Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

“No McCain fan, but….”

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Speaking as a private individual, I would not vote for John McCain under any circumstances.

Thad Cochran, the senior Senator from Mississippi, recently was able to hold his nose enough and endorse McCain after telling the world:

The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.  He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.

Olberman and Maddow note, Bush has avoided endorsing McCain, too, even as McCain has essentially wrapped up the nomination.

Many have also mentioned Coulter’s, Ingram’s, and Limbaugh’s dislike of McCain. The Republicans who breathe fire on immigration have dubbed him “Juan McCain.”

What do we make of all this?

There’s some evidence that Republicans do not do so well when they don’t nominate someone from their conservative core. (Think Gerald Ford and Bob Dole.) Polling certainly shows that McCain has not done well among this core.

How hopeful a sign is this? How can it be exploited?

Add to this that McCain took federal matching funds so until the Republican convention, his campaign may have trouble responding to a negative campaign.

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  1. The check was never cut so I think the Senator has now eschewed those funds.  I could be wrong.

      • McCain was never offered the matching funds [they’re not available until March], so he may not have spending limits; that’s a question for the FEC.

    • I don’t mean to sidetrack your post, KBusch, which is a good one.  But this seemed the best spot to drop this news.  Huckabee isn’t cenceeding WA, and the GOP isn’t explaining why they have stopped counting votes with 13% precincts left unreported (and only a few percentage points between McCain & Huckabee’s totals).  AP story here.

      • the monday papers report

        Huckabee’s campaign chairman, Ed Rollins, said Luke Esser, Washington state’s Republican Party chairman, chose to call the race too quickly for McCain.

        Rollins said Huckabee was losing by 242 votes with 87 percent of the vote counted. He said there were 1,500 or so more votes that were apparently not counted.

        “That is an outrage,” Rollins said.

        WA GOP chair Esser responded by saying

        Esser disputed the charges Sunday, calling the state party an “impartial arbiter” and saying he was confident that McCain’s advantage would hold up.

        “We have nothing but respect for Mr. Huckabee and his supporters. I was at Mrs. Huckabee’s rally in Kirkland. It’s just that we felt we had an obligation to report that John McCain won because it was the truth,” Esser said.

        The truth?  Sound more like truthiness to me.

        • Goldy over at Horsesass.org has a startling post up about the nature of WA GOP primaries.

          <

          p>Apparently there is no record mandatory keeping of participants candidate preferences, there is no indication on the delegate assignment forms which candidate the delegate is assigned to.  As the Seattle Times explains, this is because “[In Washington], the number of delegates elected at [GOP] precinct caucuses means very little in terms of which candidate will ultimately get the most delegates heading into the national convention. Delegates are ‘unbound free agents,’ who are not required to vote for one candidate over another. They can tell people whom they’re supporting, but they can also change their minds.”

          <

          p>So the announcement by party chair Esser that McCain was the winner is utterly meaningless in terms of delegates.  But it was highly meaningful if you’re trying to derail Train Huckabee.  I wonder who Esser personally supports for president…

          <

          p>As the commenter Roger Rabbit so aptly said

          Well, well … the grassroots Republicans who took the time and went to the trouble of going to their precinct cauci just discovered something we liberals have known for eons: Their party is a top-down dictatorship in which their opinions count for squat.

          <

          p>Jesus’ General has updated the WA-GOP website accordingly.

  3. A lot can happen and the race is far from over. Who knows, McCain may have some dynamic running mate up his sleeves that gives him juice. But the Dems have two candidates that are backed by enthusiastic, energetic, motivated supporters. The Republicans are lethargic on all fronts. People are still voting for Huck, Romney won the CPAC straw poll today even though he dropped out, hardly anyone is excited about voting for McCain. Christ, he can’t even get the coveted bigot vote, lol. There are a lot of “anybody but McCain” Repub voters. Couple that with the House and Senate are hemorrhaging  Republicans, I think apathy, Bush fatigue, and the inevitability of a November 2008 Dem rout are taking it’s psychological toll on the average right-leaning voter.

    <

    p>I’m starting to suspect that Repub party bosses want to see their boys get taken to the woodshed so the Dems have control. I mean we all know the “surge” was just a way to pawn off Iraq on the next administration. And the economy is going to be awful for the first year of a Dem administration. Who wants to deal with that shit? The Republicans are like the tenants whose lease isn’t being renewed so they figure might as well trash the place and let the new people deal with mess. And since the Dems are making high campaign promises and running on hope, the Repubs know no matter how well a Dem administration does, they’ll fall short of many people’s expectations and it allows them to rebuild party strength by running against Dem “failure” – failure that has been set up by Bush and co.  

    • His informants advised Russert that the reason that Romnet bailed is that the next several years may be ” real bad”.
      Whomever they is, advised Romney that the democratic party will likely take a big hit if the projections pan out and better dems take the hit than repubs. Romney can take a run at it in 2012 and point fingers at the opposing team.

      <

      p>It’sd all a hypothetical of course. But these people play the game for keeps and invest and spend billions of dollars.

      • I don’t think there was much more to it than that especially given that in order to stay in he would have to continue to dump more of his own money into the campaign.

  4. I know I sound like a broken record, but I have met many conservative Republicans from religious Huckabee supporters at Church and in my dorm to conservative Thompson and Romney supporters from my military strategy classes. All say three interesting things

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    p>1)theyd vote for Obama in a heartbeat (young college students just like the guy)

    <

    p>2)they want Hillary to win cause shes the best shot the GOP has to focus and get unified

    <

    p>3)They will never vote for McCain-except against Hillary

    <

    p>And this is something that isnt unique to U Chicago, go to conservative blogs and they are all singing the same tune. They hate McCain now mainly for immigration, but they fear Clinton more, and will hold their nose for McCain against Clinton.

    <

    p>I am telling you folks McCain is complete toast unless we nominate Clinton. These people loathe McCain and would either stay home, write in someone they like (one friend might write in Barry Goldwater even though he’s dead), or, and this is shocking, vote for Obama because they genuinely think he is honest and likable even if he is a bit too liberal for them.

    <

    p>  

    • Who is crying now

      <

      p>I realize Joan Vennochi red flag raising doesn’t sit well with your average “Dam the experience (or record) full speed ahead” support for Obama (in spite of our lesson of Deval’s torpedoing his own grass roots with the “Where is the guy I voted for?” reaction of far too many of his former supporters)

      <

      p>The Medias job is to dissect Obama (as they failed to do with “W” md) not get warm and fuzzy like this is a BradJolinna sighting.

    • one friend might write in Barry Goldwater even though he’s dead

      <

      p>The Goldwater / Miller ticket is alive and well! Why vote for men that are dead when you can vote for women who are alive? đŸ™‚

  5. In the 2006 election, there’s evidence that the corruption issue kept religious conservatives home. That’s consistent, too, with a model of how they think. Something like this (corrections please from those who know better):

     Godly men that walk in the way of the Lord and act righteously will bring forth God’s blessings on our nation. Even the good policies of the wicked are merely worldly policies; God, in his mightiness, will sweep away. 

    <

    p>Someone involved in or condoning corruption is definitely not walking in the way of the Lord.

    <

    p>How to take advantage of this world view?

    <

    p>1. Past history? McCain, of course, used to say negative stuff about Falwell and the Christian Right, but, romneyesquely, he fixed that for the 2008 election.

    <

    p>What Democrat, though, is going to run a tape saying McCain said unfair things about Falwell? Maybe a tongue-in-cheek endorsement from Democrats for Separation of Church and State in imitation of the famous Log Cabin Republican ad for Romney?

    <

    p>2. Foul language? The issues with temper bother Dobson and Cochran.

    <

    p>Perhaps that’s something that a Democratic campaign could hammer to demotivate part of the Republican base.

  6. to the poll Ryan was talking about in his post re: McCain vs. Hillary/Obama for Massachusetts.  I can’t find it and Ryan has locked his blog.

  7. According to the Faith and Freedom Network, the main problem Chriatianist republicans have with McCain is his support of stem cell research.

    I spoke to John McCain personally about some of my own concerns a few months ago.

    I asked him, one on one, “Senator, do you feel you fully understand the core social issues that are important to people of faith and evangelicals, and if so, are there any of them that you would be unable to fully support as President?”

    He said he did feel he understood our issues because he believed them himself and attended a church (North Phoenix Baptist Church) that teaches and preaches those values. He said he would have one difference with us and that would be in regard to embryonic stem cell research. I told him that would be a problem.

    I do know that Senator Sam Brownback, a committed pro-life Senator, has been walking Senator McCain through the understanding of how that conflicts with the sanctity of life. I don’t personally know where they are in that process.

    I am absolutely certain that Mike Huckabee fully supports and would do so as President all the important social issues that are bed rock important to people of faith.

    Also, the low turn-outs in repub primaries are not going unnoticed by the repubs.  As a party, they are not enthused due to the major weaknesses seen in each candidate.  

    I do know that nearly twice as many Democrats are voting in the primaries as are Republicans.

    My friend Bob Williams sent me a sample of what is happening in that regard.

    California: 3,759,422 Democrats
    2,126,338 Republicans

    N.J. 1,114,322 Democrats
    558,007 Republicans

    N.Y. 1,745,791 Democrats
    604,266 Republicans

    While this is just a sampling, at that rate it won’t matter who the Republicans nominate. That performance will ensure a victory by Clinton or Obama. Or both.

    To quote my friend, “We got creamed.”

    Not to mention that Clinton got more votes in the FL primary than the winner of the gop race, despite the fact that dem voters knew their primary votes wouldn’t even count…

    <

    p>So according to this org, differences in major “moral” issues are still keeping the republicans divided, and the ongoing division is demoralizing to the point of really impacting turnout.  SO here are two possible avenues of entry into the will of the gop voter.

    • look at the Ogonowski primary to general election vote difference.  Tsongas got like 40,000 more votes than him in the primaries, but only beat him by like 4?, 6 thousand?  

      <

      p>If you guys think that really conservative people aren’t going to vote for McCain and are just going to sit back and let Obama or Clinton get elected, it’s going to be a strong cup of coffee November 5th.  

            • 100 people showing up shocked me.  Hopefully I was able to convince everyone that Hope and Change arent concepts monopolized by the left.

          • Perhaps it was because there wasn’t really a GOP primary race in 2004. I mean, were people really rushing to the polls to cast their vote for the inevitable nominee George W. Bush? Good luck with that 578%.

            • is for people who are behind candidates who are polling AHEAD of someone else…but I mean, if you want to high horse for hillary or obama, yeah, go nuts.

              • Bush’s name was the only one on the ballot. There was absolutely nothing to motivate people to vote Republican in 2004 primary, so that makes the 578% statistic worthless.  

          • 426,316 votes were cast in the Repub race compared to ’08’s 497,531. That’s a growth of 16%.

            <

            p>Now, the Dem race in 2000 saw 543,103 votes cast and in 2004 the Dems saw 613,848. In 2008 1,254,537 voters. That’s a growth of 711,434 voters from 2000, or 130%! 16% growth in voter turnout isn’t nearly as impressive as 130%.

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