Cesspool on the Potomac
What's the deal with McCain?
News flash: John McCain pulled out a narrow victory over Mitt Romney in the bitterly contested Florida Republican primary last night, the most recent "biggest primary of primary season," and the one that pundits (and candidates) were saying would likely determine the eventual GOP nominee. You'd expect McCain to gloat, at least a little bit, right? Wrong.
"I offer my best wishes to Governor Romney and his supporters. You fought hard for your candidate and the margin that separates us tonight surely isn't big enough for me to brag about or for you to despair."
Westmonster has to confess we've reached our WTF?!? moment with the McCain campaign. McCain has always been seen as a "maverick" within his own party — if he were an MP, he'd have had his whip taken away long ago. But this is the time in this tempestuous campaign where a candidate with a lot less money than his chief competitor, who's riding a wave of momentum toward the nomination, ought to be circling the wagons. This is the time to bring the whole contest in for a landing, as it were.
But McCain is going to great pains to keep Romney in the conversation. Why?
Westmonster can speculate on a few potential reasons, but they're all counter-intuitive:
- McCain isn't yet ready to be the one the Democrats are running against.
Given his lack of money and the fact that a candidate can't start spending money earmarked for the general election until after the party nominating convention in August, McCain might need to keep the fight going for at least a few more weeks, until the Democrats choose a nominee. But he risks losing the nomination altogether if Romney gains momentum on Super Tuesday. - He needs Romney as a foil.
McCain's Republican bonafides aren't as strong as Romney's (or at least not as strong as the 2008 Romney's, if you ignore his positions as Massachusetts governor), so he feels he needs to win the hearts and minds of the party on merit, as opposed to squeaking away with the nomination on a brief swing of momentum. But Romney's going to come after him strong on immigration — McCain's weakest issue within his own party, and a big issue with the Republican base. - McCain is a nutter.
This one is self-explanatory. We're not saying he is a nutter, but it might be the only way to explain his behaviour at this point in the campaign. And if Westmonster is thinking it, you can be sure there's a raft of Republican loyalists McCain has pissed off over the years, who will be happy to make this case in public.
Westmonster is happy to watch this play out, largely because it's great theatre. McCain looks like the hero (hell — he is a hero) at the moment, but if he doesn't want to slam the door shut on Romney's campaign right now, he might be missing his best opportunity to keep this drama from turning into a tragedy.
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4 Comments
All 3 points are out.
McCain needs to make friends with the base. By appearing gracious in victory, he's trying to make up for some serious mudslinging that went on in the last days of campaigning. He's also trying to show that as the GOP candidate he will work with them instead of making a virtue of standing against them. At least, that's the narrative he wants to put out. It's all about reassuring some serious doubters.
And, of course, by appearing to be so nice he almost talks down to Romney. It's damnation through feint praise. And lastly, the ability to congratulate a loser shows an aura of being the presumptive candidate.
I agree all 3 points are out. That said, McCain doesn't have anything locked up yet and hasn't got the freedom yet to start making friends with the base. You have to dance with the partner that brung ya, and for now, that partner is the moderate Republicans that make up his constituency.
The point we were trying to make with the above post is, the most important thing for McCain to do here is turn this into "case closed." Magnanimity will have its time and place, but with Super Tuesday's landscape highly favourable to Romney, McCain may be missing his best opportunity to settle the argument here and now.
Perhaps not, but that's how Westmonster sees it.
I can understand that McCain shouldn't shoot to the base, but he's been pivoting fairly strongly (especially over taxes and promising judges as conservative as Alito). Short of suddenly saying/doing something crazy, he's got the moderate wing wrapped up and so, I believe, can afford to start reassuring parts of the base.
Also, I don't believe a verbal attempt at blowing Romney out of the water will close the case. And even if it did, it might just add more bad blood.
McCain hasn't got this formally sewn up, but in all reality he's unbeatable. With Giuliani out and also endorsing him, he'll wrap up the North East, including some important winner-takes-all states. He'll also probably take the most out of California, especially with Arnie on board. Romney can put in a decent losing showing from parts of the mid west, but not a winning one.
If all that's true, this debate is academic. But I thought I should say that for me, at least, there was no WTF moment.
Thanks.
Why is the nutter theory out?