McCain-Huckabee: The Ticket From Hell
Filed under: 2008 elections, John McCain, Mike Huckabee — Rick Moran on February 11, 2008 @ 12:39 am CET
Mike Huckabee continues to win southern primaries, taking the Louisiana contest yesterday while also demonstrating strength in the bible belt by taking the Kansas caucuses. Not only does the Huckster reveal his strength by winning these races, at the same time he shows the entire world McCain’s crippling weakness.
The frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president cannot win the base of his own party.
Losing the south in November would be tantamount to a realignment. Regardless of which candidate wins the nomination on the other side, a northern Democrat will have defeated a Republican in the south for the first time since 1960 when John Kennedy won 7 southern states, including all states in the deep south except Florida (Alabama ended up splitting its vote in the electoral college). To say that would represent a sea change in electoral politics would be a huge understatement. Without the south, Republicans may as well get used to the idea that they will be a minority party for a very long time.
McCain’s problems have gone far beyond the tactical necessity of winning over conservatives. He faces a strategic dilemma of the first magnitude. And Mike Huckabee isn’t making things any easier for him.
Huckabee is making the case loud and clear that he deserves the second spot on the ticket. By embarrassing McCain in the south, Huckabee reveals McCain’s electoral dysfunction - and his desperation. His well-known appeal to independents is based on the fact that he is not a doctrinaire, hard core conservative. What would happen to his independent/moderate base if he were to choose a rabid social conservative like Huckabee whose past statements on everything from gays to women’s rights leave the ticket wide open to devastating attacks by the Democrats?
Such a ticket might help in the south. But everywhere else, it would damage McCain’s own base of support among the indies thus causing him to lose states that he will absolutely need in order to defeat the Democratic nominee.
If one were to overlay a map from the 2000 election on top of a map from the 2004 election, you would see that it is almost identical. Only one state switched from red to blue and 2 states from blue to red.
But McCain’s problems come into stark relief if you were to overlay a map of Democratic gains in the 2006 mid terms. The mountain west states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada are looking bluer all the time. Iowa seems lost as does Ohio. The GOP has virtually disappeared in the northeast. Meanwhile, those blue states got a lot bluer.
In practical terms, McCain has a whole lot more territory to defend than his opponents. This frees the Democrats to target those states mentioned above and perhaps some others in the upper south like Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri.
Only McCain’s appeal to independents might yet save the day because Republicans, with McCain running, will have some rich targets of their own to go after. Suddenly, the upper midwest - where Bush lost some very close races - looks to be in play. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and perhaps even Michigan might be had for the taking. Pennsylvania also becomes a possible GOP target. And with McCain’s popularity in New Hampshire, New England comes back into play for the GOP.
All of that might be moot if McCain is forced to choose Huckabee as his running mate. This is not to say that the Arizona senator shouldn’t choose a good conservative - I think that’s a foregone conclusion. But a conservative with a lot less baggage would be better than a Huckabee whose shameless pandering to the religious right would not sit well in states where McCain has a chance for a breakthrough.
So McCain’s dilemma is simple; does he choose a running mate who can help him in the south but hurts him elsewhere? Or does he choose a candidate whose impact on the south is unknown but will almost certainly aid him in blue states?
No doubt they will ponder those questions in the McCain camp long and hard before reaching a decision.
1 michaelreynolds
February 11, 2008 @ 1:11 am CETI won’t say it’s likely that I’ll vote for McCain. But I could. I could never, under any circumstances, vote to put Mike Huckabee any closer to power.
2 Andrew Ian Dodge
February 11, 2008 @ 1:22 am CETCould not agree more.
3 Dodgeblogium » What is Huckabee playing at?
February 11, 2008 @ 1:24 am CET[…] interesting insight on this problem can be found at […]
4 Tom Quinn
February 11, 2008 @ 2:49 am CETRepublicans are victims of their own shortsightedness. Instead of backing the blow dried manequin, Mitt Romney, who tried to buy the presidency; they should have supported Hukabee from the beginning. Romney’s gubenatorial record of pro-choice, pro gay rights, etc. speaks for itself. Yet, when he changed his talking points and made all the right sounds, the "conservatives" fell for it hook, line and sinker.Trouble is, most Americans saw through it.
Rush, Hannity and the rest of the "conservative" talking heads wasted valuable time and energy attacking or ignoring Hukabee, who has proven that his has grass roots appeal by winning as many delegates as he has without immense amounts of money.
And now they lament the dilemma they are in with McCain as the front runner. They shouldn’t have been fooled by Romney. Anyone can win a significant portion of the early delegates if they have 50+ million of their own money to throw away.
If Conservatives had backed Hukabee earlier with the same enthusiasm they gave to Romney, he would probably be in a position to win the nomination instead of McCain.
5 Tully
February 11, 2008 @ 6:37 am CETThe frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president cannot win the base of his own party.
News Flash: The evangelical faction is not "the" base of the GOP. It is but one part of "the" base, and there are many others. Even Michael Reynolds’ simplistic (and nevertheless fairly accurate) reduction can’t get it below three. If McCain couldn’t win "the" base, he wouldn’t be the frontrunner–or "the" base is too small to worry about. Take your pick.
But after the nominee is chosen, the evangelicals will have the choice of McCain–or the Democrat. Even if they don’t like the idea of voting FOR the Democrat, they will be willing to vote AGAINST the Democrat. After all, they’re very receptive to apocalyptic do-or-die messaging.
6 Claudia
February 11, 2008 @ 7:46 am CETWhat Mike said.
7 Rick Moran
February 11, 2008 @ 11:32 am CET"The base" of the party is the south. McCain has not won "the base." He couldn’t even win LA which was basically a two man race between he and Huckabee.
And, uh, newsflash: Barack Obama would cut into the GOP dominance in the south by taking several states - which would be curtains for any Republican nominee.
8 C Stanley
February 11, 2008 @ 2:37 pm CETRick: what makes you think that Obama would do so well in the south? His extremely liberal stances on issues like abortion and gun control are sure to be deal breakers for virtually every Southern white evangelical, and that’s without even considering the fact that racism will rear it’s ugly head.
9 C Stanley
February 11, 2008 @ 2:38 pm CETBesides, exit polls showed that McCain was the second choice of a majority of Huckabee supporters, so I see little reason to think that they’d stay home or vote Dem in protest of a McCain ticket that didn’t include Huckabee. I think as long as he doesn’t chose someone who’d anger them (Giuliani, for example) then they’ll still support him over any Democrat.
10 casualobserver
February 11, 2008 @ 4:17 pm CETYes, if the socons are upset to the point that they will risk a SCOTUS appointment that will put Roe v. Wade up for retooling, removing creationism from public school testbooks and all the other stuff the KosKids will look to be opportunistic on in a Dem adminstration, then it’s probably time we split from those lacking common sense anyway.
11 abrisaham
February 11, 2008 @ 4:57 pm CETWhat I find amazing is that this election might see Barak Obama take Red States and McCain take blue states.
I had a professor who made a very strong case that both parties are in severe turmoil and not just the GOP. During the next several years as the GOP appears likely to abandon the religious right and turn towards a more moderate, socially conservative outlook. At the same time the Democrats are trying to redefine themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and family values. The resulting mess will cause many left pacs to take up residence in the GOP and the religious right and some resulting fiscal pacs to take up residence in Donkeyville.
I think we are seeing this happen even today as Obama continues to win Red states while Hillary wins the more traditional blue states.
Running against Barak Obama with John McCain I think its possible that the GOP can win enough Blue states that Hillary would have carried to more then offset the Red states that Obama is most likely going to win.
Therefore the worst thing McCain can do in my opinion is to try and shore up the Conservative base. That base is in disarray and weak. What he needs to focus on is winning the states that Hillary would have won but that Obama most likely could lose. New York, Maine, Rhode Island, Mass. Connecticut.
Can anyone say Rudi Guillani?
12 wj
February 11, 2008 @ 7:47 pm CETChristine, before you totally write off Obama in the South, consider this. I came across a regression analysis recently of the Democratic primaries and caucuses so far (unfortunately, I don’t recall quite where). It showed, among other things, that Obama did fairly well among Southern white Democrats — except for Southern Baptists.
Statistics are certainly not a sure-fire guide to the future. But it suggests that some states in the South may not be out of reach after all, assuming that he is the Democrats’ nominee.
13 C Stanley
February 11, 2008 @ 7:59 pm CETwj: I wasn’t writing him off, just questioning why Rick seems to write off McCain’s chances of holding the southern bloc. It still seems to me that the South would be McCain’s to lose, not the other way around.
14 lou
February 11, 2008 @ 11:03 pm CETadmin: Spam removed
15 matt
February 12, 2008 @ 3:36 am CETThis article is the most moronic ignorant piece of writing i’ve seen in a long time. The title shows this and the rest of the article only strenghthens it’s idiocracy.
16 Jason
February 12, 2008 @ 6:00 am CETEven worse than comment #15?