McCain's Lingering Primary Problem
Lost in the turmoil and media coverage of the Democratic race for president is the protest vote being cast against Sen. John McCain in the Republican primaries despite his lock on the nomination.
Roughly one fourth of Republican voters have taken the trouble in recent weeks to cast votes for others whose names still appear on ballots.
Granted, many of these voters will come home in November once the other choice is Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton. Still, it should be a warning to the senator from Arizona that voters with libertarian or religious-right views are wary of him and his record.
In North Carolina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee drew over 10 percent of the vote. Before he dropped out, his main appeal was to Christian rightists. Those folks are a core of the GOP base.
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas got 7.6 percent of the vote and did even better in Pennsylvania on April 21. Paul has attracted hundreds of thousands of libertarians who want the government to deliver the mail and that's about all.
Paul wants U.S. troops out of Iraq yesterday while McCain still talks of victory there without defining exactly what a victory would look like. Paul says he will not run for president as the Libertarian Party candidate—as he did in 1988—but will seek re-election to Congress.
However, former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr may carry the Libertarian banner. A crusty, humorless politician, he would be at least an annoyance to McCain.
All of this, GOP analysts will argue, is a tempest in a teapot compared with the bitter struggle on the Democratic side. McCain backers will assure these protest voters in the months ahead of his allegiance to conservatism.
Nevertheless, this clear opposition to McCain's maverick side exists. Some of these archconservatives seem angry that McCain even talks to Democrats in Congress.
McCain may find it necessary, as he already has, to polish his right-wing bona fides. In Philadelphia this week, he promised to appoint Supreme Court judges in the mold of Bush judges—Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.
That promise alone should be upsetting to Democrats and independents who are thinking of voting for McCain in November.
Tags: presidential election 2008 | primaries | Republicans | John McCain
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Reader Comments
why did gov lie about stimules pack. people are not getting the amount they were told the gov. is all lies and everyone in it lies.
does it really matter who is president you can't belive any of them
A Good Moral Example
Our country has lost it's sense of what is right and what is wrong. Our lack of good moral leadership has ruined the greatest country in the world.
Dr. Paul will restore freedom, liberty and peace by setting a good moral example for our country and for the world.
As Americans, we are obilgated to at least TRY.
Let it not be said we did nothing.
I view John McCain as an extention of the Bush administration. I want no more of that! It's been a stressful, deadly and deceitful 8 years and I cringe at the thought of things continuing down this same road.
REAL change would come to us with the good Dr. Ron Paul.
I'm more than ready for some Liberty, Prosperity and PEACE!
McCain is not a true Republican. People don't want home land spending cuts, they want cuts from overseas spending.
If the best change we can get is another party, a Democrat, then so be it.. anything is better than another neo brand fake Republican.
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John W. Mashek covered politics in Washington for four decades with U.S. News & World Report, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the Boston Globe. His primary beats were Congress, the White House, and national politics. He covered every presidential election from 1960 to 1996. He was a panelist in three televised presidential debates in 1984, 1988, and 1992.