Since some seem inexplicably ready to anoint McCain the frontrunner, a dubious honour at this point that I’m sure Huckabee is pleased to let someone else have, it occurred to me that these same people are usually working on the assumption that McCain would be a competitive general election candidate. Think about that for a moment. As soon as you do, I think you will find yourself imagining an election campaign like Bob Dole’s, except that the candidate will not just seem ancient, out of touch and at odds with significant numbers of Republicans, but he will also be associated with reflexive militarism and a war that remains deeply unpopular. He has the liability of being seen as too independent and unreliable by many conservatives while appearing as an angry warmonger to independents. He’s not the sort of President conservatives would want to keep at arm’s length, as Jim recommends we do with anyone from this field, but rather someone from whom conservatives will want to flee. In the event that he somehow became the nominee, he would not fare well in ten months’ time. Almost as soon as he would give his acceptance speech, conservatives would start to feel buyer’s remorse, realising that even if he wins they will have to contend with some version of his awful immigration bill year after year.
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January 9th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
tcowan
I agree–a McCain campaign would be much like Dole’s, only worse.
I think Bob Novak–in the column you cite–is way off base regarding the McCain “surge.” He sees McCain beating out Huckabee in South Carolina, for as he puts it, “there are substantially fewer evangelicals in South Carolina than Iowa.” Huh? Granted that evangelicalism may be hard to quantify, but the notion that SC is somehow less susceptible than Iowa to the evangelical pull of Huckabee’s candidacy is just plain ludicrous. Also, my hunch is that a McCain win in Michigan won’t dampen Huckabee’s chances in SC much at all.
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January 9th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Koz
I don’t think the antiwar types will hold much of a grudge against McCain for the war. He has clearly earned his anti-W bonafides and I think much of the taint of the war comes from the association with the President.
I’ve decided I can live with President McCain pretty well actually, and think that he would be a candidate in the general election that I would pretty happily vote for. I am much more scared GOP party leader McCain. Traditionally, the President has controlled the party apparatus, and that’s had pretty dire consequences under W. It might even be worse under McCain, if Republicans are supposed to pretend that they support campaign finance reform, CO2 emissions caps, liberalized immigration, etc. If the GOP could maintain its independence under those circumstances, McCain is probably a good choice.