John McCain’s primary hopes seem to have been only mostly dead. His uptick in New Hampshire has spilled over a bit to Iowa.
On the other hand, if he can put together surprise victories in these early primaries, there is simply no way to overstate the deep well of adoration, tacit support and general desire to fluff that McCain will be able to draw from within the Washington press corps. And even those core Republicans who’ve never been crazy about him will breath a elemental sigh of relief that they’ve got a candidate of stature, experience and ability rather than a freak, a goof or a Ken doll.
Perhaps his opponents will take a page out of the Bush play book and rehash the South Carolina smearing of McCain by suggesting to uninformed voters that McCain’s adopted Bangladeshi child is an illegitimate black child.
Meanwhile, Jerome Armstrong at MyDD suggests that Obama v. McCain is about the worst case scenario for Democrats in the Presidential election cycle.
A McCain vs Obama race would be the worst case scenario I could imagine for us. Why? Because the talky-centrists like Jonathan Alter from Newsweek and Joe Klein from Time that Obama panders too, who now come to Obama’s defense to attack the progressive Krugman, would soon say: “Obama’s great but he’s too young and inexperienced, let’s go with McCain.”
I also fear the inroads to Latinos that McCain would make. He’s their only candidate that isn’t a wall-builder and hater toward illegal immigrants, and that would hurt Obama the most.
What a fascinating thing. The love of McCain by the chattering classes is viewed as a formidable (and apparently obvious) asset of McCain’s.
1) The only thing second place in Iowa (if that’s where he is) means is that other people finished worse.
2) OTOH, a strong showing in New Hampshire would revitalize him, certainly. But where does he go from there?
3) Romney wouldn’t drop out soon, because his national numbers are strong and he’s swimming in money (his own) for now. Rudy won’t drop out because he’s stuck with that idiotic “win later” strategy. Thompson and Huckabee (even if he falls back) at least have to wait until the southern primaries. In one sense that’s McCain’s best chance, as he’s the Split the Difference candidate, but on the other, how does he raise money with everyone else still in the race?
4) Conversely, if he manages to stay in and others fall out, he loses head-to-head to everybody but Rudy and maybe Huckabee, because the Republican core will vote against him.
5) His support looks like it’s recursive; voters drawing back from the three front runners, plus he’s been out of the spotlight for a while.
6) The love affair might still be there, but this isn’t 2000 (where it did him diddly-squat anyhow). He’s now the hot girlfriend who borrowed your car and returned it with the bumper missing, the windshield cracked, and the doors covered with graffiti. Try selling that Bomb Bomb Iran tape. Plus the blogosphere buffers that sort of thing.
7) Gee this is fun.
If you really want to see the Beltway elite scribes swoon, give them a McCain/Lindsey Graham ticket. Oh, the gravitas. If seeing success in Iraq where it doesn’t exist is wrong, they don’t want to be right.