Previous Next Latest

The State of The Republican Race

1/30/08, 4:00 pm EST

John McCain is clearly in the driver’s seat after dramatic win in Florida last night.

  • Romney outspent him 10:1 in the ad war, but McCain still won a five point victory in the Sunshine state.
  • Giuliani is dropping out and endorsing, leaving McCain uncontested for the Maverick/Warmonger vote.
  • Huckabee is still in this race and poses a double-threat to Romney. Huck erodes Romney’s support among churchgoers in Southern states if he stays in. But if he drops out, he’s likely to angle for a McCain veep nod; expect him to fall in line behind McCain when he departs.

Romney’s not yet toast.

  • He can rightly claim he’s the one guy who consistently wins among Republicans. In closed primaries, that gives him an outside shot. (But the biggest closed primary is California, and Ahnold seems set to back McCain there.)
  • If he wants to get ugly, the fact McCain’s margin of victory came from the Hispanic vote last night could allow Romney to stage a nativist swan song. The fact that Bay Buchanan is one of Romney’s chief advisers suggests the campaign may not shy away from that race-baiting fight.

But…

  • The winner-take-all aspect of McCain-friendly states like New York, New Jersey, Arizona and Connecticut makes a delegate battle tough for Romney.
  • More trouble for Romney: Far from being seen as the outsider/agent of change, now he’s viewed as the status quo Republican, per the exit polling. Voters who were happy with Bush and happy with the economy pulled the lever for Romney. The angry-with-Bush “change” vote gravitated toward McCain. This suggests Romney’s sunny, optimistic ads about reviving the economy may have seemed out-to-lunch for GOP voters getting jittery about a recession.

Fundamentally this race is going to come down to three factors.

  1. How much money is Mitt willing to spend.
  2. How strong is the anyone but Mac coalition?
  3. And how well does McCain the insurgent transition into McCain the frontrunner?

The answers are going to have to be

  1. A shitload
  2. Rabid
  3. Worse than even his doubters suspect

for Romney to remain competitive in this race.


Previous Next Latest

Comments

Rap Music Kills | 8/22/2008, 2:49 am EST

I’d rather be called a “neo-con” than a liberal any day. ANY DAY.

Because I don’t say things without backing them up as if my affiliation expects me to just be a blind megaphone-of-a-zombie like you fools.

At least I am not an anti-pluralist, so drenched and dependent on media propaganda. I know the intellectual history of American politics, and I would like to know how a liberal can sleep at night.

Jeugenen | 2/2/2008, 9:19 pm EST

MC-CAIN ENDORSEMENTS BY CLOSET NEO-CONS

Neo-Con Senators, Neo-Con Representatives, and Neo-Con Governors who managed to get elected by passing themselves off as Conservatives are now exposing their true colors to endorse McCain.

Their support of amnesty for the illegal Mexican labor horde, the sacrifice of children by their mothers, the sacrifice of the wealth and blood of the American People for Israel, and the McCain-Feingold attack on internet freedom of speech are a betrayal of God and Constitution.

If they stand with McCain, they shall fall with McCain, as the mortal enemies of Conservative America. Their fate shall be a date with the Republican firing squad.

Google: Mearsheimer Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy; Stricherz Why the Democrats are Blue; Wall Street Journal McCain-Feingold; Human Events Ron Paul Interview; Who Would the World Elect.

Uncontested warmonger?! | 1/31/2008, 4:43 pm EST

Tim, I am not a journalist, but last I checked, each and every candidate (at least out of the ones you and the rest of MSM deem worthy to mention with any regularity) are all in favor of sustaining this occupation and have no plans to change our foreign policy in regards to future wars, occupations and other aggressive forms of intervention. Democrats and republicans both all contest the war monger title, save one man which you have so obviously intentionally left out: Ron Paul.

losing hope | 1/31/2008, 4:33 pm EST

Kucinich was the only one left that had any shred of integrity amongst the democratic party candidates, now I fear that this obvious exclusion by MSM towards Paul will finally do away with the last candidate of any party worth voting for.

Silly me, I thought that maybe the system wouldn’t win this time around…

ray | 1/31/2008, 11:56 am EST

i must not be the establiishment, id like to see Obama vs Mc Cain-Huckabee, i dont care who Obamas VP is. At least Mc Cain worked with the Democrats on some issues when Delay and Rush bad mouth Him they help Him more than hurt. Obamas my first choice but my opinion of Mc Cain has gone up since last year.

David... | 1/31/2008, 11:25 am EST

McCain wins Florida!

Wow.

…and a big “thank you” to all those preprogrammed computerized voting machines.

This is only the beginning…

Jed Clampett | 1/31/2008, 10:22 am EST

Don’t count your chickens just yet gentleman. If I was going to rig an election I would do it at the time when there is the greatest possibility of hiding it, say, if I grouped a bunch of primaries in one day where it would have the greatest impact to attack a few select machines instead of the whole system. Affecting just the right machines would easily put someone who would otherwise have lost into the top spot. The establishment want Romney/Clinton contest… what do the people really want? will we ever know? can the main stream media do anything more than masturbate themselves into a frenzy over non issues? Tune in to the next episode of ‘BizzaroLand: The Selection’.

DirtyDennis | 1/31/2008, 8:53 am EST

Merk,

Yes to all. But if it becomes clear that McCain is ‘it,’ he will ‘make nice’ and the bosses will all come aboard. As will Huckabee to address the issue you posed. And to make the faith-based South happy.

I can hear them now, “He won’t last the first term and Huck will become Prez with two more to follow.” They’ll eat it up.

And if HRC should win, get ready for the ugliest campaign yet. You KNOW the Right Dirt Machine is primed and ready to go. Hell, they’re PRAYING for her to win so they can let loose the dogs. (Okay, okay, too many metaphors.) And we know the Clintons will fight back, just as dirty. And when some of Johnnie’s youthful piccadillos are aired, the TV ratings will skyrocket.

And you can bet the bosses know all about his past as well. The fight THEY want, and believe they can win, is Romney/Clinton. They don’t want to face Obama. It means they’d have to reload the dirt machine and there would be too much potential backlash in attacking him. Not so much in attacking her.

LC | 1/31/2008, 3:01 am EST

It’s a breath of fresh air to know this blog isn’t just another hardcore, kool-aid-fueled, liberal/sp smear site. Keep up the good work, Tim!

(Ron Paul blows.)

Anonymous | 1/31/2008, 2:59 am EST

It’s a breath of fresh air to know this blog isn’t just another hardcore, kool-aid-fueled, liberal/sp smear site. Keep up the good work, Tim!

(Ron Paul blows.)

Merkwurdigliebe | 1/30/2008, 9:20 pm EST

and Romney has the benefit of being favoured by the republican establishment, and will benefit from their machinery…a machinery that has worked in the past two elections with Bush

as for the angry with bush crowd, the it wont really matter if Hillary gets the nomination…the “anybody but hillary” crowd will hold their noses and vote for whomever, Romneyh or McCain

I dunno about McCain though, to me, he just doesn’t look like he’s in good shape physically, i dont see him lasting too long if he gets elected to office

paul f | 1/30/2008, 7:52 pm EST

romney started with zero name recognition so it would be expected that he would need more adds to do well.

romney has consistently out-raised all other republicans. leveling the idea that he is just spending his own way through this race is false.

wheresyuros | 1/30/2008, 5:49 pm EST

What about Ron Paul? I guess coming in second in LA doesn’t mean anything in the south. You can bet that ol’ pauly will win the south.

Tim I used to like reading your blog everyday but your no different than all the other corporate media. I mean not only does Rollingstone not mean anything in music you political column blows too.

Who do you work for you douche bag

Post A Comment

Caution: Off-topic comments will be deleted

Name:

Comments:



Advertisement

Advertisement