Posted on 01/11/2008 11:24:25 AM PST by Checkers
If John McCain is somehow prevented from winning the nomination, it wont be because of his fellow candidates.
Last night, the rest of the field refused to lay a glove on McCain. Many conservatives I talk to still assume he will fall of his own weight. And, truth be told, the other campaigns visceral dislike of Mitt Romney is blinding them to the need for a strong voice to articulate the conservative bases deep distrust of McCain.
For McCain, a seemingly impossible confluence of events have had the effect of parting the waters for his previously treacherous path to the nomination.
First, McCain emerged from the back of the pack. The conservative establishment didnt know if this was serious or not, so they didnt organize. At the outset, Romney probably found this useful to knock off Rudy in NH. Then Rudy decided he didnt have the warewithal to challenge his friend McCain in a pro-choice, Northeastern state.
In Iowa too, Huckabee used McCain as a club to bash Romney. Romney only started attacking McCain in late December, and then only on McCains home field of New Hampshire.
Okay, I can see letting New Hampshire slip. That happened in 2000. But certainly South Carolina could be counted on finish him off for us. Is McCain getting any heat there?
Not much.
Mitt Romney has to save himself first, and hes doing that in Michigan. That probably necessitates a pivot to a more positive message. Like other cash-strapped candidates, hes counting on Huckabee to finish the job in SC. Its also probably too late for any 527s to get going.
(Excerpt) Read more at hughhewitt.townhall.com ...
The effort last year to stop McCains Comprehensive Immigration Reform is becoming very clearly to be an eruption of effort that had no basis in principle. The leader of that effort, McCain, is now being given a 100% pass in Michigan by the party’s so-called “smartest man in the room...any room,” Slick Willard.
Thanks, I am trying to tone it down because I have been guilty of it. It does no good and it stresses me out.
That's a fine excuse for the way Willard's giving John a pass.
And no, Romney does not have to win Michigan.
LOLROFLMAO
Once the true Republican primaries get underway, we will have a better barometer of this race.
Wait! You mean Slick Willard spent $50 million to lose Republican races that weren't even true primaries? That's pathetic.
Uh, cuz that didn't work in New Hampshire?
Better to run positive ads about saving the Olympics and being a native son and stuff like that. The voters seem to like the cotton candy stuff this cycle.
It is way too late for special orders. Choose from the menu.
The "alliance" is not Mitt and McCain, it’s not Thompson and McCain either. Rush had it right yesterday, it is Huck and McCain.
Thompson and McCain are still friends but parted ways sometime ago politically. If Fred still was behind McCain, he would have stayed out of the race. Thompson is not in as his “stalking” horse, that is idiotic to those who know the folks who brought Fred into this thing. Mitt has no ties to McCain at all, and indeed wants to be seen as much more conservative, so there is no relationship there.
The fact that Thompson and Romney are basically ignoring McCain is a good political play that I would not be surprised both are in on along with advisers from the RNC.
The name of the game right now for the RNC is to do away with McCain due to how much risk is involved, and Huck, well because. They will go to extreme measures, at least on McCain, to do this, but if they can force him to implode that would be the best method. One thing that is known is when McCain feels he is being ignored by his rivals, he gets testy in public, and we know what that means.
Getting rid of Huck is another matter and may create what many of us here would have thought was the strangest alliance of all, but to the RNC hacks it is gaining merit, Thompson and Romney. It is known the Mitt has a lot of respect for Thompson and Fred seems to be warming to Mitt. Watch the debates, look at how they have split their efforts.
This is a most unprecedented time for the GOP. Two of the most unlikely contenders, McCain and Huckabee, are threatening. The powers that be are not too fond of either of them (Huck has Ed Rollins working for him for Pete's sake) McCain could sink the GOP if he came unglued in the General or worse the White House (hey look the GOP put a nut in the Oval Office)
Desperate times mean desperate measure, or perhaps creative ones, it is about to get REAL interesting....
He's maybe one of those things. I wanted to jump on the Watts bandwagon several years back, but when I started paying more attention to him I started getting the feeling that there's not much there.
Some competition! The tussle between McCain and Slick Willard in Michigan is like ladies pre-school no-score flag football. They toss pink pompoms at each other and blow kisses from afar.
Because Hugh Hewitt’s blog hosted on Townhall has several contributers.
One of them is Patrick Ruffini.
Which is why the thread poster nicely provided the name in the “Author” field.
IMO, your obsession/hatred of Mitt Romney is misplaced and misguided. Look at the race objectively. Fred or Mitt are the only candidates who are at least reasonably conservative and have some chance of winning the nomination.
No, FRiend, Huck will be dispatched soon enough. He’s a self-destruct sequence waiting to happen.
But McCain and Slick Willard? Two conservatives of convenience with a lust for power? That’s a marriage made in megalomania heaven, or some such place.
Wow, why don't you tell your fellow Mitt-worshippers that Fred's surge will hurt McCain?
They are going Ron Paul Paranoid Psychotic over this!
Of course, when Fred Thompson wasnt running ads and someone said he was giving up, that was a dirty trick.
Who was that someone, Chuckie? Oh, that's right: you and your fellow Mitt-worshippers, proud member of the Romney Sleaze Machine. And what about the "Thompson's dropping out" rumor in Iowa that was traced to the Romney campaign?
Huck thinks he's going to veep to a 72 year old president. Little does he know that McCain will backstab him.
Mitt’s not a conservative, Fred is.
Your opinion seems to be shared by only a few on the fringes of the conservative movement.
It’s only just happened, but word will spread.
> McVain will self-destruct. He cant help it. <
Yes, but the question is, “When?”
If it happens soon, then so much the better. But if it happens after he wins the GOP nomination, then I pray for my country.
For VP? No need to “choose from the menu”.
H
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