Flash back to a little less than 12 months ago. In Iowa, the leader board featured a former Mayor of New York, a former Governor of Massachusetts, and the DA from Law & Order. In New Hampshire, the outlook was similar: Mitt Romney was at the front of the pack, followed distantly by Rudy Giuliani.
By all accounts, John McCain's presidential hopes were dead in the water.
But sometime between the summer of 2007 and the New Hampshire Republican Primary on January 8th, McCain's fortunes changed, leaving him the sole contender for the Republican nomination by early February. The catalyst for that change was the rise of Mike Huckabee, and the domino effect that ensued.
Few initially took Huckabee's candidacy seriously, and maybe that was the problem. But whatever the case may have been, the former Arkansas Governor's meteoric rise in Iowa touched off a series of events that wiped just about everyone - himself included - off the board, leaving the nomination to McCain for the taking.
The 2008 Republican nomination race was unique, at least for the recent era. In each of the previous two contests, George W. Bush was ultimately successful in his efforts to unite the entire Republican coalition behind his cause. But in the race to become the 44th American Presdient, the GOP was fractured, with each candidate representing a different faction of the party.
The conservatives were primarily behind Romney, their concerns about his decidedly un-conservative past notwithstanding. The defense and homeland security vote was behind Giuliani. Huckabee was rounding up the Christian right. Moreover, each candidate had significant barriers preventing their acceptance by the other factions. Giuliani was far too socially and fiscally liberal to attract either the religious right or the conservatives. Huckabee would end up being branded by one of his own rivals for the nomination, Fred Thompson, as a "pro-life liberal," effectively barring the conservatives from him as well. And Romney, a once pro-life Mormon, was going to have serious problems courting the traditional religious right.
For his part, McCain stood well outside even that circle, at best tangentially considered to be a member of the top tier of Republican candidates. As it would become readily apparent later, the Arizona Senator's clout came from the very fringe of the party, and moreover from those on the outside: moderates and independents. His own impediments to uniting the GOP factions seemed insurmountable. Conservative guru Rush Limbaugh declared that McCain was simply "not a conservative," a dagger that wasn never removed- even after Romney threw his support behind McCain in his post-Super Tuesday concession speech. And the religious right wasn't going with him either. In 2000, McCain directed his now-infamous "agents of intolerance" speech at some of conservative Christianity's most notable pastors and preachers, effectively dooming himself in that demographic. He lost the support of the staunchly Republican National Rifle Association when he virtually eliminated the interest group's ability to load the coffers of pro-gun candidates with the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill. When it came to support, John McCain had little ground to stand on within the Republican Party.
Essentially, McCain could do nothing to improve his standing on his own, being locked out of the rank-and-file of his own party. Even debates proved fruitless. New York Times columnist Katharine Q. Seelye called McCain's performance in the debate in South Carolina "uneven," noting his inability to return crisp answers. In a poll after that event, the Drudge Report had McCain finishing a paltry fourth- behind Romney, Giuliani, and Ron Paul. Later debates would be no more helpful to him.
The "Straight Talk Express" had lost its steam, stopped dead in its tracks by the runaway-train campaigns that the many in his party were climbing aboard. In the end, McCain's laurels rested on the off chance that his rivals' own White House bids could be derailed. Little did he know, that opportunity was just around the corner.
Giuliani began the contest as the Republican equivalent of Hillary Clinton- well known, well funded, and the nationwide favorite for the nomination. But Giuliani's cosmopolitan background and history as the quasi-liberal mayor of an ueber-liberal big city made it difficult for him to connect with reliable red state voters in early contests like Iowa and South Carolina, sending shockwaves of doubt through his campaign. Though he'd hang on through his last stand in Florida, Giuliani was effectively finished before the first vote was cast.
But more important than Giuliani's fall was Romney's rise. As time wore on, Romney- though an imperfect fit for the GOP mantle- appeared to be the candidate most likely to unite the party. And what was promising for both the Romney campaign and the Republican Party was that he was succeeding across the board, building considerable margins not just in Iowa, but in New Hampshire as well. Even the Christian right, reluctant to support a Mormon candidate, were beginning to respond to what many were calling his "JFK-style" speech on religion in Houston.
What Romney wasn't counting on was the absolute blitz of Huckabee in Iowa. Sure, the religious right could vote for a Mormon, but with a viable alternative in the Baptist preacher from Arkansas, Huckabee made it so they didn't have to. And so began the surge of Huckabee the spoiler.
It was then that the presidential aspirations of McCain, who erstwhile had considered withdrawing from the race altogether, were revived. Huckabee's instant rise to the top of the pile in Iowa opened up a significant opportunity for McCain to regain the competitive edge he'd had in 2000. In fact, McCain's New Hampshire surge directly coincided with Huckabee's jump in Hawkeye State polls- or perhaps more importantly, with Mitt Romney's decline. Here's why:
Huckabee was essentially a one-trick pony. Iowa was ideal. Stock full of rural farmers and conservative Christians, it was tailor-made for his campaign. But New Hampshire, with its Ivy League schools and aristocratic New England inhabitants, was a different story. Success in Iowa wasn't going to generate enough momentum for Huckabee to fare well in the Granite State, but it was certainly enough to cause serious doubt about Romney's long-term prospects. With Giuliani out of the picture and Huckabee a non-issue, that left McCain as the only other viable candidate.
Consider, then, that New Hampshire is rich with independents who were allowed to vote in the state's Republican primary. Huckabee's knocking-off of Romney, Giuliani's utter collapse, and New Hampshire's electoral gold mine of independent voters added up to an alignment of stars for McCain, who took the one group with whom he was popular and ran with it.
Over the next few weeks, the inability of Romney to score early wins led to his demise. Giuliani's inability to win at all caused his. And despite his popularity in the South and the Heartland, Huckabee showed little promise in the grand scheme of things. Fred Thompson hamstringed himself by waiting too long to get in the race, joining a fight that was already in progress and too far along for voters to even be interested in getting to know a new candidate.
It's all reminiscent of a story that emerged from the 2002 winter Olympic games with which Romney himself was so involved. In the 1000-meter speed skating competition, a fall from one of the top-tier skaters ended up wiping the entire front four skaters off the ice on the final turn of the final lap, allowing the far-behind fifth-place skater to surge across the finish line to take the gold medal. That same thing happens often in auto racing; cars thundering down the home stretch will get tangled up, allowing another party to cruise to victory. McCain's story is hardly any different.
The Arizona Senator looks a lot like a Phoenix rising from the flames of what appeared to be a vanquished campaign. But what many in the media are overlooking is that his success and ultimate coronation as the Republican nominee was not a result of his ability to convince those both within as well as outside his party that he's the best man for the job. Rather, his rise to the top was born out of a pile-up that took the top-tier out of contention. Whether he'll be able to parlay that success into the White House is yet to be seen.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment