Self-Destruction In Politics

Last year Sen. John McCain was dead in the water as far as being nominated as the Republican candidate for president. Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was the favorite in the polls, but he decided to wait until the primary in Florida before he actually started to run. That was a mistake. Shortly after losing the Florida primary he dropped out of the race and gave his support to McCain.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won in Iowa by courting the large group of Christian fundamentalists.
Unfortunately, he did not move much beyond that particular portion of the population and did not do well for the remainder of the primaries. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney never caught fire with the Republican base, and I suspect that part of that was because he came from the northeast and was also a Mormon. He also dropped out of the race and McCain became the nominee.
In many of the earlier primaries independents and Democrats could vote in Republican primaries. In those cases, McCain received a large percentage of votes by non-Republicans and won. He never did receive the majority of conservative votes, but he was still selected as the nominee.
Even now with him being the nominee, other names remain on ballots in states, and a large percentage of voters vote for them even though their votes no longer count.
McCain has gone on record as stating that he will nominate constructionist judges for vacancies in the Supreme Court, he will push for additional tax cuts and work to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and he will work to seal our borders. All of that is music to conservative ears, but many of them remain skeptical.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Hillary Clinton was the odds-on favorite to become the Democratic candidate, and that would probably be determined by "Super Tuesday" in February.
Although there were many candidates running, only Sen. Barack Obama stood out as a possible opponent. He did well all the way to February and actually took the lead. It seemed that Clinton had no plan beyond "Super Tuesday" and continued to lose because of poor organization. The verbal attacks by both Democratic candidates commenced.
The media and the Democratic leadership demanded that Clinton withdraw since she and Obama were in a slug fest and it was hurting the party. She rallied and won Texas and Ohio and last week Pennsylvania. Obama continues to lead in delegates and the popular vote and, with only a few state primaries left before the convention, he will probably be ahead in both categories, but neither candidate can win before the convention.
Obama has been hurt by his association with his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his association with a convicted domestic terrorist, William Ayres, and his comments in San Francisco about small town people "clinging" to their religion and guns. Not to be outdone, Clinton has been caught in more lies about her background.
Leading up to this presidential election, it was assumed that it would be a slam dunk for the Democrats -- the war was unpopular, the president had extremely poor popularity ratings, the illegal immigration problem had not been solved and the economy seemed to be heading in the wrong direction.
The Democratic primary fight between Obama and Clinton has opened up shortcomings - not only in the two candidates but the Democratic Party as well. Each one has been seriously hurt, and their rabid followers have stated that they will not support the other candidate if their candidate is not nominated.
This fight will continue until the Democratic convention in August.
All of this is good news for the Republican candidate, McCain, but he is prone to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He consistently courts liberals, independents and Democrats rather than conservatives in his own party.
As an example, the Republican Party in North Carolina ran an ad against the two Democratic candidates running for governor in the state and used material from Jeremiah Wright. McCain demanded that the ad be pulled and the state continued to run it. He also went to New Orleans and castigated the Bush Administration for not responding properly following the hurricane.
Prior to these outbursts by McCain, he was leading in polls against the Democratic candidates and now he is behind by nine points against Clinton and four points against Obama. In addition, the Republican Party has been having difficulty raising money for this election, but the money is now pouring into the North Carolina Republican Party. The conservatives want their candidates to fight against Democrats, not Republicans.
I believe that these primaries have done significant damage to the Democratic Party, but the election will hinge on what McCain does. If he continues to think that he must court the left, remain above the fray and ignore conservatives, he will lose by a landslide, and the Republican Party will lose up to nine seats in the Senate and two dozen in the House.
If he convinces the conservatives that he will operate as a conservative, he will win.