In the Agora: The Road From Florida

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January 30, 2008

The Road From Florida

Who won in Florida yesterday? The American people! Why? Because Rudolph Giuliani will not be President of these united States. Despite the fact that he was a strong contender in the GOP Macho Primary, to characterize his campaign as full of machismo is to give it an aura of romance it does not deserve. Simply, he ran on a platform of brutal stupidities that took Bushism to a coarser level due to Rudy's special blend of vindictiveness, megalomania, and crackpottery.

Sadly, it is no surprise that he would turn around and endorse the only other true heir to the "major policies (and major blunders)" of the "party of Bush": John McCain, now the ostensible front-runner. While relatively less crazy than Giuliani, he remains an objectionable candidate, whose flaws are brought into sharp relief by Ross Douthat:

As anyone who reads this blog well knows, I don't much care for Mitt Romney, at least as he's presented himself to the American people in his campaign for President. Unfortunately, now that it's a two-man race, I'm being reminded of all the things I don't like about John McCain: His self-righteousness and stubbornness; his thin grasp of policy detail on a host of issues; his (related) tendency to filter policy debates through a Manichaean worldview, in which politics is the extension of war by other means; and his longstanding tendency to squander his reform-conservative tendencies on precisely the wrong domestic causes (campaign-finance reform, immigration, etc.). So for tonight, at least, I'm pulling for Romney - since the race will be more or less finished if he loses, and I'm not ready for it to be finished yet.

Is the race finished? Certainly, McCain has been leading the polls in all of the big Super Tuesday States, so Romney was only fighting for a bump coming out of Florida. His narrow chances just narrowed further. Douthat does see a ray of hope in the exit polling. Will the anti-McCain forces try to exploit that opportunity? As Kevin Drum asks:

[D]oes this mean that the McCain haters are going to redouble their efforts and go absolutely ballistic over the next week? Or are they going to start realizing that McCain is now inevitable and begin the process of dialing down the vitriol and circling the wagons in preparation for taking on the Democrats in the fall?

Looks like some tentative wagon-circling has started already. This is probably prudent considering the likelihood that, with Huckabee splitting the stop-McCain vote, St. John of Arizona will roll on to the nomination winning "primaries in conservative states without the need to secure majorities." In other words, he will win the nomination of his Party without the support of his party. The establishment better halt those wagons before they roll too far down the trail.

Posted by Zach Wendling at January 30, 2008 03:55 AM

Comments

Sigh. This primary seems to be going the same way as the '96 and 2000 primaries, with candidates dropping out of the race in approximately the same order that I prefer them. Well, not exactly, since it does look like Giuliani's going to bow out before Huckabee. But still, it would be nice if by the time I got to vote in April, I wasn't choosing between the lesser of two evils. (Not that my vote in April has ever mattered, anyway.)

Posted by: Eric Seymour at January 30, 2008 08:55 AM | permalink

The circle isn't complete yet. Pat Buchanon and Joe Scarborough on the McCain platform: "less jobs and more wars."

Posted by: JohnS at January 30, 2008 09:12 AM | permalink

Heck Eric, I'm worried about Virginia's February 12th primary mattering! But at least in my case, I can cross over to vote for Obama if the GOP race is done already.

Posted by: DMD at January 30, 2008 10:49 AM | permalink

The GOP could wind up with a nominee that only a third of Republicans want. Primaries should distribute the delegates in proportion to the voter turnout to keep such a travesty from happening.

Posted by: Alan K. Henderson at January 30, 2008 12:16 PM | permalink

I think Obama will win it all if he takes the nomination - I think McCain has a better chance against Hillary than Romney. But that's just my point of view.

Posted by: Dave S. at January 30, 2008 08:43 PM | permalink

Romney made governor of the People's Republic of Massachusetts - that has to count for something.

How does McCain differentiate himself from Hill or Obama on big issues other than the war and his not-too-often-talked-about record on combating overspending?

Posted by: Alan K. Henderson at January 31, 2008 10:25 AM | permalink

January 30, 2008

The Road From Florida

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