The McCain Mutiny

JustOneMinute writes about the next 7 weeks in presidential politics:

With Hillary alive, what’s next?

Hillary will spend the seven weeks prior to Pennsylvania telling us Barack is awful.

Barack will spend the seven weeks prior to Pennsylvania telling us Hillary is awful.

And John McCain, the unity candidate, will spend the next seven weeks agreeing with both of them.

How true it is. McCain spends more time agreeing with liberal Democrats than with conservative Republicans. Let us for once hear a forceful rebuke by John McCain of Ted Kennedy’s liberal agenda, or Hillary’s liberalism-induced takeover of healthcare, or Obama’s “most liberal Senator” record… and then, conservatives might just think John McCain knows the difference between a conservative and a liberal.

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Remembering our early predictions that this race will be a race between McCain & Obama… don’t get too distracted by Hillary’s wins tonight.

Rather, pay close attention to the math.

Interesting article by Jonathan Alter - who says that Hillary could win the next 16 primaries - and still lose the nomination. And Politico.com reports that Obama has been quietly (secretly?) lining up the super delegates behind him.

McCain vs. Obama - write it down.

Obama wins big. You heard it here.

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Disturbing news.

Rasmussen reports that 25% of Republicans find McCain likable. But 23% of Republicans find Obama likable.

Among all adults, not just Republicans, Obama was found to be more likable than McCain & Hillary COMBINED!

Excerpts:

“There is something about Barack Obama that is hard to capture in polling and it’s an enthusiasm, it’s a freshness, it’s an excitement he can generate that will certainly be a factor in the campaign,” said pollster Scott Rasmussen.

and this:

By contrast, likability has never been Mr. McCain’s strong suit — even long-shot Republican candidate Mike Huckabee was rated more likable in the poll, both among all adults and Republicans specifically. Mr. McCain instead is betting on his national-security credentials, and there the survey shows him topping both Democrats combined.

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Just a little more about the numbers. At 10:45 pm - FoxNews is reporting these numbers:

In Texas, my home state, Democrats have cast approximately 1.8 million votes.  Republicans have cast 900,000 votes. And even with that huge disparity, only 48% of Democratic precincts are reporting, yet 55% of Republican precincts are reporting.

This again shows a concerning disparity. The 2 to 1 ratio of Democratic Party voters to Republican Party voters has got to speak to these facts:

1. Democratic voters are fired up.
2. Obama turns out lots of voters.
3. Republican voters are not fired up.
4. McCain is not turning out lots of voters.

I’m a perfect case in point. I’m a conservative Texas voter. I didn’t vote. I intended to vote early, but there was some confusion about the early voting location. When push came to shove, I got too busy, and I simply didn’t have any incentive to go to any great trouble.

McCain must find a way to convince true conservatives that he has seen the error of his ways and is willing to lead a conservative movement. Unfortunately, there’s no sign of that occurring.

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The RNC Titanic has officially hit the iceberg and has selected and old, establishment candidate whose greatest claim to achievement is reaching out to liberal Democrats and giving them what they want.

Check in with Malkin for more details.

Meanwhile, Hucakbee endorses McCain and says:

Speaking at a rally in Irving, Texas, Mr Huckabee said: “It’s now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been but what now must be, and that is a united party.

And so its official. The Republican party chooses another Bob Dole and sets its destiny to wander in the wilderness for at least another four years. Whenever we choose these kind of middle of the road, liberal Republicans - we lose.

McCain’s biggest hope now rests in Hillary becoming the Democratic Party nominee - which still seems unlikely. Obama will  steamroll over McCain. McCain might however just be able to gather enough Hillary protest votes to squeak out a win.

Now comes the VP speculation. We’ll continue to chronicle the twists and turns throughout the rest of 2008 - and of course we’ll track the conservative rebellion against John McCain and other RINOs.

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Frank Rich in the NY Times writes an interesting editorial. There’s much to disagree with of course, but some of his analysis ought to be revealing. It ought to reveal to us just how foolish it was to select a liberal Republican who represents the Washington establishment. Whether you like Huckabee or not, he would have been a young, somewhat accomplished executive, eloquent, Washington-outsider. He would have been much better suited to running against Obama who is an inexperienced, unaccomplished Washington outsider.

Noteworthy excerpts:

You’ve got to love a guy who said a few years ago that he regretted likening Mr. Limbaugh to “a circus clown” because of all the complaints from circus clowns insulted by the comparison. “I would like to extend my apologies to Bozo, Chuckles and Krusty,” Senator McCain told a rather startled Neil Cavuto of Fox News.

What’s more, Ann Coulter and Tom DeLay aren’t entirely wrong when they bluster that a vote for Mr. McCain amounts to a vote for Hillary Clinton (or, for that matter, Barack Obama). The Arizona senator’s otherwise conservative record is closer to the Democrats on immigration, campaign-finance reform, stem-cell research, global warming, oil drilling in Alaska, waterboarding, Gitmo and, until a recent flip-flop, the Bush tax cuts. In The New Republic, Jonathan Chait concluded that Mr. McCain’s Senate votes made him “the most effective advocate of the Democratic agenda in Washington” during the first Bush term.

Read more »

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As previously pointed out on this blog, John McCain’s run for the White House is one that will meet with utter failure. The problem is simple. McCain has based his political career trying to run in the center. But the problem is simply that when he runs against Obama, he won’t have the center and he won’t have the conservatives.

He won’t have the conservatives for obvious reasons. McCain has also made a career out of sticking his thumb in the eye of conservatives and buddying up to Ted Kennedy and his likes as often as he can.

Read more »

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Interesting matter which has received some, but probably not enough attention thus far. Is McCain really this superstitious? If so, this is more than a bit concerning from a man that wants to be the leader of the free world. Are we going to end up having as President a man who must have his lucky rabbit’s foot in his pocket before he goes to meet with Putin?

Details here.

Noteworthy excerpts:

In John McCain’s remarkably superstitious campaign, where at crucial moments coins and weather and sides of the bed are all accounted for, there may be nothing that carries the talismanic power of media adviser Mark McKinnon’s hat…. But when Cindy McCain, the candidate’s wife, noticed that McKinnon had worn the same hat on the nights when he had prepped McCain for a strong debate performance and when the campaign carried New Hampshire, she proclaimed it “lucky.” From then on, when McKinnon was unable to attend key events, the hat traveled on without him and other aides took turns wearing it.

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Over at TownHall.com - Mike Gallagher writes an open letter to John McCain. The article is quite worth reading. The whole deal reminds me of why its not worth the trouble to bother supporting McCain. As soon as you do, and as soon as you start to trust him a bit - he’ll stomp all over your conservative sensibilities.

Here’s the gist:

• Mike says, “John, I’ve been supporting you buddy. I’m taking heat, but conservatives were starting to warm to you.”
• “Then, you threw Bill Cunningham under the bus for using Obama’s middle name. You’re really blowing it!”

Noteworthy excerpts:

And you know what? I sensed that I was persuading the cynics. I know you have a spotty track record on the subject of illegal immigration, but you keep saying that you’re hearing the American people now and you absolutely understand the need to secure the border. I realize that campaign finance reform is a sore spot for many, but practically speaking, that’s only a life or death issue to mostly inside-the-beltway-ers.

I could hear it in my callers. Even the most ardent McCain-basher was starting to come around. Person after person called to tell me that I was convincing them of the importance of keeping Obama or Clinton out of the Oval Office.

And then along came Cincinnati.

and this on Bill Cunningham’s introduction:

As we all know by now, he got up on stage and railed against the Democrats. He did what he does on the radio. He complained about the media’s love affair with liberal politicians and he referred to Sen. Obama by his full name.

So Sen. McCain, I’ve gotta ask: whose bright idea was it for you to run to the microphones and cameras afterwards and act as if Cunningham had smothered a puppy on stage?

Was it you, sir? You actually felt a need to formally apologize for a speaker to refer to Obama by his full name?

I spoke to Bill Cunningham right after this entire episode. As you might have heard, he is now positively furious with you. I believe his exact words were, “There is now no way I will vote for Juan Pablo McCain after he threw me under the wheels of the Straight Talk Express Bus.”

And all of this just as you were gaining some ground with a bunch of worried conservatives.

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From the Freudian-slip department store:

RICHARDSON, Texas — Maybe all the criticism from Rush Limbaugh is sinking in.

Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain almost called himself a liberal on Thursday, getting ahead of himself as he contrasted himself with the Democratic candidates.

“I’m a proud, conservative, liberal Republi- Hello! Easy there,” McCain said, laughing along with his audience at Texas Instruments Inc.

He corrected himself immediately. “Let me say this: I am a proud, conservative Republican, and both of my possible or likely opponents today are liberal Democrats.”

Read the full, rather amusing account at Foxnews.com

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