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John McCain’s speech today at the Conservative Political Action Conference felt like déjà vu. Not because of anything McCain said in the past; he skipped last year’s conference. It echoed Rudy Giuliani’s appearance at the Family Research Council conference back in October, where, like McCain, Giuliani was wading into the piranha den.
“I truly believe that what unites us is much greater than any of the things that divide us,” Rudy said at the time, referring perhaps to his pro-choice record, his support for gay rights, and his soap opera of a personal life. Likewise, McCain emphasized what he and his conservative audience could agree on: Liberty is good, taxes are bad, and Clinton/Obama must be stopped. He still got booed on campaign finance and illegal immigration, the latter of which he had just begun to mention when the hooting started. But every time it did, his supporters cheered louder to drown out the naysayers.
Expect the next few months to sound a lot like that. Every time a Limbaugh or Coulter starts taunting McCain, moderate Republicans are more likely to cheer louder than to try to win over the dissenters. If McCain needs to present a united front in November, it will clearly be a grudging one.
But McCain knows he has a long and difficult courtship ahead of him. “Many of you have disagreed strongly with some positions I have taken in recent years,” he said. “I understand that. I might not agree with it, but I respect it for the principled position it is.”
That’s the first step: Acknowledge that your opponents are reasonable people. Secondly, keep harping on your shared dedication to the surge and hawkishness toward Iran and North Korea. Don’t forget to emphasize your fear of a post-apocalyptic world of activist judges, high taxes, and entitlement programs. After that comes the winning over of leaders. Get a Robertson or a Brownback or a Bob Jones III to recommend you to religious voters, plus a few conservative senators who opposed McCain-Feingold. He may never be able to live down immigration reform, but confronting the reasons his plan failed and giving his opponents a fair hearing might be enough.
Rudy Giuliani was never able to wriggle out of his self-imposed security hawk bubble. McCain faces a similar problem, but he has a better nose than Rudy for diplomacy and compromise. With friction on the Democratic side still burning a hole in blue America, McCain can now get a head start on the coalition re-building. Best get going.
A note on the title: I know he's been back for a while. I just wanted an excuse to link to this.
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About five minutes before Mitt Romney strode onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., text messages started flying around the room. Romney was dropping out.
Laura Ingraham was introducing Romney, but it sure sounded like she hadn’t been fully briefed. It gave her whole surly, cocky shtick a morbid overtone, and the knowledge gap produced some cringeworthy moments. “I don’t think any of us in this room think another Ronald Reagan is going to walk through the door,” she said. Indeed not.
Romney arrived already looking deflated. The crowd cheered, but as he spoke, there was a disconnect between audience expectations and his words. He started out by describing John McCain’s lead: “Eleven states have given me their nod, compared to his 13. Of course, because size does matter, he’s doing quite a bit better with his number of delegates.”
The audience waited for a “but." But there was no but.
He didn’t exactly endorse John McCain but said he agrees with the senator on the war and national security. “If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win,” he said.
It took a second to sink in. A man from the audience screamed, “Nooooo!” Boos followed. Romney’s eyes looked moist—I’m sure we’ll hear that he cried—and his voice seemed to tighten.
“This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose,” he said. “… If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America, I feel I must now stand aside, for our party and for our country.” Again, boos.
It’s a curious rationale for ducking out. He’s essentially saying that a tough Republican race helps the Democrats, which in turn helps the terrorists: “I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.” (Does that mean a Romney win would have been a win for terrorists?) Whereas John Edwards dropped out to “let history blaze its path,” Romney is dropping out to let McCain beat Obama and catch Osama.
The fact is, Romney realized he was beaten on the board. Mathematically, he had to win nearly every other primary in order to beat McCain. And every contest lost would be another blow to his integrity and thus the likelihood of another run. Plus, by the time he was done, he would have spent so much of his own money—$18 million and counting—that he might have to change his tune on entitlement programs.
When he left the stage, the crowd filed out in a daze. Romney signs dangled at the sides of supporters, rather than being held aloft. A Ron Paul supporter gleefully pointed out how his candidate outlived Romney, only to be stared down by Romney-ites.
Someone pointed, and I looked over. There was Flip the Dolphin—the stuffed-animal man who has been following Romney everywhere—doing a jig.
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In the proud American tradition, we made an error tallying up the results of Trailhead Primary Pool. As a result we have a NEW WINNER in Robert Ziff, who edged out Mark Lyons with 62 points to Lyons' 61. Contestant Luke Goodwin also had 61 points.
A note on scoring: Because John Edwards suspended his campaign prior to Super Tuesday, we did not award any points for third-place predictions in the four Feb. 5 Democratic primaries in our pool. Thus, the original scoring for Super Tuesday is valid, and Ted Steger remains the honorable mention with 38 points on Tuesday and a respectable 55 over all. Steger had 17 points coming into the week, not the 13 we originally reported, and we thank him for catching our mistake.
Mark, our sincere apologies for falsely elevating your hopes. But please return the proverbial yoga mat.
Original post:
Trailhead reader Mark Lyons has won the Primary Pool with a final score of 59 points, a three-point lead over runner-ups Andrew Packer, Robert Ziff, and David Wohl. Lyons was a consistent presence in the top ten each week, though he only officially led the pack once prior to his victory. Congratulations, Mark!
An honorable mention is in order for Ted Steger, who notched 38 points this week with excellent Super Tuesday predictions. Unfortuantely for Ted, his last-minute blitz could not push him into the lead as he had only 13 points at the beginning of the week.
Our thanks to everyone who threw in their hat for the pool. (Meanwhile, Trailhead never wants to see an Excel sheet again.) Mark, we would love to send you one of our Slate yoga mats, but apparently there are legal problems with offering official prizes. Eternal glory will have to suffice.
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Mitt Romney is pulling out of the Republican race today, most likely after realizing he was mathematically eliminated from winning the nomination. Rather than pray for a brokered convention that turns to him as the party's savior, he's pulling out now while he still has enough dignity in the tank for a 2012 run.
Romney's withdrawal (which is technically a "suspension" of his campaign) means it's down to Mac and Mike. Yes, the two candidates least likely to win the Republican nomination five months ago are now the only two candidates (besides Ron Paul) left standing. For the full effect, we're going to write it one more time: Aw-shucks Huck has stayed in the Republican race longer than moneybags-Mitt.
For weeks, Huckabee has said it's a two-man race—between him and John McCain. Since Iowa, pundits have said that Huckabee was the one draining Romney's votes, but now the chattering class is left with a new question: Was Romney draining Huckabee's votes?
Doubtful. Huckabee won't pick up Romney's fiscal conservative vote thanks to his fair tax plan, and all of Romney's anti-radical-jihad fans are going to flock to McCain. He could scavenge Romney's social conservative bloc, but there probably aren't enough of them to put Huckabee over the top to beat McCain.
McCain will still be the nominee, but Romney's withdrawal will allow Huckabee to make some noise. In the coming weeks, Louisiana, Kansas, Texas, and Ohio all become especially friendly to Huckabee. That, of course, assumes Huckabee is going to stay in the race, even though he can't mathematically win, either. Last we heard, Huckabee said he was going to stay in until somebody had a majority of delegates. Then again, the last we heard from Romney, he said he was staying in through the convention. Consider it his final flip-flop.
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At the Los Angeles Democratic debate last week, anyone expecting to see fur fly was sorely disappointed. Clinton and Obama weren’t just civil. For a second there, they seemed to even like each other.
Well, apparently Hillary liked it so much, she wants to do it again. And again. And again. And again.
This morning, Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle sent out a public letter to Obama honcho David Plouffe congratulating him on the Super Tuesday victories but voicing concern that Sen. Obama has declined to participate in a debate a week for the next several weeks. Sorry to excerpt so much here, but you need a nice chunk to appreciate Doyle’s tone:
One of the things I've always appreciated about the Democratic Party is its willingness to engage the toughest issues facing our country, even if we don't always agree on how best to solve them. …
As such, I was disappointed to see that Senator Obama rejected the idea of having more debates given the fact that he and Senators Clinton [sic] have had only a single one-on-one debate. I think we can do better and so does Hillary. …
To that end, we hope Senator Obama will join Senator Clinton for a debate a week beginning this weekend. I'm sure we can find a suitable place to meet on the campaign trail. There's too much at stake and the issues facing the country are too grave to deny voters the opportunity to see the candidates up close.
Slow clap for the Clinton campaign over here. In one swift move, they 1) challenge Obama to accept an offer that, if he accepts it, will make him look deferential, 2) bring him onto turf where Hillary is strong, i.e. the debate stage, and 3) take him off turf where he is strong, i.e. rallies. And given Hillary's apparent financial situation—donating money to herself—free media is better than paid media. You don’t see hat tricks like this every day.
Of course, to suggest that even after 22 Democratic debates this cycle—more than any other primary election ever—we haven’t seen enough of the candidates “up close” seems insane. But who knows, maybe a Lincoln-Douglas style debate-a-thon is what Democrats need to make up their minds.
Read the full letter here.
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It’s been more than 24 hours since the Super Tuesday polls closed, but analysts are still sifting through the reams of data to come out of the 22 Democratic and 21 Republican primaries and caucuses. Here’s a quick rundown of the Feb. 5 numbers that matter, drawn from various news sources as well as our own calculators.
- Turnout
27 percent of eligible citizens voted.
Dems: At least 15,417,521
GOP: At least 9,181,297
Source: Time
- Delegate Count
After tearing our hair out over how media outlets can’t agree on the post-Super Tuesday delegate count, we’ll go with the Associated Press delegate tracker. It's super-detailed, updated frequently, and seems to get the most deference from news organizations. Here’s its most recent estimate:
Dems
Clinton: 832
Obama: 821
Delegates needed for the nomination: 2,025
GOP
McCain: 698
Romney: 278
Huckabee: 192
Delegates needed for the nomination: 1,191
Meanwhile, Obama’s campaign predicts he will end up with 847 delegates to Clinton’s 834. Clinton’s team has not released a specific prediction.
- Superdelegate Count
Total superdelegates: 796
Supporting Clinton: 213
Supporting Obama: 139
Source: AP
Dems
Clinton: Ariz., Ark., Calif., Mass., N.J., N.M., N.Y., Okla., Tenn. (9 states)
Obama: Ala., Alaska, Colo., Conn., Del., Ga., Idaho, Ill., Kan., Minn., Mo., N.D., Utah (13 states)
GOP
McCain: Ariz., Calif., Conn., Del., Ill., Mo., N.J., N.Y., Okla. (9 states)
Romney: Alaska, Colo., Mass., Minn., Mont., N.D., Utah (7 states)
Huckabee: Ala., Ark., Ga., Tenn., W.Va. (5 states)
Source: CNN
Clinton: 1 (American Samoa)
Obama: 7 (Alaska, Colo., Idaho, Kan., Minn., Mont., N.D.)
Huckabee: 0
McCain: 0
Romney: 5 (Alaska, Col., Minn., Mont., N.D.)
Dems
Clinton 48.97 percent (6,967,302)
Obama 48.04 percent (6,835,447)
Difference in terms of actual votes: 131,855
Source: NBC
GOP
McCain: 43.2 percent (3,657,444)
Romney: 35.5 percent (3,001,607)
Huckabee: 21.4 percent (1,809,404)
Source: Calculated using data from NBC
In the 19 states holding both Democratic and Republican primaries and caucuses, more than 14 million people voted for Obama or Clinton. More than 8 million people voted for McCain or Romney or Huckabee. Thus, you could say about 73 percent more Democrats turned out than Republicans.
Source: Time
In Missouri, Democratic turnout beat GOP turnout by 70 percent. In 2000, when the state also held two primaries, the opposite was true: Republican turnout trumped the Dems’ by 56 percent.
Source: HuffPo
Obama won 82 percent of the black vote; Clinton won 53 percent of whites and 64 percent of Hispanic voters. Clinton and Obama split white men, while Clinton won white women overwhelmingly.
McCain won the majority of self-identified Republican moderates; Romney won 38 percent of self-identified Republican conservatives. Huckabee won 38 percent of evangelical Christians; McCain came in second among these voters, with 30 percent to Romney’s 27 percent.
Among Republicans who rated the economy as their top concern, McCain won with 42 percent. Clinton beat Obama among voters who said the economy is in poor condition, while Obama won among those who rated the economy good or excellent.
Obama won the youth vote nationwide, with 59 percent of voters under 30, compared with Clinton’s 38 percent. But Clinton won that demographic in California and Massachusetts.
Source: AP