McCain For President!
Posted on 01/29/2008 8:38:37 PM PST by jdm
With more than two-thirds of the precincts reporting, John McCain has won an impressive victory in Florida's Republican primary. Many people questioned whether Senator McCain could win a closed GOP contest, as up to now he had won in New Hampshire and South Carolina through the assistance of crossover voting from Democrats and independents. Those questions have now been answered, at least in Florida.
What does this mean for the Super Tuesday contests coming up in a week? It appears that the race has narrowed down to McCain and Romney. McCain will enter February 5th with more delegates, but only 10% of what he needs to win the nomination. He will have a great deal of momentum and credibility, and Romney will have relinquished some. Almost certainly, McCain becomes the favorite to win the nomination.
However, Romney has a better national organization and more resources to run in 21 states simultaneously. He can negate some of the momentum and make this a delegate chase, and could very possibly come out of next week with a delegate lead. It won't be easy, especially since the McCain win in Florida will only bolster McCain's lead in the coastal states.
If the race really does come down to McCain and Romney, then Romney could also benefit from conservative disaffection with McCain. In the GOP, there exists a very real resistance to McCain, and that could find itself focusing on Romney as the anti-McCain. It's not the most positive phenomenon, but Romney may find it essential for a national victory.
Rudy Giuliani may hold the key. Rumors have floated that Giuliani will withdraw and endorse McCain. If he does, that may be enough to push McCain even further towards inevitability -- or it may not have any effect at all. Rudy's speech in Florida strongly hinted that he has come to the end of the road. If so, we will know soon; the Republicans will debate in California tomorrow night, and Rudy won't bother to appear unless he plans to contest elections on Super Tuesday.
At least for this evening, John McCain deserves some accolades. He hung tough and showed he could beat the field in a closed primary, and not by an insignificant amount, as his vote gap over Romney already exceeds 70,000.
UPDATE: McCain, in his victory speech, made a very clear attempt to be gracious towards all of the candidates, including Romney, and reach out to Reagan-coalition conservatives. Rumor has it that McCain is considering a visit to CPAC next week. I hope he does make an appearance there and speak as honestly and forthrightly about his candidacy with the foot soldiers of conservative activism. If he does win the nomination, he will need those activists behind him.
UPDATE II: He also insists that judges must understand their limited role in applying law and not creating policy. I wouldn't be surprised if that didn't get added after the John Fund article.
Yes, I understand that. I have been watching these things a LONG time. My point was how close elections have been over the past few cycles.
There are no conservative candidates running.
I cannot argue with you there.
I’d like to say that your suggestion would work, but there just isn’t any evidence that it would. The conservative base has fought for years to get McCain to listen (on McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, etc.) and instead, he just mocks us and extends his middle finger. Why should we back him now? I know, I know, we’re trying to beat Hillary. Blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, the GOP keep shifting further away from its core values. Sorry, but I’m tired of it.
I wish CPAC would just slam the door in this scumbag's face.
Mere 2.5% switch and we get a different result.
The news from Florida is very bad. I do not see how McCain will ever win in November. I don’t think, however, that that is the primary goal of most of his establishment supporters. They want McCain to become the Republican nominee so that they can tell us that Americans don’t really care about illegal immigration, that all uproar over McCain/Kennedy was just the incitement of talk radio. When McCain loses in November, they will explain it away by saying that no Republican could have won after eight years of Bush, but we will have been effectively marginalized. The future does not look bright.
There will be a lot of humble pie eating tomorrow, Ed just got his in early.
What a choice: a big government liberal or Hillary Clinton?
I might stay home on election night at this rate. :(:(:(
Im still trying to figure out who? Who is this Conservative Base? I Just retired from the Military and for the life of me its discouraging to find so much pessimism and grief over the potential nomination of John McCain. I know my voice is no more valid for service, but its dishearten to hear so much vinegar over this. Mitt is just more unknown in his views and frankly a recent convert to many conservative principles. I don’t really see the difference between the two on most issues. In my opinion McCain is on the wrong side of immigration, global warming the Bush tax cuts and McCain Fiengold, but he is still a better candidate than Hillary. The party was fractured for many reasons in 2006. The Iraq War, suspect supreme court nominations etc. Would it have been better in the long run to have Al Gore or Kerry in the White House rather than Bush?, I don’t think so. I stuck with you guys and America for the last 22 years of Military Service, I know many of you have served and now is not the time to throw in the towel. The Republican Party has to be Rebuilt from the ground up, not the top down. Get out there and rustle up good principled conservative candidates for congress and the senate. Work to get conservative Mayors and City councils. The Republicans stormed in during the 1994 revolution. They quickly quit working hard to provide a feeder system to the congress and governorships, they became complacent. The Republican Party didn’t fail you, you failed them by becoming satisfied. Most conservatives just stopped doing the very things that helped to propel conservatives to power. You can blame the moderates and the Rockefeller’s and whom ever else you want, you should really just cowboy up and take responsibility for abandoning your posts.
Well .. how “closed” is it when the poll workers were allowing “independents” to vote ..??
This smells to high heaven .. and proves to me why I don’t like McCain and I DON’T TRUST HIM.
You completely misrepresented what counterpunch posted.
Main difference between Romney and McCain...
Romney: Moving towards to the base
McCain: Moving away from the base
It’s one thing for someone like Romney who had to deal with a state legislature that was 75% Democrat and still be able to govern as a pretty solid conservative in a very liberal state, and another to have someone like McCain, who’s odds were entirely in his favor when the Republicans controlled the House and the Senate, to purposefully sell out the Republican party.
If the Republican Party has to be rebuilt from the ground up as you say, it’s not done by rewarding someone like John McCain who’s spent the last 10 years of his life in the Senate virtually giving the Republican party the middle finger. As for being satisfied, I haven’t been satisfied for years—that’s the whole point. Why? Because the party’s been so concerned about appealing to the mushy middle voters that it’s lost sight of what it stands for. And what’s worse is that we keep voting for these crappy candidates so the GOP thinks everything is just fine and dandy. Well, I’m not going to do it anymore. McCain doesn’t get my vote.
Yep...that's for sure.
“BTW - with Hillary, the Rs will have a backbone and oppose liberal legislation. What we’ll get with McCain is exactly what we got with W - the lemming parade.”
I agree, and with McCain we’d have shamnesty passed before summer of 2009. The Senate wanted to pass it this past summer, but enough were backed off by the outcry that it failed. But with the co-sponsor of McCain/Kennedy in the WH, and few if any congressmen or senators having been defeated because of their votes on shamnesty, then they’d have no fear about ignoring any voter protest next year, no matter now loud or how many called.
For twenty or more years, voters have opposed illegal immigration and even legal immigration as much as they do now, but not enough ever make it a vote deciding issue. Seems, after all the uproar, that’s still the case. If so, we can forget winning any more battles in the near future.
Here here! Down with John Insane. If only a few percent of the conservative base doesn’t vote for McCain, he’s finished. As far as I can tell, the last conservative president we had was Ronald Reagan. What disgrace and destruction the Bush family has brought to the Reagan legacy! Conservatives like me voted for Bush Jr. in a weak moment when we were tired of the Clintons, but we have not been “satisfied” in a long time. We voted for W hoping he would be conservative; but he wasn’t and I’m not doing that again. In fact, Papa and Jr. have destroyed the conservative movement. If the Republicans are dumb enough to nominate McCain, they deserve to have President Rodham.
In which case it has to be Mitt. Huck is unelectable as President.
In 2004 when FLA was very important to the dems there were about 700K people voting in the demo primaries..
9,391,597 total registered voters — 42% Dem., 39% Rep other, 19% none
—
This year
about 1.6 Million people voted in the democratic primary
10,208,431 total registered voters — 41% Democratic, 37% Republican
3% Other
—
Can I see a source for you’re statement that hundreds of thousands of dems jumped parties to vote?
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