Still No GOP Frontrunner; And McCain Has Most to Worry About
January 16th, 2008 at 05:03am Mark Noonan
As Patrick Ruffini points out over at Town Hall - Romney, of course, won in Michigan; the “must win” State for him…but it was how he won over McCain which really shows the mountain McCain has to climb:
Romney won conservatives 41-23%, with 20% for Huckabee.
Romney won Republicans 41-27%.
Romney won Evangelicals 34-29% for Huckabee. McCain took just 23%.
Romney won with those satisfied with President Bush 45-24%. Yes, Republicans are split 50-50 on this, but it’s easier to message around support for the party’s leader rather than opposition to him. McCain always has to tread gingerly on this to avoid angering what institutional support he has.
This is an exact replay of McCain’s weakness in 2000 - he does well with everyone but core Republicans and as the primary process is a party nominating process, it stands to reason that party stalwarts will tend to rule the roost. McCain isn’t out of the running - not by a long shot - but in order for him to close the deal and be able to compete in the upcoming primaries (which tend to be more GOP-base in orientation), McCain is going to have to offer stalwart Republicans assurances that a President McCain won’t go have a love-fest with the Democrats at the expense of core GOP ideals.
Meanwhile, Romney showed he could win a primary - he had to run as if he were running for governor of Michigan, but a win is a win…the problem for Romney is to translate this Michigan victory into a national victory; a task hard enough on its own, made harder by the fact that Michigan’s GOP isn’t exaclty South Carolina’s GOP.
It could be that after the South Carolina primary we’re faced with this oddity: Huckabee won Iowa, McCain won New Hampshire, Romney won Michigan…and we could see Giuliani winning Nevada, and then Thompson winning South Carolina. Five contests, five different winners, each with a plausible path to the nomination in front of him…and I’ll get to pat myself on the back about how prescient I was about a brokered GOP convention…
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Republicans
9 Comments
1. Pain | January 16th, 2008 at 6:31 am
“Core republicans” cannot elect a president any more than “evangelicals” can or “liberals” for that matter. The guy that could have united the party and actually beaten Hillary Clinton, who We feel is still inevitable, is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. The problem with the GOP today is the same thing that was wrong with many European governments in the 1960s the coalitions only work when power to rule is certain. As the 2006 election dust settled everyone in the GOP hierarchy from the neocons, to the big money contributors form Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Credit, to the evangelical leadership [Coe, Dobson et al. ], to the low government spending crowd, to the Imperial Democracy crowd all wanted to be up front. Now each of them have a candidate they can hang their hat on and the last time this took place in American politics was in 1968. Do you remember what happened to the Democrats then?
2. Eric T | January 16th, 2008 at 6:34 am
It was great to have the GOP come to our state and address our issues. The democrats did not even come into the state to campaign. Showing they don’t even care about our state. Hopefully the people here will remember that in November.
3. Joe | January 16th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Eric T,
It does not show that the Dems don’t care about your state. It shows that there was a dispute between the Michigan Dems and the National Dems about you moving your primary so early. It has nothing to do with what the Dems think about your state at all.
You need to read the papers a bit. I’m sure it was all over your local paper.
4. OhioOrrin | January 16th, 2008 at 9:15 am
how can Romeny, or anyone, pledge to “bring-back” auto manufacturing jobs to michigan?
why would anyone believe any similar pledge from any of these multimillionaire, north american union sellout candidates?
I want NAFTA placed on the nov ballot 4 a national referendum so the people may finally speak.
5. Bigfoot | January 16th, 2008 at 9:19 am
The guy that could have united the party and actually beaten Hillary Clinton, who We feel is still inevitable, is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California.
Governor Schwarzenegger was born in Austria, and is therefore ineligible to serve as president. Pretty hard to defeat someone if you don’t even qualify.
6. Eric T | January 16th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Joe
Huck, Mitt, and McNafta/Amnesty-man were up here offering ideas and solutions. McCain said those jobs were gone forever. Huck and Mitt disagreed and laid out some plans.
Meanwhile the dems were nowhere to be seen with a Hillary ballot. Edwards and Obama were not on the ticket. You could vote (uncommitted) if you wanted to vote for either of them. Joe that is how it went.
7. Joe | January 16th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I understand that is how it went, but it isn’t because the Dems don’t care about Michigan. it is because of the dispute why none of the Dems campaigned there. That was my point.
8. Eric T | January 17th, 2008 at 7:03 am
They moved up the primary to bring Michigan issues to get the attention of the Nation. Club for Growth of China and Mexico, and many of the Wall St people need to see the problems the people here face, from their policies of exploiting cheap labor overseas or south of the border. The democrat’s enviromentalist extremists + Hillary and Obamination recently tried to force harsh Cafe Standards on the Automakers which is more punitive measures on a struggling Auto industry that don’t need the excess punishment at a time like now, look at Ford stock at an all time low. The more centerist dems and repubs agreed on lighter Cafe standards. But the point is none of the dems bothered showing up, their really is no excuse, for the candidates to ignore what issues are facing the country. What the dems will do is just take the Republican ideas and modify them. Because they don’t have any of their own. Where was Fred T/ Rudy taking a nap, I sure won’t vote for anyone who didn’t take the time to show up and look at what issues are here in my state.
9. Joe | January 17th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Eric T, so I guess nobody in Nevada should vote for any Republicans other than Ron Paul since none of them are spending any time nor are they running any commercials in Nevada.