Posted by
RollinTruth on Sunday, January 20, 2008 1:54:03 PM
John McCain's win in South Carolina was no doubt huge for his campaign, and will help secure his position as the front-runner in our party.
But we need to look closely at the data from South Carolina to see some facts that the mainstream media isn't really talking about. Namely, that McCain lost among Republican voters, conservative voters, religous voters, and voters most interested in a candidate who shares their values. In those catagories, the winner was Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee beat McCain among Republican voters, and 71% of Huckabee's suppport came from very or somewhat conservative voters -- McCain's support from such voters was 49%, and he was the closest to Huckabee among any other candidates. Huckabee also enjoyed a 16% edge over McCain (again in second place) among evangelical voters. Finally, Huckabee crushed all other candidates on the question of who most shares the values of the voters -- 48% went for Huckabee, 20% for Thompson, and McCain fell to third here with only 14% of the vote.
John McCain won South Carolina because he won big among moderates and independents. His edge in these two catagories was high enough to propell him to victory. While some point to McCain's edge among veterans and people currently serving in our military, he actually only had a 7% lead with those voters. That's translates into just over one-and-a-half percentage points, since that group makes up a quarter of all voters in the primary. Huckabee's nearly 30% support from the same group of voters in the primary means he wasn't far behind McCain in the total number of real votes and in terms of their percentage of his overall tally.
No, McCain's victory is owed to non-Republicans and non-conservatives, plain and simple. Those are the two key catagories where his overwhelming support translated into enough real votes and a percentage of his overall vote total, to give him the win over Mike Huckabee.
The question, then, becomes: Can John McCain continue to win if his most of his support and his margins of victory depend on non-Republicans and non-conservatives?
This is not meant as a slam against John McCain -- I am in fact disturbed by the attacks that some more prominent conservative talking heads have launched against McCain, all seemingly tailored to help Mitt Romney, one of the worst candidates for the GOP nomination I've ever seen. I've been rather disgusted at some of what's being said about McCain, even by a few people that up until now I have always admired and liked. So, no, I am not trying to go after John McCain here. I am merely asking a serious question about his ability to remain the front-runner if he in fact depends so heavily upon independent voters and moderates.
It's a question of general election versus winning the nomination. The support of independents and moderates indeed speaks well of McCain's ability to attract the non-GOP votes he'd need to win in November, but this presumes he will automatically be able to count on Republicans, and more to the point the GOP social conservative base. McCain will appeal to security conservatives, and he'll appeal to moderate conservatives, and he will reach out to a lot of swing voters as well -- and this just won't add up to a majority. McCain, like all of our candidates, NEEDS the base of social conservatives. With them, he can and will win the general election. But how to get them?
My next blog entry addresses this problem, and why it is now time for Republicans to rally behind our obvious presidential and vice presidential ticket.