On a side note, I guess this is the election where we put the “governors always beat senators” to rest. Richardson, Romney, Huckabee all fell by the wayside to senators.
Everything is a rule until its not, I guess.
Hopefully, now all the ABM haters will stop the exercise in futility, recognize McCain as the nominee and get behind him, and start fighting the next fight which really matters: the Vice Presidency. That’s doubtful, because based on their thought processes in the past month most of them aren’t very intelligent. Still, we can always hope.
As Republicans have shown, they like to nominate the heir presumptive, which, if McCain’s ticket wins, his VP will be. McCain will be quite old in ’12 and might not run again. So, its EXTREMELY important who he picks.
All you “disenfranchised” conservatives should be fighting that fight, and get back in the game, and get yourself something to be passionate about in THIS campaign by making it relevant to the future and get off this stupid “teach the party a lesson” crap. Never in the history of politics has that worked. Its killed a few parties for good though. Ask the Whigs.
And can we put the “Mitt Romney was more electable” lie to bed now? After getting his ass stomped yesterday, not winning a single Southern state, there is also this:
“Hillary Clinton will help drive conservatives and independents McCain’s way overnight,” said Republican strategist Scott Reed. “I believe that would be a more attractive race for Republicans.”
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney matches up far worse against the two Democrats. In polls on a head-to-head matchup with Mrs. Clinton stretching back more than a year, Mr. Romney topped the senator just twice in 77 surveys.
In 55 polls against Mr. Obama, he lost in every one. An ABC News/Washington Post poll from Friday put the senator up by 25 points.
Also, some perspective from Powerline:
To assert, as some have, that there is “really” no difference between McCain (average ADA rating from 2002 through 2006 of 23%) and Hillary Clinton (average ADA rating over the same period of 96%) is the kind of never-mind-the-facts shrillness that we expect from the Left, not from our fellow conservatives
It’s worth remembering, too, that since Calvin Coolidge, exactly one conservative ideologue has been elected President. In that context, the “nominate a purist or I’ll go home” attitude of too many conservatives is short-sighted at best.
Meanwhile, dead-ender Dan Riehl is pointing up the brag that Romney made the most cash, plus he’s still hoping Romney might deny McCain the nomination.
First off, money begets money. The reason Romney is the top fundraiser is that he has the money to solicit for money. If you can’t send out mailers, line up telephone banks, make TV ads and afford big drives for cash you won’t get any. If Romney had to start at square one like “normal” people. i.e. those who don’t buy their way into the nominaiion, he’d be out on his ass like Guiliaini and Thompson. Also, his loss in Iowa, NH, SC, FL, and humiliation on Super Tuesday is all the more indicative of his incompetence when you figure he has raised and spent so much money. I saw a pundit the other night figure out that Romney, at this point, has spent about a million dollars a delegate. Cash poor Huckabee, about 20k, McCain about 20k (he of course has over 700 now, compared to Romney not yet breaking 300. Who’s the better “fiscal manager?”.
Next off, as to Romney being able to deny McCain the delegates to win. Let’s look at the humbers: CNN currently has McCain at 660, but that’s not all the story:
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As of 2:30 pm Eastern time, with almost all precincts reporting, the Secretary of State’s website shows McCain leading in 50 of California’s 53 Congressional Districts — a result that would give him 161 of the 170 delegates at stake in Tuesday’s primary.
The AP and other delegate counts circulating this morning do not account for this, awarding McCain less than 60 so far. This means that McCain has between 80 (in a worst case) and 100 MORE delegates firmly in his camp than is currently being reported.
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http://time.com/
What this means is that McCain has at least 720 and possibly as much as 770 delegates RIGHT NOW, with almost 900 (less, actually) still available. Only one person can win, and it takes 1192 to break the mark, so McCain only needs between 300-400 of the 900 left to automatically be the nominee. Why anyone in the world thinks Pennsylvania and other big states left will suddenly forsake the front-runner and give him less than 1/3 the delegates left is just bad analysis. There’s no reason for this optimism, but I guess you can go down swinging with Pollyanna scenarios. Just don’t expect anyone to take your analysis seriously.
A realist takes the situation for what it is, reassesses and moves on to try to influence events that have not already taken place. Dan is still in the denial and bargaining phase of grief, I guess.