"McCain can now consolidate his support in advance of Super Tuesday, with the growing perception that he will clinch the nomination."
Yes, that's what I'm hearing from some conservatives and Republicans, too--a seeming urge to declare it over, to say McCain has it all locked up. But hold on. No, this thing isn't over.
1] No question, McCain is now the front-runner. And now, Republicans across the nation will begin to digest that fact. Do they truly want McCain to be this party's nominee? Are they truly comfortable with that? Remember, the last time McCain seemed to be a front-runner, after New Hampshire, he promptly lost Michigan.
2] It's a two-man race now. Huckabee's role in this campaign, and his electablility, is obviously badly fading. If the 2008 race has shown anything, it is that if voters don't think you as a candidate are electable, your numbers tank in a hurry. I predict we'll see that with Huckabee. Where will his voters go? I can't see them going to McCain. I see them going Romney's way.
3] Romney continues to have money and organization.
4] McCain has, frankly, in my view, taken very poor positions in the past on several issues. McCain-Feingold is an unbelievable infringement on free speech. McCain has edged dangerously close to advocating amnesty for illegal immigrants in the past. In 2001 he, in my view rather petulantly, opposed the Bush tax cuts. Romney can still make an issue of these things. And frankly, I thought McCain's attacks on Romney over this past weekend, claiming that Romney had been in favor of a "timetable" for withdrawal from Iraq, was without foundation and smacked of dishonesty.
5] I don't understand why some Republicans and conservatives see McCain as the most electable Republican. Look, folks, there's a real chance Barack Obama will be the Democrats' nominee. Is that the choice we really want to present to Americans in the fall---a white-haired, elderly, cranky John McCain up against the young, hip-looking Obama selling a message of "hope" (no matter how empty that rhetoric sometimes is)? Folks, that's a terrible campaign "narrative", as the political pros would call it, and I can't see it coming out well for Republicans.
Don't be in a rush to call this thing "over." We shouldn't be in a rush for it to be over. It's far from clear that it's done, and we shouldn't want it to be done--it's not clear at all to me that McCain is our best candidate.
