Fascinating point ... there is hope for Romney, as McCain is NOT the preferred choice of most Republican
McCain ‘won’ with only 36% of the vote.
The more conservative voters were peeling off for Huckabee and Romney - together they would be 46% of the vote.
The exit polls ALSO show:
- McCain won the proaborts (48%!!)
- Romney won the prolife voters overall, but Huck drew the strong prolife vote (’always illegal’ went 32% huck, 30% Romney)
THE CONSERVATIVE VOTE IS STILL SPLIT.
Unfortunately, Huckabee is still in the race.
So ... if you want to blame this nomination on someone, I’d make the scapegoat ... Dr Dobson! It was his embrace of Huckabee over Thompson and the far-right socon decamping from Fred and non-embrace of Romney that fractured the conservative consensus 3 ways.
McCain has just rolled up the left side.
You’d expect the secular trend to favor Rudy - nope. Went McCain.
The left, the moderates, the prochoicers - THEY PICKED MCCAIN.
I was just cursing dobson earlier today for much of the same reason.
Conservatives mostly have ourselves to blame. We didn’t rally behind one candidate; thus we splintered the conservative vote (which wasn’t nearly as LARGE a vote as a lot of conservatives seem to have deluded themselves into thinking it was), and thus “moderates” won the day.
Stupid, but our choices were pretty bleak from the beginning.