McCain and his veiled appeal
John McCain won the Florida Primary yesterday, and before we say anything else we must congratulate McCain on a very well-won and hard-fought victory. However, in winning a closed Republican Primary, John McCain is showing that he is quite capable of winning the nomination. He is doing so because the conservative vote is still split between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. If McCain squeaks through and wins the Republican nod it will likely be because of vote-spitting between Romney, who is now picking up more evangelical support as part of a larger movement to stop McCain, and Huckabee. If Huckabee stays in the campaign long enough to keep Mitt Romney from establishing any clear momentum and thereby handing the nomination to McCain, there may be something in it for both Huckabee and McCain.Listen closely to McCain's words about and apparent overture to Mike Huckabee in his victory speech last night. To win in November McCain must do something that candidates do not normally do: To try and keep the Republican base in line, he will actually need to run to the right. We are already seeing evidence of this during occasions like his victory speech when he was making constant allusions to Ronald Reagan and to conservatism. Even the site of Rudy Giuliani's expected endorsement today has been strategically chosen-the Ronald Reagan Library. John McCain is also very much aware that in order to secure the Republican base, he must get Southern conservatives and especially evangelicals out to vote in November.
There are two candidates that appear the most likely to galvanize that voting bloc-Fred Thompson or Mike Huckabee. Expect McCain's health to be an issue in the General Election if he is the nominee (and that is far from certain just yet), and that makes the Vice Presidency extremely valuable. No one knows that more than John McCain.
I do not believe that I can promise in good conscience not to support the Republican nominee (as some others have done), and risk Hillary Clinton being elected. The McCain campaign can certainly rest assured that one Primary vote they won't get next Tuesday is my own.
Labels: Presidential Election
posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 4:34 AM
1 Comments:
David,
If McCain wins the nomination my money's on Huckabee being the VP pick not Thompson. Thompson, God bless him, didn't run hard enough (if at all) for his own campaign why would anyone think he'll run for someone elses? While Thompson clearly has all the conservative paper anyone could want and so on paper would look like someone that could shore up Sen McCain it's all just paper and not anything real. Huckabee on the other hand DOES have REAL appeal with the 'Values Voters' something that true 'red' conservatives scoff at at their peril.
Keep in mind that "Values Voters" value only (in the final analysis) their moral/social values. Other points of conservatism are important but, and this is a BIG BUT, they will ditch all that if it's a choice between those points and their 'values'. W was able, falsely in my opinion, to convience 'Values Voters' that he was one of them, and as such they have been extremely loyal. However, they owe no such loyalty to any of the Repub candidates currently running EXCEPT Huckabee; who really is a 'Values Voter' kind of guy (Baptist preacher, and so on). Of all the Repub candidates only Huckabee adds anything to whoever the nominee ultimately is.
I have no idea who the Repub nominee for President will be. I feel pretty sure it will be either McCain or Romney. However, I am fairly certain the VP will be Hackabee.
SteveMule.
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