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.

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