Posted by
Ryan Hawkins on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 7:16:09 AM
After a victory in Florida, it looks like McCain is now the true front-runner on the GOP nomination. The opposition to McCain winning the nomination has been intense, but it has also (up to this point) been fairly divided. There are two possible paths that can result from McCain's January 29 victory in Florida:
1. McCain gains unstoppable momentum that carries him to the GOP nomination; or
2. The opposition to McCain now has one clear alternative: to unite behind Mitt Romney.
Conservatives win on the latter. As noted in earlier posts, McCain has a consistent record of turning his back on conservatives. This does not come without consequences, and McCain cannot expect conservatives to blindly line up to support him just because he manages to pull off the GOP nomination. Conservatives (as Mark Levin observed) still need to find a way to forgive McCain for
- McCain-Kennedy;
- McCain-Feingold;
- McCain's opposition to the Bush tax cuts;
- McCain-Lieberman;
- McCain-Kennedy-Edwards;
- The McCain philosophy of drug Re-importation;
- McCain's support of the ACLU; and
- McCain's repeated calls to close Guantanamo Bay.
This isn't a record that's easy for conservatives to swallow...it certainly needs a lot of explaining and definitely requires a lot of forgiveness before the GOP base will show up in support of McCain in November. I am even hearing chatter in the blogosphere from conservatives that perhaps another Democrat in the whitehouse is the only means of getting the GOP to return to its conservative roots. For these reasons, I am very pessimistic about McCain's chances in November. [Given the potential for the next president to make three to four Supreme Court appointments, the timing for such a "GOP object lesson" would be terrible.] On brighter note, I suppose it is possible in November that McCain could draw enough support from moderate and independent voters (much more likely in a McCain-Clinton race than in a McCain-Obama race) to offset the lack of support from right-wing conservatives (even though that consideration provides plenty of additional things to worry about.)
Either of the two paths shown above seem like reasonable possibilities at this point...but I think we will see immediately (over the next five or six days) whether the latter starts gaining traction. If the latter gains traction, I'd expect the Romney surge to continue rampantly and perhaps even a new influx of Romney endorsements from fence-sitters. (James Dobson - are you reading this? I know you aren't wildly excited about McCain's opposition to a federal marriage amendment...this might be your maximum-impact opportunity to sway the political scene toward family values.)
Perhaps a few hefty endorsements for Romney would be impeccable timing that might really throw some momentum toward the latter path as well. If Romney were to get three or four such endorsements this week, I think McCain would have a real fight on his hands that I'm not sure he could win.