John McCain may not have done as well as the media expected on Super Tuesday but he nevertheless acquired a stranglehold on the Republican nomination and only a total, unmitigated collapse by the Arizona senator could possibly deny him the prize awaiting him in the Twin Cities.
To his great credit (and my surprise), Hugh Hewitt sees the writing on the wall and makes a heartfelt plea for unity:
Senator McCain has a clear path to the nomination, Romney a very uphill battle, and Huck is fighting for 2012 at this point and for a win in a major vote outside of the south. Certainly they should all stay in through the primaries ahead because it isn’t over and because our side needs the excitement of a campaign in such key falls states as Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania to keep the MSM from turning 100% of its attention on to growing the Obama phenomenon. They ought to be scheduling three man debates in every state, making their points and taking every opportunity to look ahead to the fall.At the same time, Romney and Huckabee ought to begin to note Senator McCain’s lead and urge their followers to recognize that if they cannot come back they and their followers will have to come in and join the party’s eventual nominee. Senator McCain would do well to make a similar statement though his lead is significant and his collapse unlikely. Putting Humpty Dumpty together again cannot wait for St. Paul. Each of the three need to strike some common chords again and again, beginning with why the GOP needs to retain the White House, regardless of who its nominee is.
Frankly, the way that Hugh and other conservatives had been carrying on since the Florida primary, I thought Hewitt would be with the bitter enders who believe that if Mitt can’t get the nomination, some kind of Republican Götterdämmerung should be initiated and the party and its apostates consumed in some cataclysmic immolation complete with fat ladies in Viking helmets and sturdy, Aryan warriors with great, bushy beards.
Thankfully, Hugh at least has more sense – and class – than that.
For in truth, Mitt Romney is toast. He’s a gone goose. He is finished. Fertig! Verfallen! Verlumpt! Verblunget! Verkackt! .
In fact, this candidate is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s expired and gone to meet ‘is maker!
‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to the lectern last night ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies!
‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s off the twig!
‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile!!
Or, he could be pining for the fjords?
Seriously, Mitt made a good run but anyone who harbors the illusion that the race is not over need only look at the numbers. Come to think of it, if anyone still believes Romney has a chance in hell of winning the nomination, the probability exists that facts won’t matter much to them anyway – only fairy tales and bedtime stories.
That’s okay. I have to put something on the blog today anyway so let’s examine the race from the standpoint of where we are now, how many delegates are left to be awarded, and what that means to the viability of candidate Romney.
With 1191 delegates needed to win, McCain has 615 delegates according to CNN to Romney’s 248. McCain is likely to pick up 20-30 more delegates as soon as California and a couple of other proportional delegate states are completely counted. Romney also should pick up a couple of dozen additional delegates when all is said and done.
With barely 1300 total delegates left on the table, McCain would only need around 550 of those delegates to claim victory. Romney would need to win 900 of the remaining 1300 delegates to overtake McCain.
Can he do it?
McCain would have to totally collapse for that to happen. After next week’s “Potomac Primary” involving Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. – where Virginia and DC are winner take all states and where McCain is comfortably ahead – only Vermont remains as a WTA contest. All the rest of the states in play will award delegates proportionately.
Romney would have to win virtually all the remaining contests by at least a 3-1 margin – and even then you can’t ignore the presence of Mike Huckabee in the race. The Baptist preacher helped put the stake through Romney’s heart last night when he stole 5 southern primaries. This denied McCain the overwhelming victory he needed to put both candidates away but it also killed Romney’s chances of getting close to the Arizona senator.
Not enough states, not enough delegates, and not enough time. The fat lady may not be singing in the GOP race but she’s certainly warming up in the wings.
1:05 pm
McCain has a lot of explaining to do. Conservatives don’t trust him and many will not vote for him. Without that vote I think he is going to lose. The GOP has chosen a candidate favored by the LAT and NYT that cannot possibly win. He will not obtain the ‘Perot voters’.
This election is already lost. The only question is Hillary or Barry?
Unless McCain successfully reaches out to conservatives. I don’t think he can without that deep disdain that cannot be hidden.
I hope he will surprise me. It baffles me that the RNC has decided to lose up front by choosing such a god-awful loser for the Nominee.
2:17 pm
[...] Maybe, but as I noted earlier today (see here and here), those openings are pretty small and they would effectively require Romney to run the table while McCain and Huckabee completely collapse. As Rick Moran notes, the math just doesn’t favor that happening: [...]
2:29 pm
I have to go with what Steve has said.
McCain is going to lose in November – the only question is how badly.
4:08 pm
McCain to his able brother Huckabee: “OH bringer of the Lord, why not stab good able brother Romney in the back?”
To which brother Huckabee replies, “Why not? I shall do as you say but for a price my after the deadly dead is done partner in crime.”
After the deadly dead is done, the Lord God descends upon the two schemers & betrayers, and asks McCain, “Where is your able brother Romney?â€
“I don’t know,†McCain replied. “Am I my brother Romney’s guardian?â€
Then God said, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground! So now you are cursed [with alienation] from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood you have shed. If you work the land, it will never again give you its yield. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.â€
One way or the other Reagan would have distanced himself from a politician such as the present-day McCain. Reagan would have made McCain look like faux “conservative” milk toast that he really is.
4:23 pm
Rightpundits is claiming Mitt may stay in to throw delegates to Huckabee and block McCain. Any truth to this?
4:31 pm
You are right. McCain has it. And Hillary’s getting out the vote machine is better than Obama’s. It’s going to be a McCain-Hillary match-up. The numbers of Dems who are voting in the primaries is scary big.They could well end up with big majorities in both the Senate, and the House.And the presidency. What Obama has done is really unbelievable. I would love to be a fly on the wall in her campaign meetings with the leaders of her campaign.
5:11 pm
Thank you for the insightful posting. I think its time for the opponents of John McCain to start being reasonable, follow the wonderful example of Hugh Hewitt, who has been no fan of McCain by any stretch. I am a supporter of McCain’s, but I realize that he has taken some positions and said some things that other conservatives find it difficult to accept. I do not blame them for voicing their concerns, as this is a primary. However, I think calling McCain a liberal and vowing not to vote for him, or, worse yet, to vote Hillary, is completely off the wall. McCain is great on the war, spending, and judges. To not support him if he wins the nom is like saying you are ok with us going back on defense in the WOT, that Roe v. Wade standing for another generation is ok, and that record deficits don’t bother you. How can any real conservative be comfortable with those things?
9:34 pm
And if there is anyone out there that still thinks that McCain can win against Obama, facts don’t matter to them.
Democrats are going for “young” and “new”. Something Republicans seem unable to take note of.
And with McCain telling us to “suck it up” and take one for the team, makes my head hurt even more than it did last night. Maybe McCain needs to “suck it up” and do one for the team. Like act like a conservative Republican and not act like one of the three musketeers standing on the podium with Joe Liberman and Lindsey (you are all racists) Graham.
10:31 pm
Steve, the RNC also lost. Their candidate, Rudy Giuliani, pushed up the daisies after Florida because the national party underestimated the distain the early-state voters have for being told they don’t matter.
Unfortunately for us, the conservatives both got aced and aced themselves right out of the party as the rank-and-file east of the Mississippi took the core message to drive the conservatives out to heart. Romney ran as a third-termer, and had all of the flip-flop issues we savaged the last candidate from Massachussets for. Thompson was singularily uninspiring to those with attention spans that do not allow for a reading of War and Peace (sadly, most of the country). The evangelicals attempted to foist a liberal in Christian clothing on us in Huckabee. Now, we’re stuck with a candidate that would rather put a 500-lb bomb on us than shake our hand.
As for the future delegate count, I went through the next 2 weeks’ worth of contests involving 9 contests in 8 states/districts/territories, and there are, depending on whether one wants to count the “unpledged” delegates in Washington’s caucus and dependent on result of Louisiana’s primary, between 219 and 258 delegates up for grabs. Except for those 18 “unpledged” Washington caucus delegates, 10 pledged ones from Washington’s primary tied to the statewide vote, and the 6 up for grabs in Guam’s caucus, all of those are some form of winner-take-all; 69 by Congressional district (4 of those) and 135 or 155 in 5 or 6 (respectively) statewide/DC-wide WTA contests.
11:33 pm
Can someone please tell me why everyone is demanding Romney give it up instead of Huckabee? Is it possible that everyone knows Huckabee is only in to screw Romney, but noone wants to say so, and this if Romney would just give up, Huckabee would stop the idiotic charade? I can’t fathom why people don’t start analyzing Huckabee and how ridiculous it is for him to stay in. Huckabee has no chance of becoming the nominee, Romney has about 3% chance becoming the nominee, and McCain, presumably the nominee, has
10% chance of actually winning the raceprobably even less because of the debacle that Huckabee and McCain have caused by really sticking it to Romney. Their selfish self-interest (unlike Guilianni and Thompson)is only causing grief, resentment, lack of fundraising, extremely poor publicity, and getting the Democrats excited because they can smell Republican blood and they know not only will they kill the Republicans in the fall, but the Republicans are killing themselves now. How is this Romney’s fault? He’s staying in to date because he was viable- Huckabee is in to screw him (how Christian)and McCain is in because he wants the nomination at any and all costs, regardless of what’s best for the party. I’m glad he’ll probably get it, because I’m convinced that after what he and Huckabee have done (don’t blame talk radio for being mad), McCain will experience that exquisite “joy” of being internationally humiliated when the energized Democrats eat him alive, spit him out, and kick his sorry remains out of DC.7:26 am
On the other hand, and post with a combination of “Blazing Saddles” and Monty Python “Dead Parrot Sketch” ought to win the Watcher of Weasels, doncha think?
Hugh somehow combines the desire for purity existant on the wonk side of the party, without the self-defeating willingness to throw an election to be on the side of the angels.
I voted for Romney on Tuesday, I’ll vote for McCain in November (despite the fact that Obama or Hillary will destroy him in Illinois).
11:33 am
This race has been the Democrats to lose for quite a while now. Hopefully, as more of a classical, and certainly not a neo-,conservative – I hope conservatives will look at the horrendous errors of President Bush’s 7 years and figure out exactly what they mean by “conservative”. It is time to re-examine our ideology and repent our errors.
Does conservatism mean one massive deficit after another? Certainly as a fiscal conservative I see no difference between “tax and spend” and “tax cut and spend” if it means fiscal irresponsibility and budget deficits.
Does it mean the destruction of the idea of subsidiarity? Have we decided that big government is good – and that that governance should be done as far from the problem as possible?
As a Christian conservative (but not particularly a social one) – does it mean torture? Are we going to mimic President Clintion with the lame “well, it depends on how you define torture”? Does it mean the violation of all known definitions of the concept of Just
War in the invasion of Iraq; and then the pathetic prosecution of that war until the last year? While it is both illegal and immoral for us to leave Iraq until there is a stable government and competent army to maintain order – we need to reflect on whether the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was ever the right thing to do.
Does it mean the abrogation of law by spying without a warrant? Holding prisoners without trial? Rendition to avoid the inconvenience of American standards for the treatment of captives? Does it mean the refusal to execute laws legally passed by the legislative branch because the executive branch doesn’t agree?
Conservatives really do deserve to lose this election for allowing those who now call themselves conservatives to capture the mantle of what conservatism is.