GOP: your last chance
by Matthew Smock
Published: June 16, 2008
Although McCain has been the presumptive GOP nominee for ages now, one fact remains: a large faction of the Republican Party remains unsatisfied with the choice. This faction is the true conservative wing of the party, and their discontent poses a threat to McCain’s campaign. With the way things are going, these voters will either cast their ballots for Bob Barr or will abstain from voting, asking themselves, “What’s the difference between McCain and Obama anyway?” The fate of McCain’s campaign rests in a decision he will need to make soon: who will be his running mate? In order to win that conservative faction, it better be Ron Paul.
I wrote back in January that the GOP was on its way to losing unless Ron Paul was chosen. A look at the current polls will explain why. The RealClearPolitics average currently has Obama leading McCain by 2.5%. As of now, the race seems pretty close, but once Obama selects Clinton as his running mate, more Democrats will move to support Obama. At which point any votes that Barr is able to pick off will hurt - bad.
McCain selecting Ron Paul as his running mate can greatly change the dynamics of his campaign. Though tempting, McCain doesn’t need to pick Huckabee or Romney; their supporters will rally behind McCain regardless of whom he picks as his running mate. However, Paul supporters and other angry conservatives won’t. Even after McCain became the presumptive nominee and Paul shifted his energies to his own Congressional primaries, large percentages of Republican voters continued to vote for him. Late in the primaries, Paul won 24% of the vote in Idaho, 16% in Pennsylvania, 15% in Oregon and 14% in New Mexico (CNN), so don’t be fooled by his meager 35 pledged delegates.
While McCain somehow was able to win the primary as a cross-aisle Republican, he better not forget real conservatives in the general election, when he already has to overcome the difficulty of separating himself from Bush’s legacy and the Iraq failure. Bush didn’t care much for the Constitution, but the originalists of the base did and still do. McCain never gave fiscal conservatism more than lip service while in the Senate, but that same base expects more than rhetoric. Even if McCain does want to take the country in a direction contrary to what many disaffected conservatives want, he at least needs to pretend to reach out to the party’s base by running with someone who connects with them.
Historically, some of the most successful presidents in US history, even after the 12th Amendment gave way to party tickets, gave their administration a little flair by appointing VPs who weren’t their political clones. Andrew Jackson had Martin Van Buren, who was initially a supporter of William Crawford, not Jackson. Abe Lincoln had Andrew Johnson in his second term, who was really a Southern Democrat. And recently, Reagan had George H. W., who once called Reaganomics “voodoo economics.”
McCain needs to check his arrogant disregard for conservative causes and do the same. Although he laughed at Paul in earlier debates, he can’t do so now. Paul has a wide base of supporters that would be happy to leave the Republican Party and vote for Bob Barr rather than a candidate that continues to mock their ideology.
For the last several months, the Democratic race has appeared to play right into Republican hands; however, the Democrats have plenty of time to reunite before the polls open in November, so the laughing should stop now. Republicans better look at their own party and realize that it’s divided and may shrink significantly if McCain puts his clone on the bottom half of the ticket. And the repercussions may go beyond November for Republicans. I can foresee the Libertarian Party haunting Republicans in elections in 2010 and 2012 as well.
Unfortunately, what he ought to do and what he’s going to do are two different political realities. Paul isn’t even on his list for possible VP candidates. But after McCain loses, and the “Republican” after him, maybe the party will remember this:
The GOP was most popular, effective and influential when real conservatives ran the show.
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June 16th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Ron Paul is a silly attention grabber that did well among tweakers and conspiracy theorists. Apparantly, those groups had alot of pent up political desire that exploded in a series of unprecedented political donations to Paul’s crack-pot campaign. You can’t seriously believe that putting him on the ticket would help? Please tell me your not serious.
June 17th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Ron Paul, that would only be as stupid a choice as McCain. So lets not repeat history twice. No one likes Huckabee except littl old baptist ladies who think he is funny. The obviouse choice here is Romney, as conservative as Ron Paul and yet realistic. Ron Paul would only tick more conservatives off and prove the point that McCain is seanial and not the man for the job. McCain will probably not choose Romney however because Romney would overshadow him in every way. But if McCain has any real love for this country he would choose Romney. If he still thinks he is a superstar, then he’ll pick up the Florida Governor and we’ll have another weak VP candidate like what Clinton did with Gore.
June 17th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
American conservatism is a fear and resentment of federal power - traditional federalism. If you think Romney is as conservative as Ron Paul, you clearly don’t understand that or haven’t learned any American history.
It’s also pretty clear Ron Paul’s supporters won’t vote McCain otherwise, and McCain needs every right wing vote he can get. Romney’s supporters will back McCain regardless because they all have the same thing in common - they piss on traditional federalism. Actually maybe your right; a flip-flopping candidate probably has flip-flopping supporters. They’ll get pissed off and vote Obama.