The race for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination may not be totally over — but Super Tuesday was a watershed for the GOP due to the way Arizona Senator John McCain stacked up his victories: they were victories largely without rock-ribbed conservative support:
Republican John McCain won a sweeping victory on Super Tuesday even without winning the conservative base of his party, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fought to a draw, virtually guaranteeing a long and sharply contested Democratic contest ahead.
The voting in the Republican primaries solidified McCain’s position as the GOP front-runner and dramatically lengthened the odds against prime challenger Mitt Romney. At the same time, a surprisingly strong showing by Mike Huckabee in several Southern states underscored the continuing importance of evangelical Christians in the GOP.
So the Evangelicals continued to show political clout. And what about the party’s most self-avowedly proud conservatives? The ones who insist on a litmus test and feel the party would be damaged by running someone who might be considered a moderate:
Notably, though, McCain failed to make inroads among conservative Republicans at the heart of the Republican Party: More than six in 10 GOP primary voters said they were conservatives — and only 31 percent of them voted for McCain. Still, McCain’s strong showing among independents and moderates, as well as his ability to attract crossover Democrats, could prove to be an advantage if he captures the nomination.
This suggests a couple of things:
(1) Conservative talk show hosts failed in their attempt to stop McCain. A monitoring of their shows indicated that many of them had become virtually nonstop commercials for Romney, complete with
interviews with Romney, denunciations of McCain as a “liberal,” and even attacks on McCain’s wife.
(2) Many Republicans seem to have had enough of a kind of exclusionary Republicanism where a small group of talk show hosts (who in many cases own private jets and move in elite political and financial circles) can push emotional hot buttons and determine their party’s future. Rather, the vote suggested many Republicans are ready to try and find new ways to perhaps expand their party’s clearly strained coalition.
(3) If McCain does get the nomination, the Democrats will get a run for their money. He will be going to the heart of the support that helps Democrats win elections. Unless there is an authentic boycott by hard-line conservatives and those who take their lead from talk show hosts, McCain will get a wider variety of voters than a Romney or a Huckabee, and if he can get support from additional areas PLUS Republican support, he will be formidable.
(4) Huckabee’s convincing appeal, particularly in the south, now boosts the former Arkansas Governor’s stock as a viable Vice Presidential option for McCain. If McCain can offer a ticket that has wider-than-just-conservatives appeal AND appeals to evangelicals, the GOP would go into the election campaign offering voters different than a “me, too to George Bush” ticket.
(5) The fact that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservative talkers are so loudly and angrily (despite their insistence that this is only over policy and not personal) on a crusade against McCain will likely enhance his credibility with moderate to conservative Democrats and independent voters who are not fans of talk radio and the kind of rage-filled discussion that characterizes it.
And make no mistake. McCain is distrusted by conservatives. Charles Hurt in the New York Post:
RUNNING as a conservative, John McCain rolled up huge victories last night in New York, New Jersey and beyond.
But if history is any guide, the McCain we’ve seen of late on the campaign trail is the most conservative McCain we’ll ever see.
He has taken a commanding lead in the GOP primary by packaging himself as the “true conservative” committed to limited government, to slashed federal spending and to an avowedly conservative Supreme Court.
He claims the mantle of Ronald Reagan. He even claims the mantle of Barry Goldwater, conservatism’s crack version of Reagan. But as McCain clinches the GOP nomination, he will begin his usual leftward lurch.
He will return to his lifelong positions as soft on illegal immigration, skeptical of tax cuts and favoring strong federal control over things like campaign financing.
McCain’s appeal to independents and even the left is what makes him such a powerhouse in the general election.
It is also precisely what has so many in the Republican base so wildly fearful of handing him the keys to the kingdom.
If the Republican Party expands “because we have a candidate who’s going out trying to attract liberals by being like them, then the party’s going to be around but you won’t recognize it,” thundered radio king Rush Limbaugh.
The Republican Party will “be over as it exists now,” he warns.
….Still, McCain has so radicalized key conservatives that some have vowed to turn themselves into suicide voters next November by pulling the lever for Hillary Rodham Clinton over him.This last-minute blitz against McCain by Limbaugh and others, however, comes far too late.
But if those conservatives sit out the general election, they will help Democrats make history by electing either the first black president or the first female president next November.
But there is another problem for the GOP….
If McCain has come so far and he is suddenly stopped by conservatives because he is charged with being too moderate, the GOP can likely kiss needed support from moderate voters and many independents goodbye in the general election campaign. And it has been shown that parties have a hard time winning without the support of independent swing voters.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.