Q: How does one identify the Republican presidential front-runner?
A: He's the one flipping the GOP's religious conservative base the bird in stereo.
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Seems like years ago that Texas Governor George W. Bush gave his speech to the Manhattan Institute attacking the religious right and eviscerating House Republicans for their lack of "compassion" for the "poor." Seems just as distant when he had several new orifices torn in him for his efforts.
I realize that five months is an eternity in politics, but how on Earth did W get so submarined that he's now clinging to that very same religious right for dear life? The answers are many - and horrendously inbred.
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The easiest conclusion to draw is that, to borrow a sports metaphor, GWB started believing his own press clippings, and campaigned in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary as if he already was the GOP nominee. He played it safe, avoided controversy, stayed up on the stage and away from the crowds.. And never saw John McCain coming. With the results that we all know: and eighteen-point blowout upset.
Or perhaps I should say he never saw McCain and the Democrats coming. Because without the latter, the former would already have been shipped back to an Arizona nuthatch.
Bush's complacency can account for the margin of McCain's New Hampshire victory, but not the victory itself. And that is just the beginning of the problems inherent in the "maverick" senator's out-of-nowhere insurgency.
It is an established fact that Democrats and so-called "independents" are exploiting these early "open" primaries to try and subvert the Republican nominating process. The wonder is that it hasn't happened before. In the first six contests, Bush has been competitive for or dominant in the Republican vote in five of them (McCain's home state being the exception - why Bush squandered a couple mil trying to compete there is anybody's guess) yet only had three wins to show for it. And the difference was New Hampshire, which was mostly Bush's fault, and Michigan, where he was simply screwed.
I don't know whose bright idea "open" primaries were, but isn't a serious problem at least hinted at when a primary election draws record GOP turnout, as in Michigan, and still over half the total votes are cast by non-Republicans - and virtually all of them go to McCain? And there are still those who scoff at this?
It's no deep, dark conspiracy. Democrats in every open primary state have been openly encouraging their supporters to switch registrations just for the GOP primary so they can vote for McCain, and then switch 'em right back. In Michigan Big Labor leaders, the Detroit public education establishment, and a number of black preachers did so to retaliate against Governor John Engler, a big Bush backer, for his rescue of the Detroit school system from their corrupt incompetence. And they succeeded.
Even Al Gore was getting into the act, recently drawing a favorable comparison between himself and McCain on Medicare in a swipe at his one-time rival, Bill Bradley.
Of course, there are limits to how far Dem tampering can go. In most states Republican primaries/caucuses are still "closed," and just last week Gore tore into McCain AND Bush as being two sides of the same coin.
The question at this point becomes what the Democrats hope to accomplish. And I can think of several things:
This one is usually laughed at, since current hypothetical polls show Bush even with Gore but McCain beating the Tennessee toothpick by twenty points or more. Or course, "Sailor" is the latest fad. Bush had his turn at the meaningless political yeast machine too, don't forget.
But I think a case can be made for this one. There's certainly dirt on McCain on which the press hasn't yet broken ground, from the Keating Five scandal to the betrayal of his sick (and steadfastly loyal) first wife for a sweet young thing, to the questions about his Vietnamese imprisonment. It can be safely assumed that Gore, as vicious as he is, would go after all that and more, which could, with McCain's temperment and arrogance, prompt multiple meltdowns. Whereas Bush as already undergone months of public anal examinations without any significant skeletons being dislodged, or any public fits of pique.
Also, to the extent that issues would matter (which isn't much), there's much less daylight between Gore and McCain than Gore and Bush. Which means Gore would have to lie even more about McCain (as he is currently about Bradley), and that would infuriate the senator even more, with potentially disastrous results.
A very likely possibility. It'd be hard not to resent that, especially given how willing and witting and accomplice McCain has been in this scheme thus far.
Not unlike the conservative Goldwater insurgency in 1964 that took the GOP nomination from the flower of the then-Party establishment, Nelson Rockefeller. After Barry clinched the nomination, Rocky & Co. gave him the finger and left him to be massacred by LBJ in the fall.
Much the same way McCain has been kicking the party base in the collective groin for months. 'Tis doubtful they'd support him with much enthusiasm, if they did so at all. And for those who think that they'd "have no place else to go," I remand you to the 1998 mid-term elections for proof of how conservatives WILL stay home if one of their supposed own crosses them.
This one pretty much speaks for itself. Look at the last few years: McCain supports Dem-style campaign finance reform, he was a big sponsor of shaking down Big Tobacco, he favors expansion of Medicare and the status quo on Social Security, he opposes significant tax cuts, he's a bane of the religious right, he's now suspect on social issues. If the Left has to lose the White House to a Republican, with "Sailor" they wouldn't lose much.
And…
See #2 above. Even if McCain could somehow eke out a November win, it wouldn't be on the strength of energized Republican grassroots support. And there's no way the slim Republican majorities can survive if the party base doesn't turn out en masse.
McCainiacs would counter that fear of Al Gore would be plenty of motivation. But the same was said repeatedly of Bill Clinton, and that never manifested itself. People still need something to vote FOR, not just against. And for most Republicans, John McCain clearly doesn't fit that bill. And I believe the Democrats know it.
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But okay, you feel uncomfortable discussing Democrat mischief-making. So let's talk about Senator McCain himself.
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