Watching the Chris Matthew’s Show this morning, I saw Andrew Sullivan predict that after Iowa the Republicans will look around, panic, and move to John McCain. Matthews followed up by asking whether Sullivan predicted a McCain win in New Hampshire. Sullivan said ‘no’, but that he might come very close. I have come to the same conclusion.
The reason has many variables but is actually fairly simple. There are no acceptable candidates in the Republican field, but McCain is acceptable to the media and to the Washington Establishment.
When Mitt Romney gave his supposed ‘JFK’ speech explaining his Mormonism, he managed to offend the Republican Establishment. Here’s how Peggy Noonan put it:
His problem, a Romney aide told me, had more to do with a particular fundamentalist strain within evangelical Protestantism…
There was one significant mistake in the speech. I do not know why Romney did not include nonbelievers in his moving portrait of the great American family. We were founded by believing Christians, but soon enough Jeremiah Johnson, and the old proud agnostic mountain men, and the village atheist, and the Brahmin doubter, were there, and they too are part of us, part of this wonderful thing we have. Why did Mr. Romney not do the obvious thing and include them? My guess: It would have been reported, and some idiots would have seen it and been offended that this Romney character likes to laud atheists. And he would have lost the idiot vote.
My feeling is we’ve bowed too far to the idiots. This is true in politics, journalism, and just about everything else.
Noonan isn’t an atheist…she’s Catholic. But she comes from the tolerant wing of the Republican Party. While her attack was ostensibly aimed at Romney, her real target was Mike Huckabee who has been campaigning in Iowa as a ‘Christian Leader’ and using Romney’s Mormonism to rally ‘the idiots’. Interestingly, Noonan doesn’t have a problem with Romney from a policy position, nor does she feel uncomfortable about his faith. She just doesn’t like watching him pander to people that she views with contempt.
If Romney wins the nomination, especially after a bruising contest with Huckabee, it will be a miracle if he gets decent turnout from the evangelical community. Romney has severe electability problems that will only be exacerbated by the types of strategies he will need to knock Huckabee down.
Huckabee has his own electability problems…namely that his views on HIV/AIDS, women, and natural selection are so magical and regressive that the Republican elite won’t stand up for him. The prospect of his nomination is mortifying to the monied interests of the GOP.
Giuliani could theoretically forge a different kind of majority. He could compete in states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, where Republicans have had little recent luck. But that ignores Giuliani’s record and his associations. It is increasingly clear that Giuliani’s biography cannot stand the rigors of a national campaign, and his precipitous drop in the polls reflects that reality.
Many thought these weaknesses in the Republican field could be exploited by former senator Fred Thompson. Yet, recent polls show Thompson polling at 2%-4% in New Hampshire. His campaign has collapsed. Without question, the candidacy of Ron Paul is going to crush Fred Thompson and he will drop out no later than the day after the New Hampshire primary.
As for Ron Paul, he may very well do much better than people anticipate. But it’s impossible to see how he could take his anti-war message all the way to the nomination. And once we dispense with the vanity campaigns of Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter, the only man left standing is John McCain. It’s no surprise that McCain just received the endorsements of the Des Moines Register, the Boston Globe, and the Manchester Union-Leader. He will probably win nearly every media endorsement in the nation.
It won’t be easy for McCain. He is polling even with Ron Paul in Iowa and behind Thompson and Giuliani. He will have turn around a near last place finish in Iowa in a week in order to finish strong in the Granite State. And he’ll have to do it without much money. But McCain is currently polling second in New Hampshire behind Romney, and he still retains a lot of popularity from his campaign of 2000.
At some point electability has to enter into the Republican primary voter’s calculus. People thought Giuliani was the electable candidate, but that is the furthest thing from the truth. I still think McCain could emerge as the victor. And he might just be able to hold together the GOP enough to make it a competitive election…especially if his opponent is Hillary Clinton. Clinton is a strong candidate, but she’ll facilitate coalition building for the GOP.
I do not want to see a Clinton-McCain race. It’s the only matchup I think we’d stand a good chance of losing.
