Prior to Iowa, I had thought that it was roughly 50/50 between Romney and McCain to get the nomination. If McCain wins tonight, the odds would increase steeply in his favor, but I was just talking to a (neutral) friend who long ago called Hillary’s demise who says it’s way too soon to coronate McCain after a win tonight: 1) The margin matters. If he wins by 6-8 points, he probably gets a bounce in Michigan. 2 points or less, not so much, and Romney can still win Michigan; 2) McCain is very low on cash. If he wins tonight, he’ll get some sort of infusion online, but it might not be that much; 3) Can McCain win Republicans? If he loses Republicans tonight by a notable margin, even if he narrowly wins the primary, it might look like 2000 again–with McCain unable to deliver Republican voters in Republican-only primaries; 4) Can he unite conservatives, when so many of them have such deep-seated ill feelings toward him? McCain has been lucky that there were only five days between Iowa and New Hampshire for conservatives to try to remember what they didn’t like about him. But that kind of scrutiny will come; 5) Republicans haven’t focused on his potential vulnerabilities in a general election. There’s the age issue against Obama. It might play as experience v. inexperience, but it also might play as old v. youthful. Then, there’s the lack of Republican enthusiasm for McCain. He could bleed Republican votes to Obama. Finally, there are McCain’s hard edges that Obama simply doesn’t have–Obama could win the likeability contest going away. Anyway, fwiw…
UPDATE
E-mail:
Rich, while age could be a potential factor in the election, possible Republican defections would be the last thing McCain would face. Check the polls in Iowa and other swing states–McCain does better than any other Republican against any Democrat, including Obama. Why? Because he stops the bleed. The folks who don’t like McCain aren’t going to turn around and vote for Obama–if McCain is too liberal for them, what in the world is Obama? The people who could vote for Obama ahead of Republican are just the people that McCain would keep in line with his maverick reputation.
Basically, if you want to win, McCain is your man. If you want to stick to principles, just nominate Fred Thompson and call it a loss.
Another e-mail:
Hi Rich-
I’ve been thinking about this “who matches up best vs. Obama” question a lot now that Obama is ascendant. I’d say that McCain’s advantages over Romney in this calculus are:
1) The media love McCain, and dislike Romney. They love Obama most, of course, but McCain at least mostly neutralizes this Obama advantage.
2) Smooth as Romney is, no one is going to “out-JFK” Obama, so it’s better strategically to challenge Obama with a different political archetype, one of which McCain represents.
3) McCain’s brand is strongest among low-information independent voters, the very group that Obama most appeals to. Even though they earn that appeal in very different ways, McCain stacks up well here.
4) Republicans are going to need foreign policy and the “Voting to Kill” issues to be ascendant, or we’ll lose anyway. McCain is in a much better position to capitalize on that vs. Obama than Romney is.
Romney’s biggest advantage over McCain here is that the GOP nominee is going to have to rough up Obama a little. McCain doesn’t really have an instinct for the jugular (at least unless Obama makes him angry). Romney will hit hard and hit low, and that may be necessary in the coming Obama as Secular Messiah media climate. I still think the balances here weigh toward McCain, but its food for thought.