Election Night HQ

Race42008.com’s LJ had the following thoughts on the current situation facing Senator McCain in this post, titled “Belated Musing on McCain”…

I apologize for my lack of posting on the site recently, but this has been an incredibly depressing two weeks and I haven’t been able to come up with anything meaningful to write.

I wanted to note though that my good friend Tim Miller, who served as John McCain’s Iowa Communications Director has resigned from the campaign. He was a very valuable asset and worked tirelessly to win the state for McCain. Tim takes with him key social conservative activist Marlys Popma who, as Iowa Coalitions Director, was so kind as to be interviewed by R4′08 back in January. His Iowa operations have been gutted and it appears that he has essentially abandoned the state to Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.

This news comes on the same day that the entire senior press staff Brian Jones (nat’l comm. director), Danny Diaz (deputy comm. director), and Matt David (rapid response coordinator) all proteges of former campaign manager Terry Nelson, leave along with McCain’s South Carolina communications director, Adam Temple. Jill Hazelbaker will be elevated from New Hampshire comm. director to overseeing the national press operations.

When taken together, this means that McCain’s new strategy is essentially to revive the same one he used in 2000; camp out in New Hampshire and try and use it to catapult to South Carolina and the mega-primaries on February 5th. But we all remember what happened last time when this strategy was tried.

I always assumed that the campaign would either end with McCain winning the nomination or riding around on the Straight Talk Express with John Weaver, Terry Nelson and his wife Cindy. But now that Nelson and Weaver (a guy that I’ve admired and wanted to emulate for years) are gone, I don’t know where all this is headed anymore.

A reader emailed me a few days ago and asked who I would support in the Race for 2008 if John McCain dropped out. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it and I honestly don’t know the answer to that. One reason I love politics so much isn’t necessarily because of the debate over the issues of the day, but the people and personalities who define them. Every once and a while a politician comes along and has the “it” factor, the thing that draws you to them above all others. You make a bond with them and would follow them anywhere come hell or high water. Many people made that connection to Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Rudy Giuliani. I long ago made my bond with John Sidney McCain III. No one else on either side of the aisle even comes close. Therefore, I will follow McCain wherever that road takes me.

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