describe yourself.
In a word . . . YES. Without the split - no McCain lead.
This guy started off his show by hawking McCain today, and it didn’t let up until I turned the show off about 40 minutes later.
I can hear the swoooon in his voice over the startling McCain... Sure is good to have these half baked liberals unmasked..... winnowing of the wheat from the chaffff
my vote for Huckabee is a vote for MY voice to be heard. If a viable Huckabee campaign makes it harder for Romney, well tough nuts.
I’ve heard it said that the only reason McCain is a Repub. is because he could never win as a Demo.
Who is splitting those Conservative votes then? Huckabee, whose supporters list McCain as their second choice? Paul, who has little enough to make no real difference? Romney, who has some fooled with his mouthing of Conservative platitudes while acting on his own Liberal agenda in Mass?
But then, I’d like to see a brokered convention in the hope that the Republicans would come to their senses.
I'm voting for Romney tomorrow.
Medved is a strong McCain supporter. He admits to sharing McCain’s view on immigration amnesty, and I am convinced that is the motivation for the support. It is also why he is attacking Romney.
What I can’t understand is what is the motivation for such a desire to create 20 million new “citizens” (and thus voters)from illegals who have no genuine attachment to the country to begin with, and many of whom speak no english.
I know about the desire by some for a supply of cheap labor, but it seems to go a lot deeper.
I can only hope that he NEVER wins again as a Republican either.
Huckleberry is the McCain foil for the lying talk express.
McCain’s principle financial support group are Arizona’s Indian Tribes. They are exempt from McCain/Findgold bill and everything else. Indian money comes is BIG ..
That’s big fat DUH!
Yes, it is a result of conservatives going to ppl who could not ever win.
Hunter, Tancredo, Huckleberry, Fred
The conservatives piddled away their power by not backing the one conservative that could win, and as a result we have a big liberal rino in the lead.
Brit Hume talked about this piddling away thing....
Yes it is.
Medved was sniffing Julie-Annies dirty panties just a month ago...
what’s a michael medved?
Many people out there do not have a pundit's analysis of Huck and a detailed analysis of the issues. They just know he's a pastor who against abortion and think he's conservative based on their impression. So my guess is that yes - Mitt and Huck are splitting the conservative vote. Medvin's inside the beltline analysis is a technical one and discounts the power of perception to large numbers of people who don't spend a lot of time analyzing politics.
The writer is clueless as usual.
Of the guys who were really conservative, as I would define it at least, their voter support combined never added up to more than 12 or 13 percent. Its frustrating, but there it is.
Of course, none of them were ideal candidates for various reasons, but there aren’t any ideal candidates, you would think the flawed conservative would do better than the flawed non-conservative. But, no.
The reason, from where I sit, is that not everyone is as engaged in the process as most of us are. Most of us can recite the sins of the various candidates by heart, but most of our friends can’t, its all inside-baseball to them.
The people who like McCain, like him because he’s a vet, and he’s got that tough cranky attitude about him that makes them feel like he’s a serious man who will fight. They like Huck because he’s forthright about his faith. They like Romney because, well, actually Romney is mostly the pick of the inside-baseball people.
I’m for him. Most of my friends are split. If they follow this stuff closely, Romney does well. If not, its McCain or Huck. The more libertarian types lean McCain, the more religious ones lean Huck. If I try to explain about McCain’s shenanigans, most of them haven’t heard of any of it. If I try to explain about Huck’s weaknesses, they don’t know about that either.
So, there it is. Romney does well on FR, as did Thompson, because we’re inside-baseball. Outside of this space, McCain and Huck are battling it out and Romney’s a tough sell.
But the point, in politics, is not what the candidate actually IS, but how that candidate APPEARS to be. Huckabee is being pedaled, by himself and others, as a conservative and a staunch Christian. Most of his votes gained are on that basis.
This writer's entire thesis falls on this particular point.
Congressman Billybob
What’s startling to me is that we still have primaries in which people from other parties can waltz over and vote for our worst/most liberal candidates. Until that changes, our candidates will continue to be less than the best.
Josef Goebbels developed this form of “news reporting”,some of the candidates have refined it to an art form.
Medved is all verklempt.
Little liberal RINOs with nasal, whiny voices really turn him on.
“This guy started off his show by hawking McCain today, and it didn&t let up until I turned the show off about 40 minutes later”.
I have just stopped listening. Medved’s ego has gotten in the way of reason. He insults me when he spends 3 hours trying to make me believe McCain is a conservative.
Medved has gone back to his Dem roots and I regret I bought and read his book.
how do you figure that?
It’s too bad, but I have to agree. Whether to dem roots or not, he has at least lost his way so severely that he can’t recognize John for what he has been for years and years.
Someone who works backwards in shaping his beliefs from a first principle: what is best for Israel?
interesting point. is there any reason that mccain would be best for israel?
Oops. Roger Hedgecock’s site is http://rogerreport.com.
“I have just stopped listening. Medved’s ego has gotten in the way of reason. He insults me when he spends 3 hours trying to make me believe McCain is a conservative.
Medved has gone back to his Dem roots and I regret I bought and read his book.”
The problem with most of these radio hosts, is that when you hear them lying so hard to push their candidate, and that includes far more than just Medved, then you really hear just how dishonest and manipulative they really are.
This entire primary has really shaken the credibility of many of our varying radio host and columnists.
When this is over I will have to reevaluate my entire relationship with what I thought was a movement.
People want the original non-filtered brand of conservatism:
McCain was politically dead... A political corpse until with the surge working, Bhuto of Pakistan was assassinated in a Muslim nation with nukes!!!
All of a sudden, jumped-up John McCain was the father figure that all the frightened little fair weather CONservatives in New Hampshire, along with plenty of Independents and Lieberman Dems just dumped conservatism on the ash-heap of maybe "this is the only human that can defeat the evil goddess who uses FBI files, etc."
South Carolina's military and veterans then forgot all the offenses John wreaked on conservatism and the same important element in FL fell right in line, along with all the oldsters (of which I am one) who like "identity politics" and the rest went along with the media's "racehorse" scenario, causing the subsequent Forbes, et al endorsement bandwagon effect.
This is all going to come crashing down tomorrow and Johnny Come Lately will not understand what caused his little spurt to evaporate so totally and so suddenly!!!
I'll be happy to eat FR crow all day on Wednesday if this is proven to be untrue by midnight Wednesday.
“Medved saying they are all Conservatives...none of them are.”
What astounding ignorance! Coburn and Kyl are two of the truest conservatives in the Senate. I still hate McLame, but it’s impossible to believe that he’s as bad or worse that Shrillary. Ann is selling books.
As I said, he has made a deal to be the foil for the lying talk express, count on it.
It’s unfortunate those polls in New H ampshire showed Obama pulling ahead of hillary, otherwise McCain might not have gotten so much of the independent vote down there.
Well of course not. Huck isn't looking for the liberal vote. Why would he go after McCain's votes? Romney and Huck are sharing the Conservatives, or at least those Conservatives that are participating.
What leads you to believe that Huck's dyed in the wool pro-lifers are going to go running to a pro-abortion, pro-homo guy like Romney anyway? Far more likely that they would go to McCain, who is only slightly better than Romney in light of his fetal stem cell research, but "better" none the less.
When pressed to answer a question about illegal immigrants in his home state, Sen. McCain refuses to answer, while his supporters tell a woman who wants him to answer the question to shut up and she is thrown out of the town hall meeting. See the video here:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1073039/dont_ask_mccain/
McCain’s voting record:
Voted YES on establishing a Guest Worker program. (May 2006)
Voted YES on allowing illegal aliens to participate in Social Security. (May 2006)
Voted YES on giving Guest Workers a path to citizenship. (May 2006)
Voted YES on allowing more foreign workers into the US for farm work. (Jul 1998)
Supports federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. (May 2007)
Voted YES on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines. (Apr 2007)
Voted NO on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
Voted NO on ending special funding for minority & women-owned business. (Oct 1997)
1st Amendment - Freedom of Speech not a shield for hate groups. (Aug 1999)
NAFTA has had unambiguously positive impact on US. (Mar 1999)
Pro-NAFTA, pro-GATT, pro-MFN, pro-Fast Track. (Jul 1998)
Voted YES on implementing CAFTA for Central America free-trade. (Jul 2005)
Rated 100% by CATO, indicating a pro-free trade voting record. (Dec 2002)
Supports ban on certain assault weapons. (Aug 1999)
Guns are a problem, but so are violent web sites & videos. (Aug 1999)
Punish criminals who abuse 2nd Amendment rights. (May 1999)
Voted YES on more penalties for gun & drug violations. (May 1999)
Voted YES on reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act. (Mar 2006)
Voted YES on extending the PATRIOT Act’s wiretap provision. (Dec 2005)
McCain drawing substantial backing among self-described “conservative” voters
_________________________________________________________
All that and 34% of the vote make him a sure loser in November. All he needs is a blog, Freemoderates.com
my vote for Huckabee is a vote for MY voice to be heard. If a viable Huckabee campaign makes it harder for Romney, well tough nuts.
______________________________________________________
Your right your vote...but he drops out Wed afer his work is done.
Romney isn’t perfect by no means, but far better than the other two.
Preachers should preach, that makes they stories they tell just stories and not lies.
Medved was hawking for Huck when he was on top, then jumped onto McCains bandwagon when he moved to the top...
He never once tried to back Hunter, or Thompson!
More like herded.
Your front wheel is going backwards.
A couple of years from now, you may not have any wheels at all.
The American Experiment is over.
Thanks for letting us all hear your voice.
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