Nevada and South Carolina have knocked out my first backup, Duncan Hunter, and have all-but-sunk my boat of Fred Thompson. I’ll keep rowing until I have to swim back to the surface, but with the almost-concession, it’s time to ask the Marcellus Wallace question, “What now?”
First, we have to answer what happened today. There are two winners today; the media winner of John McCain, and the delegate winner of Mitt Romney. First, I’ll take Nevada, because outside the blogosphere, you won’t hear much about this. Yes, it was another “no-contest”, but it has become clear that the non-evangelical conservative end of the Republican base has coalesced around Romney. Thus far, only Romney has been able to get an absolute majority, and he’s done that twice. After the abberation of Iowa, Romney has literally cleaned up in contests where only Republicans participate. Morever, he has proven that he can survive in a contested race by taking Michigan. Yes, he had the “favorite son” factor working, but not only was it his father that was the popular Michigan politician, but because no actual delegates were up on the Democratic side, there was a significant “crossover” vote.
Now, onto South Carolina. Even though there will eventually be a Dem primary that does matter, once again, that is a a state that allows “independents” to vote in the Republican primary. That is what delivered the state to McCain.
So, who lost? Mike Huckabee. South Carolina seemed tailor-made to keep him afloat; indeed, it was the SC evangelicals that rejected McCain back in 2000 that were instrumental in giving us President Bush. That Huckabee could not repeat that despite a much heavier push on the evangelicals is telling.
So, what now? Let me tell you what now. I’m going to call my sister tomorrow and head over there to watch the Packers whup up on the Giants with a pair of shut-down corners and sideline heaters. You hear me talking, Manning boy? The cold ain’t through with you by a damn sight. Aaron Kampmann’s going to get medevial on the grass.
You’re probably saying, “I meant what now between you and the race?” Oh, that what now. Let me tell you what now between me and the race. If and when Thompson makes that exit official, I’m going to be left with much the same choice I had in 2000 after Steve Forbes departed the race; either support someone who would merely slouch toward liberal socialism, let it be a “spread-eagled” free-fall, or let it be an all-out streamlined free-fall. I rationalized that there would be a bit more conservatism in “compassionate ‘conservatism'”, and I swore that I wouldn’t delude myself again, and that I would do what I could to reverse the slide rather than merely quibble over the pace toward liberal socialism. In that eventuality, nay, likelyhood, I will have failed to reverse the slide, and I once again have been reduced to quibbling over the pace toward liberal socialism.
I’ll be walking into this one with my eyes wide open. I’ve already described Romney as slightly accelerating that slouch. I’ve also described McCain, Huckabee and the thus-far-absent Rudy Giuliani as turning that slouch into a free-fall, and Ron Paul as an anarchist (that’s a small-“a”) that will enable those that want to create a worldwide caliphate more than anybody else. In that fivesome, I’ll take the least-evil of the remaining five choices, Mitt Romney. I almost certainly will not be pouring as much energy into that as I did Thompson’s campaign because I’ve been drained.
As for the race itself, the Huck-a-Boom has gone Huck-a-Bust. Further, if Giuliani’s firewall of Florida fails him, and that’s looking more and more likely, he’s done. That leaves this thing as a two-man race between McCain and Romney, and that is setting up pretty much along the lines that the last two general Presidential elections have gone. I don’t know off-hand which primaries/caucuses/conventions are “open” versus “closed”, or beyond Florida’s fresh winner-take-all, how the delegates are apportioned, so I can’t tell yet whether the Dems and independents will choose the Republican nominee. Morever, if Paul remains in the race, and the Democratic nomination gets settled quickly, there is a significant chance of mischief. However, this will not, repeat, not go to a brokered convention.
