Thursday, February 7, 2008

With Romney Out, Mccain Faces Uphill Battle Winning Conservatives

Mitt Romney dropped out of the GOP race today, ending hopes for conservatives of getting a candidate for the general election they can "live with." Former Arkansas Gov Mike Huckabee remains in the race, but his time is short. If he stays in for more than a couple weeks, it will be clear to everyone what most of us suspect, Huckabee is selfish and wants enough delegates to hold the GOP hostage for the vice-presidential spot.

As for Romney, he left with grace, giving a very well-received speech at the conservative CPAC convention. He said he bowed out for the good of the party and the country, not wanting our nation to fall into the hands of the likes of Clinton or Obama when we are facing such a serious threat from radical Islam. Romney set himself up for a run in 2012, should Mccain not win the presidency, and look for him to endorse and perhaps pledge his delegates to Mccain in the near future.

Going forward, Sen Mccain has alot of work to do winning over conservatives. Even after his nomination became inevitable, he still faced sharp criticism from talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh and others. He is also being attacked by evangelical leader Dr James Dobson, who is about to finally endorse Huckabee. Dr Dobson says that he wont vote for Mccain under any circumstances.

This leaves quite a dilemma for Mccain. He needs both conservatives and evangelicals to win the presidency. Although there is alot of crossover between these two groups (including myself), there are many differences. Mccain needs to reach out graciously to both groups and try to win the endorsements of people that both camps highly respect.

Mccain's most important move will be his choice for VP. This is a tricky one. To motivate evangelicals, Mike Huckabee would be the perfect choice. But Huckabee is considered very weak on foreign policy and economic issues by many conservatives, so choosing him would do nothing to satisfy those two branches of the conservative movement.

Fred Thompson would be a great choice for conservative appeal. He has all the conservative credentials and a very likable personality. The potential drawback is his perceived lack of energy and lack of appeal to evangelicals. In fact, Dobson had said earlier that he didn't like Fred Thompson.

At this point, Mccain may want to think outside the box and look at someone like Alaska Gov Sarah Palin. I don't know alot about her, but I'm told she is a very good-looking, articulate conservative and evangelical Christian. If I were Mccain, I'd be taking a serious look at her (in more ways than one).

Whoever Mccain chooses, he has alot of work to do to unite conservatives behind his candidacy. In the end, the one thing that may save him is his opponent, if it happens to be Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Super Tuesday Results: GOP race over, Dem Still Too Close to Call

Ok, the results tonight point to one simple fact on the GOP side, this race is over. Romney did his best, but was never able to close the sale with conservatives. Even though he was the most conservative candidate remaining, voters just didn't believe it.

Not to say there wasn't good reason for skepticism. Romney was Gov of liberal Mass. and, even if you didn't know his specific record, you would have to assume that he must have taken some liberal positions to win a statewide election in that state. He was branded a flip-flopper and his Mormonism didn't help with evangelicals.

Huckabee won 4 southern states tonight, better than expected. He did a nice job blocking for Mccain. Those two along with the "drive-by" media managed to manipulate the party of Ronald Reagan into nominating a center-left candidate. The people have spoken, and they will get the candidate they deserve.

On the Democratic side, things are just getting warmed up. Nothing was solved tonight. Clinton and Obama will come away with plenty of delegates and reasons for optimism. Obama's campaign believes the remaining schedule is favorable to them, so a "break-even" tonight is ok. We still need to see the final numbers from California to know if Clinton can claim any kind of victory tonight. Stay tuned, this thing could go all the way to convention.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Conservatives of the World Unite?

It's finally down to 2 candidates on each side leading up to the all-important Super Tuesday primary. I know there are still 4 names on the GOP ballot, but the choice is really simple: John McCain or Mitt Romney.

Let's be clear. Mike Huckabee is finished as a presidential contender. He is only in the race at this point to be a stalking horse for John McCain and angle to be vice on McCain's ticket. A vote for Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul is a vote for John McCain, plain and simple.

It's come down to a choice. Do we want the candidate we think is the most conservative or the candidate that we think can win? Do we want the guy the GOP establishment and "drive-by" media is shoving down our throats or the guy who is outside the establishment and promising to shake up Washington?

Let's take a closer look at these two. Sen John McCain has some good points. Steadfast support of the Iraq war and advocate of the most recent surge. Consistent pro-life voting record. Budget hawk, hates pork-barrel spending. Promises to reduce it. His problems are fairly well-known-advocate of amnesty for illegal immigrants, McCain-Feingold, McCain-Leiberman, etc.

The thing that makes this thing so complicated is that I honestly don't think those issues are all that major. I mean, President Bush has the exact same position on immigration, yet I had no problem supporting him in 2000 and 2004. The most recent debate this past Wednesday at the Reagan Library in California reminded people of the main reason why conservatives have a hard time supporting John McCain, he's an a**hole!

This guy is a total jerk. He beats Romney by a hair in Fla, then he acts smug and arrogant at the debate a couple days later. He seems to have this love for attacking fellow Republicans and gets off on the reaction he gets from the media. Seeing this kind of stuff incenses me and I'm sure many others and causes us to question his stability as president.

I think the reason Mitt Romney hasn't united the conservative base behind him and against McCain is simple, he doesn't have a conservative record as governor of Massachusetts. I suspect that if he did, he never would have been elected there in the first place and would have likely been thrown out of office.

McCain's accusation that Romney is a flip-flopper has stuck to a certain extent. It makes it very hard for conservatives to rally around a guy like that. Mitt Romney definitely has some great qualities, especially his business credentials, and he's got all the right positions now, but there's something missing.

I can't put my finger on it, but I just don't feel all that enthusiastic about Romney. As president though, I would definitely prefer him over McCain. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that McCain has about a 70% chance of locking up the nomination next Tuesday.

In my view, the only force that can stop McCain is the new media-talk radio and the blogosphere. Conservative talk-radio is largely opposed to McCain and I expect them to mobilize strongly for Romney this week. But is it enough to overcome McCain's advantage? In this crazy election season, anything's possible.

I do believe it's worth a shot. If McCain is worth trying to stop, and I think he is, now is the time to do it. Even if we don't succeed, if we can at least force him to reach out to conservatives and show some grace and humility once in a while, it will be worth the effort.

So now is the time. Conservatives of the world unite! If you're in a primary state next Tuesday, vote Romney!