Election Night HQ

Ana Marie Cox, the alter ego of the Wonkette, blogs for Swampland on Time.com.  In her distinctive SwampCasts, she provides a unique, irreverent perspective on the campaign trail.

In this SwampCast: Never Say Inevitable, she outlines three scenarios by which Senator McCain would not be able to obtain the Republican nomination.  Fortunately, AMC seems to be fairly skeptical that any of these scenarios she outlines will actually materialize, and I share that skepticism… as she summarizes it:

Three ways McCain could still lose. (For more on the fuzzy math that would get Romney to a delegate fight, see here.)

1) Something could go horribly, horribly wrong.

Granted, there is always the possibility.  One would be a scandal; another could be something along the lines of a terrorist attack that she mentions - something that would make the dynamics of Super Tuesday insignificant.  In any election, there is always the possibility that an unrelated 11th-hour development could be a game-changing factor.  Of course, we all hope that no disaster takes place, obviously.

As for a scandal involving McCain - it’s possible, but with every hour ticking off the clock w/o one breaking, it just becomes a matter of running out the clock (to borrow the metaphor you use in point #3).  Moreover, this essentially means that if the race stays frozen in place, McCain wins and wins big.  That’s not much hope for Mitt.

2) A conservative uprising against McCain.

Of the three hopes remaining for Mitt, I believe this one has the most plausibility.

(I emphasize “most”, because the only other two possibilities AMC mentions are a meltdown by McCain, or Mitt’s sudden revival and winning all remaining primaries and caucuses by wide margins, AFTER Super Tuesday.)

Why I think this is implausible-

As Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics has noted on McCain,

“Many people wrongly assume that average voters are as ideological as party leaders (broadly defined to include elected party members, prominent personalities in the party, and ideologues on op/ed pages and in opinion journals). They are not… This means that McCain is probably more acceptable to rank-and-file Republicans than we might initially think.”

Cost is right.  If he weren’t, he never would have gotten this far to begin with.  The attacks on him by those whom she cites, have not stopped McCain from winning up until now, and with less ideological voters in the big states coming to the fore, their influence is going to be even more diluted.  And I agree with AMC, that if there was going to be some kind of anti-McCain uprising, it already would have taken place.

Likewise, per Huck -

I concur w/ AMC  - seeing little reason why Huck’s voters would suddenly switch to Mitt, in order to stop McCain.  They’ll either vote for Huck, or not vote.  The number that would switch - for purely tactical reasons - is far too low, to save Mitt anywhere.  If they wanted to save Mitt, they’d already be supporting him.

3) Going all the way to the convention in the Twin Cities.

I would wholeheartedly agree with her opinion in this scenario (w/ the never-say-never caveat, of course).  Her football analogy is right on the mark.

Every time McCain wins, he gains more momentum and more free-media and more money.  Mitt has not been able to win, even in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida, where he vastly outspent his opposition.  If McCain beats him (even if he doesn’t beat him by much) on Super Tuesday, why would there be any reason to think Mitt would suddenly begin to win, w/o those advantages?

I see little evidence that Mitt would begin to win - at all - after a Super Tuesday scenario in which he does not obtain a decisive victory.  Let alone by the margins that he would need to, in order to erase such a huge lead in delegates.  His donor base would start to erode, and even Mitt must have a limit as to how much of their own money they want to put into this, if there appears to be no chance of victory.

There would also be resistance within the party establishment to a scorched-earth campaign run all the way to September against McCain.  The number of, as Jon Martin so aptly puts it at The Politico, “train-leaving-the-station” endorsements piling up are ample evidence of that fact - and those are coming in prior to Super Tuesday.  What will the flood be like if McCain wins (or wins big) on Tuesday?

Anyhow, well done analysis by AMC…

You can contact Election Night HQ at publisher@electionnighthq.com.  Please sign the Guestbook on the right-side column.  In addition, if you are from overseas, we particularly welcome your interest in the U.S. election process.   Please send us an e-mail, if you have any questions about Senator McCain in particular and the U.S. election process in general, and about how you found the site.

The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder has a great post up today, detailing with hard numbers, the popularity Senator McCain enjoys among Republican voters.  His post is titled simply: “The Big Picture: Republicans Like McCain”, and the chart provides considerable evidence that rank-and-file GOP voters are actually very comfortable with McCain as the nominee - something which his critics vociferously dispute…

(from Pew)

You can contact Election Night HQ at publisher@electionnighthq.com.  Please sign the Guestbook on the right-side column.  In addition, if you are from overseas, we particularly welcome your interest in the U.S. election process.   Please send us an e-mail, if you have any questions about Senator McCain in particular and the U.S. election process in general, and about how you found the site.

After all of the reports through the summer of 2007 about McCain staff departures, it’s great to be able to report staff additions, as McCain continues to build momentum.  Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic reported on February 1 that “Simmons Returns To The McCain Campaign”:

Simmons Returns To The McCain Campaign

Sarah Simmons, who served in the Nelson-Weaver era of the McCain campaign as the prime deputy to the chief strategist and number-cruncher-in-chief… is back in the fold.

The compact campaign will stay small through Feb. 5, a spokesperson said. There are plenty of volunteers.. but it doesn’t make sense to start adding staff until things have calmed down.

You can contact Election Night HQ at publisher@electionnighthq.com.  Please sign the Guestbook on the right-side column.  In addition, if you are from overseas, we particularly welcome your interest in the U.S. election process.   Please send us an e-mail, if you have any questions about Senator McCain in particular and the U.S. election process in general, and about how you found the site.

Jonathan Martin at The Politico has one of the finest blogs on politics to be found anywhere.  In his latest piece, Martin provides great insight as to how McCain’s character is trumping many potential objections to his nomination as the Republican standard-bearer in November.  Here are some quotes from the story on McCain, and the blog post where Martin notes the McCain story - “McCain Wins on Intangibles”…

NASHVILLE – Conservative unease with John McCain and the Arizona senator’s inability to win support from his party’s right wing has been much discussed and analyzed.

But there is another emerging fault line in the GOP race that may better explain better why, despite his checkered past with the party base, McCain has won consecutive contests and could wrap up the nomination Tuesday.

Put simply, McCain is winning the character contest.

In exit polls and interviews with McCain supporters, the former naval aviator and Vietnam POW has emerged as the candidate of choice for voters who make their decision based more on intangible personal attributes than on issues.

In every state since New Hampshire where exit polls have asked voters what was more important, a candidate’s position on the issues or a candidate’s leadership and personal qualities, McCain has won among those who said that character mattered more than policy stances…

“I’ve never voted for a Republican before,” admits Derek Edwards, a retired Navy lieutenant from Nashville who still managed to fit into his old flight jacket from the USS Enterprise for the McCain rally.

So why is he supporting McCain?

“He’s a great American,” Edwards observes, pausing for a few seconds before adding somewhat sheepishly, “He’s just a great American.”

It’s much the same at a subsequent rally down I-65 in Birmingham, Ala.

“To me, he’s straightforward. He’s, in my opinion, one of certainly the more honorable candidates,” says David Elsberry, hesitating before adding, “I guess I just like what he says, what he stands for.”

Asked if he’s a Republican, Elsberry, who has a son at Annapolis, says he votes for the best candidate.

“I’m an American,” he offers, clearly feeling that explains everything…

So the unique circumstances of this election appear to have aligned to allow McCain, despite his obvious flaws on issues with the party base, to now be on the verge of seizing the nomination through the strength of his character-based appeal.

Now his sympathizers hope that it will only get easier in November, with even fewer ideologically-oriented voters coming to the polls.

You can contact Election Night HQ at publisher@electionnighthq.com.  Please sign the Guestbook on the right-side column.  In addition, if you are from overseas, we particularly welcome your interest in the U.S. election process.   Please send us an e-mail, if you have any questions about Senator McCain in particular and the U.S. election process in general, and about how you found the site.

Ana Marie Cox, the alter ego of the Wonkette, blogs for Swampland on Time.com.  In her distinctive SwampCasts, she provides a unique, irreverent perspective on the campaign trail.   Cox, on the ground at the airport in balmy Tampa, Florida, offers three insights into the Sunshine State’s primary, just hours before the polls close… en route to covering someone’s Election Night HQ in Miami… in SwampCast: Primary Spoiler… 

1) Floridians are not paying much attention to the McCain vs. Mitt battle on Iraq.  Instead, the local press is paying attention to the endorsements (the most prominent being those of U.S. Senator Mel Martinez and Gov. Charlie Crist, who both backed McCain recently), “their policies”, and the back-and-forth between McCain vs. Mitt is not as big a story.

2) “I think the polls are wrong.  Whatever they say, they’re wrong.  Florida is notoriously hard to poll… so I think that no matter what the polls say right now, no matter who they say is ahead… they’re somehow wrong.”

3) “I don’t think Florida’s going to decide anything.  No matter who wins tonight, there’s gonna be a fight all the way till February 5, and maybe beyond.”

You can contact Election Night HQ at publisher@electionnighthq.com.  Please sign the Guestbook on the right-side column.  In addition, if you are from overseas, we particularly welcome your interest in the U.S. election process.   Please send us an e-mail, if you have any questions about Senator McCain in particular and the U.S. election process in general, and about how you found the site.