McCain lost the front-runner’s mantle the first time due to a case of political identity amnesia. Taking his status as the favorite too seriously, he tried to be all things to all Republicans. McCain became more sycophantic of President Bush and tried to mend fences with his ideological foes on the religious Right. In so doing, he alienated his own base—socially moderate, national security-minded Republicans and independents with similar views—while failing to impress the doctrinaire conservatives he wanted to woo. McCain responded to his putative collapse by reverting to form, doggedly defending unpopular policies like the surge of American troops and the failed McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, and hoping to make a stand in New Hampshire, the site of his upset victory over then-Governor George W. Bush in 2000. He overhauled his campaign staff and crisscrossed New Hampshire on the “Straight Talk Express,” holding the type of back-and-forth town meeting forums in which he excels. The payoff came when he beat Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, 37 percent to 32 percent, sparking his resurgence.
By no means, though, does McCain have the nomination wrapped up. Romney has won three primaries, beating McCain in a Michigan contest dominated by economic issues, and winning lopsided victories in Nevada and Wyoming. Arizona Governor Mike Huckabee, a smooth-talking Baptist minister who mixes economic populism with hard-core social conservatism, won Iowa on the backs of evangelical Christian voters. In Florida, McCain and Romney are in a statistical dead heat, according to the latest Real Clear Politics polling average. Huckabee and Giuliani are fighting for third.
Indeed, the true phenomenon of the 2008 Republican primaries has been the breakup of the Republican coalition that began to form in 1968, and began to dominate political life under Reagan. Security conservatives, business conservatives and social conservatives have begun to turn on each other, creating a race that has been not only unpredictable, but also rancorous, two characteristics normally not associated with Republican presidential contests.
Consider McCain. He has won in New Hampshire and South Carolina, two states with differing characteristics and social climates. However, both of his wins have been by five percentage points or fewer. His margins of victory in New Hampshire and South Carolina came from independents, who made almost 40 percent of the electorate, according to the CNN exit polling. He lost among Republicans and self-described conservatives and got trounced in the white evangelical vote in South Carolina. McCain wins consistently among those who vote on terrorism and the war in Iraq. He appeals most strongly to those with whom his security credentials resonate, and to moderates who respond to his maverick style.
The problem is, he is less than appealing to the religious conservatives, whose leaders he once lambasted, and to the moneyed party establishment, which resents McCain’s wariness of the Bush tax cuts. Huckabee and Romney are becoming avatars of the GOP’s social and economic wings, respectively. Huckabee, in many ways, is the perfect evangelical candidate, mixing fervent opposition to abortion and gay marriage with excoriations of Wall Street. His putative economic populism (most of which is a crock, by the way, just read his tax plan) and charisma make Huckabee the darling of evangelical activists, especially younger ones. In states where evangelical voters have been numerous, Huckabee has been strong. He finished first in Iowa, beating Romney among white evangelicals 46-19 percent, and topped McCain in that demographic 43-27 percent, on his way to a second-place finish in South Carolina. With the exit of Fred Thompson from the race, a competing pull on evangelicals has been removed, and this may help Huckabee.
At the same time, Romney shows signs of becoming the choice of the GOP establishment. Irrespective of his prior incarnations as a bible-thumper and a nativist, Mitt the equity firm mastermind is an even more natural capitalist than Dubya the Texas oilman. Romney is an authority on economic matters, as evidenced by his double-digit defeat of McCain in Michigan among those who voted on pocketbook concerns. Despite coming in fourth in South Carolina, Romney looks like a good bet to become the candidate of the business conservatives, given his economic credentials and his conservative conventionality. The coalescing figures and institutions like Rush Limbaugh and the National Review around Romney in recent days means that the Republican orthodoxy is hoping his bland conservatism can squelch McCain and Huckabee.
Florida’s primary is crucial to determining whether and how the fracturing GOP will be able to unite this year. At this time, it appears that McCain has narrowly defeated Romney in Florida. If that result holds, he may coast to the nomination, especially as Giuliani’s support will flow to him. However, the Republicans will have chosen a standard-bearer who has little support among the party’s conservative and religious base. If nominated, McCain’s challenge will be to build bridges to the Republican mainstream while not scaring off his own support among independents and moderates. If he wins the nomination easily, he will have time to unite the party. If Romney and Huckabee respond well on Super Tuesday, and the race drags out, it would compound McCain’s problems, and deepen the fissures already exposed by this GOP contest.
Florida makes it unlikely that McCain will lose the GOP nomination. However, if Huckabee or Romney were to win somehow, the Republican Party would enter the general election campaign at a huge disadvantage. The business community would not support Huckabee, and moderate Republicans would vote Democratic. Likewise, Americans across the political spectrum have come to regard Romney as the worst sort of opportunist; it will be difficult for him to undo the damage wrought by his singularly unprincipled campaign.
However unpalatable he may be to the party’s doctrinaire elements, McCain is the GOP’s best hope of averting internecine war among the Republican constituencies. If the race drags out past Super Tuesday, we will see a reversal of conventional political expectations, with disunited Republicans confronting a Democratic Party that has been marching almost in lockstep behind a desire to win at any cost. Such a contest, given the current political environment, would result in a vast Democratic triumph and the further implosion of the Reagan coalition. As a Democrat, I would like that just fine.