Twelve of 13 available national delegate spots went to Paul supporters
Saturday. They join the 20 Paul supporters among 24 delegates elected
previously at GOP congressional district conventions. The Paul forces
might have made a clean sweep Saturday, but for Paul backer Don Huizenga
stepping aside to assure U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a former
presidential candidate, a seat with her state's delegation.
What's the big deal about that? Well, the Paulbots, frustrated at the polls, are turning their attention to state conventions, attempting to steal the nomination.
Consensus delegate projections for Ron Paul:
Safe Paul (14); Texas, Alaska, Washington, Oklahoma, Nevada, Colorado,
Minnesota, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, South Dakota, Montana,
California
Likely Paul (3); Hawaii, Idaho, Virginia
Leans Paul (4); West Virginia, Missouri, Michigan, New Mexico
Ron Paul delegates to the RNC will support the nominee. However,
integral to that support is holding the candidate and the party to the
fundamental principles of limited government and personal and economic
freedom. Constancy to principle is the ultimate loyalty.
Note, however, what he carefully does not say: Ron Paul delegates to the RNC will support Mitt Romney. They have no intention of supporting anybody other than Dr Paul. Their goal is to get to the convention, change the rules so that they are not bound to the primary winner in their state, and subvert the will of the Republican voters.
Ron Paul supporters are committed, and they ought to be. They are determined to win this nomination by hook or by crook, and so far crook seems to be leading.
Here's a suggestion that Mitt Romney run for the late Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate.
Surprisingly enough, this brings things back full circle to Romney, who up to now has been busy laying the groundwork for another presidential bid in 2012. It would be an intriguing thing if, after waiting a day or two out of respect for the late senator, Romney were to downshift and announce he will be a candidate in the upcoming election to fill Kennedy's vacant Senate seat.
Such an announcement would likely be embraced immediately by the Republicans, who would like almost nothing more than to deny Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada his new, hard-won, 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. As a self-funding candidate who has already been elected once statewide, Romney has nearly 100 percent name ID. And, in an environment where President Obama seems to be dragging the Democrats down, he would be a serious threat to the Democratic hegemony in Massachusetts's congressional delegation. Meaning Romney likely would win.
Well, you can probably spot the fly crawling rapidly towards the ointment in that last sentence; it's the word "likely". Romney's a talented politician; so talented that he almost won the Senate against Ted Kennedy back in the 1990s. But he also almost won the presidential nomination in 2008 by running as the "real conservative" in the race, something that would seem impossible to overcome in Massachusetts.
There's talk about how Kennedy's funeral will turn out to be Wellstone II; don't count on it. Remember, Wellstone I came during a favorable year for the GOP, just before the election that gave the GOP a 55-45 vote majority in the Senate. Indeed, Wellstone I was unsuccessful as Norm Coleman took his seat (only to lose it to that idiot Franken).
Romney doesn't need the seat to have credibility with the GOP, and it's silly to suggest that he'd be the favorite to get to the Senate, while he just may be the favorite to get the GOP presidential nomination for 2012 already.
Don't Blame Me, I Voted for the Loosertarian Candidate
Not the dumbest thing Stacy McCain has said, but right up there.
Yes, and how did this happen? Because I voted for Bob Barr in Maryland? I think not. The GOP nominated as its presidential candidate the only candidate in the primary field for whom I could not vote. (S. 2611.) The most electable candidate in the Republican field, Mitt Romney, quit two days after Super Tuesday.
The most electable candidate in the Republican field was the guy who couldn't win in the Republican primaries? How ironic is that?
As I will eventually tire of pointing out, McCain did better than the GOP candidates for Senate in 2008. So far from McCain dragging down the GOP, the GOP dragged down McCain. I can understand why some people want to ignore this, but I don't understand why we should listen to them when it is quite obvious that they are wrong, and when they contributed to Obama's victory with their constant carping about how the GOP's candidate was completely unacceptable.
Unlike Stacy McCain, I will pledge here and now to support the GOP's candidate in 2012. Even if it turns out to be Ron Paul.
Despite a slew of negative press this fall about Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) running mate, online gaming site Superbook.com puts Palin’s odds at 3.5-1, the best among Republican hopefuls.
Other top GOP contenders include former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose odds are set at 4-1, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, at 5-1.
As I pointed out earlier, VP candidates on losing tickets their first time around are very poor bets to win their party's nomination the next time around. In fact, I went back to the 1930s and couldn't find a time it happened.
I like Palin. But as Allah points out, 2012 is likely to favor the Democrats, barring a Jimmuh Carter term for Obama. If that looks like the case, expect the younger players to sit it out, leaving room for Romney or some dark horse candidate like Charlie Crist.
Major reports going out that Governor Romney will drop out of the race today at CPAC and (one hopes) throw his support behind Senator McCain.
Plans to say during CPAC speech: “If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win….”
I have been critical of the gov in the past, but he's always struck me as a sensible, highly intelligent man. I don't know whether the bitterness of the campaign will rule this out, but I would strongly urge the McCain campaign to consider him seriously as a Veep nominee. It would go a long way towards bridging the divisions in the party.
We've all had a terrible time the last few months, even those of us who've backed the (now almost certain) winner. I'll freely admit that I've strained relations with many wonderful people in the blogging community with my sometimes intemperate defense of Senator McCain, and for that I apologize. It's not in my nature to back down from an argument, but certainly I have taken things too personally.
This certainly gives McCain a huge opening to praise Romney to the skies in his own CPAC address. It also means that any TV coverage today will focus on Romney's speech and not McCain's which is probably a very good thing.
I’ve got to believe that his speech will be a stemwinder about conservative values and fighting the good fight, all very much with an eye to creating a memory he can leverage four years from now. Shrewd, if so.
Frankly in this time of a war, I cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.
This isn’t an easy decision. I hate to lose
not just about me…i entered this race because i love america. i feel i have to now stand aside.
We cannot allow the next president of the United States to retreat in the face of evil extremism.
Just One Minute explores the theme of whether anti-Mormon prejudice in the Southern Baptists might explain Mitt's inability to connect in the South:
I'm sure Huckabee would be delighted to be the nominee or even the VP but I suspect that throwing sand in Romney's gears was a big part of his mission.
That's reading a bit too much into it in my opinion. Huckabee's always seemed like a guy who was running to win the nomination, and he's a credible candidate, winning several states. He has not been able to connect in the North. More than anything, I think Huckabee's antagonism (and McCain's) towards Romney has to do with the negative advertising they were subjected to. Patrick Ruffini, a Romney supporter noted this the other day:
Specifically, it seems to me that the conservative establishment’s decision to go nuclear first on Huckabee (who never had a shot but speaks for voters we need in November) before McCain (who always had a shot but speaks mostly for himself) will rank as a pretty serious strategic blunder.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s campaign accused Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee of “a backroom deal” that gave the early Super Tuesday win in West Virginia to Huckabee.
Gasp! You mean they engaged in politics? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
How To Lose Friends And Influence People to Despise You
Mitt Romney and his people are just not ready for primetime, and they continue to prove it on a daily basis. Yesterday, Bob Dole released a letter to Rush Limbaugh saying that McCain was a true conservative and a fine man. Now I'll admit that I winced a bit at the letter, because it just reinforces one of the dumber memes out there, that McCain is Bob Dole II. I talked about this last night.
But the letter has paid unexpected dividends. Asked about the Dole letter this morning on TV, Mitt Romney committed an unpardonable and foolish blunder:
Mitt Romney had this to say about Dole:
He is "the last person I would want to write a letter for me. ... McCain's (campaign) is a lot like Bob's campaign (was)."
"Governor Romney's attack on Bob Dole is disgraceful, and Governor Romney should apologize. Bob Dole is a war hero who has spent his life in service to this nation and nobody has worked harder to build the Republican Party. Bob Dole deserves the respect of every American and certainly every Republican.
"Governor Romney denounced Ronald Reagan in the mid '90s while Bob Dole was working tirelessly to elect Republicans across the country. Governor Romney was missing from those fights when I was standing with President Reagan and Senator Dole to build the Republican Party.
"Governor Romney is trying to divide the Republican Party and his disparagement of one of our Party's greatest leaders is a sad commentary on Governor Romney's increasingly bitter campaign."
Exactly. How politically tonedeaf is Mitt Romney that he doesn't realize that while it's fine for bloggers and other idiots to make that comparison, he has to rise above the fray? The proper response was a simple, "Bob Dole is a fine man, but I respectfully disagree with him, because of X, Y and Z." And he's onto his talking points about how liberal John McCain is in his opinion. Instead he insults a fine man who had ZERO chance of beating Bill Clinton in 1996. It's absolutely moronic, and symptomatic of a campaign on life support.
[R]eports from my friends at Team Romney indicate a tough fight in a competitive three-way race for 72 delegates in Georgia — the third-largest Super Tuesday state and the largest of the states with a proportional distribution of delegates.
The problem for Romney in Georgia is simple: Some voters are too stupid to understand that, at this point, a vote for Huckabee is effectively a vote for John McCain.
“They don’t get it,” a very tired Romney volunteer told me of her encounters with Huckabee voters. “They hate McCain, but they’re voting for Huckabee, and it’s the same thing.”
LOL! Is that amazing or what? Let me point to the latest polls from Georgia, where Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are locked in a tight race for second. In fact, in the latest poll Huckabee is tied with McCain for first. Can you imagine the gall of the Romney campaign to think that the Huckabee supporters should give up because it helps Mitt Romney?
Romney supporter: I'd like to try to convince you to change your vote from Huckabee to Romney.
Huckabee supporter: Why don't you change your vote from Romney to Huckabee?
Romney supporter: That fundie nut! He's a liberal!
While looking over the Florida exit polling on the GOP side, I noticed something that does not bode well for Mitt Romney. Here's a look at the second choices:
The first interesting thing here is that McCain not only won Florida, 36% to 31% for Romney, but he also was the second choice for most of the voters, 20% to 19% for Romney and 19% as well for Giuliani. Now the second interesting thing to realize is that McCain had fewer voters who could pick him in second place, because so many of them had already chosen him in the first position on the ballot.
Think about it for a second. McCain got 36%; that means that 64% of the voters were able to pick him in second place. This indicates that his 20% of all voters choosing him in second actually made up 31.3% of the total that he could possibly have received (.20/.64). I ran the numbers and here are the results:
This certainly indicates that as candidates drop out, McCain should continue to do better. Unfortunately the polling doesn't show us directly who the second choice was for, say Huckabee supporters. It tells us the opposite; looking at the top line, for example, we can see that of the 19% who chose Giuliani in second place, 5% chose Huckabee as their top pick, 46% picked McCain, 2% selected Paul, and 47% voted for Romney. So it takes a little calculation on a spreadsheet to tease out the second place choices for each candidate.
Let's illustrate with John McCain's line. We know that 20% of the voters in Florida chose him as their second pick. Since there were roughly 1.92 million voters, that means that 384,000 picked him second. Of those, 24% were Giuliani supporters, or roughly 92,000 voters. Ditto with Huckabee. Ron Paul's supporters and the Fredheads each gave him another 3800 second places, while Mitt Romney's partisans showered McCain with 188,000 "silver medals". The total works out to be 380,000, a little off the expected 384,000 due to rounding in the percentages, but nothing to worry about.
Now do Romney's total. He got 19% of the second choices, or roughly 365,000 votes for that position. He picked up 25% of those votes from Giuliani supporters, or 91,000. He garnered 19% of his second places from Mike Huckabee's fans, or 69,000 votes. The McCainiacs donated 51% of Mitt's #2 votes, or 186,000. Oddly, the Ronulans really liked Mitt; they gave him 4% of his total, or 15,000 votes.
Well, you can probably already see the key figures in there. Huckabee's supporters split their second choices as follows:
McCain: 92,177 Romney: 69,325 Giuliani: 18,243 Thompson: 16,131 Would Not Have Voted: 11,522
John McCain was the very much the second choice of Huckabee supporters, by a fairly wide margin. This certainly does not validate the claims by Romney supporters that Huckabee's mucking up Romney's shot at knocking off McCain; if anything it indicates precisely the opposite.
Problems? The totals do not add up for any of the candidates. Huckabee's supporters according to this tabulation, recorded 207,398 selections for second place, including would not have voted, while his actual vote count was about 260,000. So there appears to have been some sort of leakage; possibly voters who got tired of the exit polling after awhile and declined to continue to answer? I note that the problem exists for each candidate; there are about 20% of the voters who did not indicate a second place candidate no matter whom they picked in first.
The calculations indicate that Giuliani voters were about evenly split between McCain and Romney for their second choice. If the Romney forces really want to get somebody out of the race, they should focus their efforts on Ron Paul; this poll indicates they would pick up about four votes for every one that McCain would receive from the Ronulans. Of course, that's still peanuts because Ron Paul isn't picking up many votes to begin with.
I tend to believe the Mitt of 1994 on this issue. People forget that George Romney, his father, came out against the war in 1967:
On August 31, 1967, Governor Romney made a statement that ruined his chances for getting the nomination. In a taped interview with Lou Gordon of WKBD-TV in Detroit, Romney stated, "When I came back from Viet Nam [in November 1965], I'd just had the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get." He then shifted to opposing the war: "I no longer believe that it was necessary for us to get involved in South Vietnam to stop Communist aggression in Southeast Asia," he declared. Decrying the "tragic" conflict, he urged "a sound peace in South Vietnam at an early time." Thus Romney disavowed the war and reversed himself from his earlier stated belief that the war was "morally right and necessary."
The Romney campaign’s February 5th math is simple: move all the voters from the Huckabee pile onto theirs and claim a majority of conservatives. Unfortunately, it’s just not that simple.
What do you mean, not simple? Just move the pile! Now note what's not said at all; what the Huckabee pile is going to receive in return; one suspects that it's the chance to help Mitt Romney over the hump. Now of course, it should come as no news to anybody that Mike Huckabee isn't interested in this game. He has on many occasions expressed his admiration for Senator McCain, and his disdain for Mitt Romney. What was the phrase the other day; that Mitt had just reached political puberty as a conservative?
Patrick Ruffini, who's one of the brightest minds in politics, looks at the polling data and sees little evidence that Romney will be successful in wooing the Huckabee fans:
There is a message in these returns to conservatives busy soldering together the coalition below decks: do not assume that just because they’re all pro-life, that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham speak for the social conservatives Romney needs next Tuesday. They don’t. Being pro-life and pro-marriage is not enough. To understand what Huckabee voters want, you need to actually appreciate what Mike Huckabee brings to the table, which is an emphasis on faith, undiluted. Many conservatives, particularly those around here, do not. While many of us agree on the social issues, the conservative establishment resented how he injected his religion into the campaign. Never have I seen conservatives so readily repeat the Barry Lynn/ACLU line on the “wall” between church and state.
Yes, indeed it was certainly instructive to see how few of the yakkers and bloggers are quite as Christian as they claim when faced with a real Christian Conservative who looked like he could win the nomination. The response was almost as hysterical as the reaction to John McCain. And believe me, the Christian Conservatives noticed, especially when it became obvious that the commentariat were pushing a Mormon as the "acceptable" candidate.
And who reached out the olive branch and said Mike Huckabee's a fine guy and would make a good candidate? Why, it was Michael Medved, also notable as the only major radio talker who supports John McCain. What an idiot Medved was, right? LOL. I get the feeling Michael Medved has played some chess in his life, and knows how to think more than one move ahead. As Ruffini notes:
Specifically, it seems to me that the conservative establishment’s decision to go nuclear first on Huckabee (who never had a shot but speaks for voters we need in November) before McCain (who always had a shot but speaks mostly for himself) will rank as a pretty serious strategic blunder.
McCain has also gone out of his way to be gracious to Huckabee. Now to a certain extent that was because their interests coincided; McCain needed Huckabee to knock off Romney in Iowa, and Huckabee needed McCain to knock off Romney in New Hampshire, so that the two of them could slug it out in South Carolina. But of course they didn't slug it out; instead they became friends. I keep saying this, but you cannot imagine the personal charm that John McCain has. Everybody who interacts with him likes him.
Many conservatives underestimate this. They attribute McCain's obvious popularity with the media as some sort of dastardly trick intended to lure us into nominating him, just so they can wheel out the "too temperamental" charge. I myself have said (wrongly) they like him because he can often be counted on to criticize other Republicans. But I have come to realize that they like him because they like him. He gives them access like they've never had at this level and stage of a campaign before.
And it permeates his style and his campaign. All the reporters talk about how if they have a question for the Senator on the bus or the plane, they just walk up to his seat and ask him.
He gives bloggers access like reporters probably dream they'd have with Obama or Hillary. I have participated in over a dozen blogger conference calls with the senator and have been able to ask a question in over half of those, including last Monday, before the vote in Florida.
You know when Mitt Romney had his first blogger conference call? Yesterday. Fred Thompson had one as well, just as his campaign was going down. But McCain's had them when he was up in the polls, when he was down in the polls, when he'd won a terrific victory and when he'd suffered a setback.
I notice on RealClearPolitics that the Republican race is closer than the Democratic race, both in delegates and in the national poll.
Is anyone writing off Obama?
Should Republicans allow themselves to be stampeded by the MSM into accepting McCain as the winner before the race if over?
Denial is not just a river in Egypt. Let's look quickly at a couple of the February 5 contests. McCain leads by 12.5 points in New York, and 17.3 points in New Jersey. Both of those states are Winner-Take-All. McCain appears to have those states in hand, unless Mitt starts crying. New York has 101 delegates, while New Jersey offers 52, so that's an additional 153 delegates that are virtually in the bank. California has 173 delegates, but the state is not winner take all, rather candidates win delegates in each congressional district. McCain currently leads the polling in the Golden State by 32-24 over Romney, but that's with Giuliani in the race. If we assume rather arbitrarily that Guiliani's roughly 12% support goes half and half to those candidates (not much overlap in Giuliani's supporters and Huckabees), then McCain's at 38, Romney 30. Just on a proportional basis that would indicate McCain should get at least 66 delegates, quite probably more.
Missouri? McCain's up by 3.6 points in this winner take all contest with 58 delegates, and he's up over Huckabee; Romney's 7 back. In Georgia with 72 delegates, Huckabee's up 5.7 in the average, but the latest poll has McCain up by 11 over both Romney and the Huckster.
There are very few places where Romney is winning; looking now I can only see Massachusetts and Utah, and arguably Maine, although Ron Paul is strong there. So the news on Tuesday night is that Romney wins where he should win, while McCain wins the big prizes.
Okay, back to the more amusing stuff. The LA Times reports the shocking news that Ron Paul outraised all the other GOP candidates in the fourth quarter. Of course, anybody who knows anything knew that, what four weeks ago? You know back before people actually started voting?
Well, it's official, ladies and gentlemen. Believe it or not, Rep. Ron Paul, the 72-year-old Texan who hardly ever gets mentioned in Republican political news and the one-time libertarian who always gets the least time on TV debates if he isn't barred completely, was, in fact, the most successful Republican fundraiser in the last three months of 2007.
Now, of course, since New Year's Day, the news has not been so good for Dr Paul. Get these comments from the Ronulans:
Ron Paul was constitutional, when constitutional wasn't cool.
As a 42 yr old first time voter, and Ron Paul supporter,
I appreciate the refreshingly honest and fair article.
I'm sure it will be by far the most clicked on. :)
Posted by: Steve | February 01, 2008 at 02:50 AM
A 42-year-old first-time voter? Can you say, Loser?
As Ron Paul supporters have known since New Year's Day and BEFORE any REAL voting had even occurred, Ron Paul has raised more money than the rest in the 4th quarter & is spending it! $20 million in the 4th quarter. $3.5 million so far this quarter. And it was all from individual donations averaging less than $100. No PACs. Unlike the others he is beholding to nothing but the Constitution. Yet he has been ignored by the MSM! I wonder why?
Maybe because of his performance AFTER any REAL voting has occurred? The guy got 3% in Florida.
Meanwhile, Wallet Mitty is apparently in a fight with Ron Paul for Maine. Yes, Maine.
Mitt Romney's the only other Republican giving the race any attention, grasping for a positive headline among the drumbeat of McCain endorsements and wet kisses from newspaper edit boards. And, like in Nevada, some of the Paul organizers will be battle-hardened veterans of Iowa and New Hampshire. The level of love for McCain is closer to New Hampshire than to Nevada—McCain won 44 percent in the March 2000 Maine primary. But early reports from the Ron Paul Forums, from Paul supporters who've been hitting the caucus sites, suggest that Paul is headed for second place behind Romney. (Romney would much, much prefer McCain hit second place: For the narrative he wants, beating Paul is like running up the score in World of Warcraft.)
Sources familiar with Romney's plans said the ad buy would exceed $1 million in California alone, enough to give the former Massachusetts governor a presence in much of the state. Romney also was expected to spread some money around to some of the other 20 states holding GOP primaries or caucuses Tuesday, though experts question whether the late advertising would have any impact.
Mitt Romney's decision not to purchase advertising in Super Tuesday states is a very good sign for the campaign. It shows that Mitt is confident he can win those states without spending any more of his personal fortune. I hope that you are all contributing your hard-earned dollars to Mitt's campaign because he really needs to pay back the money he owes himself.
Talk radio will continue to propel Romney to victory after victory. If Mitt wins every Super Tuesday state by 10 points, I have done calculations that show he will only be one hundred delegates shy of the total needed.
Update: Even better news! Mitt is now talking about running ads in California. I now expect Romney to win every congressional district in California and sweep to victory. Of course, I expected that even without the ads, but this shows that he's committed to winning.
It probably wasn't needed, but if Rudy Giuliani needed any extra motivation to enlist in John McCain's presidential campaign -- and thus probably hinder Mitt Romney's bid for the Republican nomination -- he got it Tuesday night.
Faced with his distant third-place finish in the Florida primary that he spent the last two months -- to the exclusion of virtually any other campaigning -- trying to win, Giuliani appeared before his supporters in the state to deliver what obviously was going to be his swan song. All the cable news networks were broadcasting it. And then Romney stepped on his message.
Giuliani was about two-thirds or so through his remarks, reaching the part where he would sum up what he had tried to accomplish in his White House quest, when Romney, the night's second-place finisher to McCain, began giving his concession speech to his backers. The cable stations cut to him -- Giuliani, after all, had collapsed as a viable candidate, while Romney clearly was still in the fight.
Smells like victory. Now, I know that there are lots of people out there telling you that it's not over, that there's still a way to derail the Straight Talk Express. I'm here to tell you they're whistling past the graveyard, digging for the pony, looking for the silver lining.
But it's true. When the campaign comes here to Massachusetts on February 5th, I'll proudly cast my vote for any option on the GOP ballot other than You-Know-Who. But it will be a futile gesture. Mr. "1/3rd Of The GOP Primary Vote" is going to be the nominee.
Sour grapes only give you acid reflux.
As I noted in an email to some friends, Mitt is going to take a long, hard look at his chances and decide to bail. His pockets aren't deep enough to get him over the hump in the big winner take all states next Tuesday. He's way, way down in New York and New Jersey, even before we factor in the likely endorsement of McCain by Giuliani, or the bounce the Senator gets from Florida. In California Romney's more competitive, but it's not WTA; it's congressional district by congressional district. I do predict smashing wins by Romney in Utah and Massachusetts next week.
Some are sifting through the tea leaves in Florida, trying to claim that some nefarious schemers allowed independents to vote in the Sunshine State. Captain Ed does a good job of debunking that theory.
Sounds like they're waiting for the other shoe to drop:
Time's Mark Halperin notices that, while Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton -- and, within a few hours, even John Edwards -- are running ads in February 5 states, Romney and other Republican hopefuls are not. While John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are probably out of money, Romney, as he has done throughout the year, can write himself a check.
But instead of getting a head start on his rivals, Romney remains dark in Super Tuesday states. Campaign spokesman Kevin Madden says the campaign is going according to plan, though. "It's our goal to be competitive in all these early states," he says. "You can make the case that you have a growing level of momentum" heading into February 5.
Romney is an astute businessman, and one of the first rules of business is that you don't throw good money after bad.
My prediction is that McCain wins by about five points. I feel much more confident today than I did last Saturday, before South Carolina.
Looks like Florida is about to get on the bus! Rasmussen, which only yesterday had Romney up by six, today reports the race dead even, and that's the worst news for McCain. Almost all the other pollsters show McCain up a couple points.
Bill Clinton attempted to sandbag McCain by talking about how much Hillary and he like each other; Drudge kept it on his front page all weekend (in his continuing effort to prop up Romney).
I seem to recall, however, from one of the debates earlier this year, Mr. McCain making reference to Senator Clinton's attempt to spend $1 million of taxpayer money on a Woodstock Concert Museum to honor what McCain called a "cultural and pharmaceutical event." His good-natured mockery of the Woodstock Concert ended with, perhaps, the most memorable line uttered by any candidate so far this year:
"I wasn't there. I was tied up at the time."
In fact, Bill does not want McCain to be the Republican nominee, because he knows McCain would school Hillary in any foreign policy/defense debate. I'm not guaranteeing a win in the general election; prospects are mediocre at best for any Republican candidate in this atmosphere. But McCain has the best chance of winning as John Hinderaker notes today:
Barring a surprise in Florida, Republican primary voters and caucus-goers on mega-Tuesday will face a stark but classic political choice: do they go with Romney, whose views across a broad range of issues are more palatable to conservatives and whose economic expertise may be badly needed, or with McCain, who seems pretty clearly more likely to prevent the Clintons from re-inhabiting the White House? It's not an easy choice. We'll have more to say about it in due course.
