McCain Wins South Carolina
Written by Sam on January 19th, 2008
The AP and Fox News have both called the race for John McCain. Tonight’s race means several things. Since 1980 the winner of the South Carolina Republican primary has gone on to be the party’s nominee. South Carolina also has more military families than any other state and they seemed to gravitate towards him as well, according to the reporter on Fox News.
Huckabee finished a very close second, but I don’t see where he really goes from here. Florida is next followed by Maine and he won’t win either one of those. He won’t even come close in Maine. That will be a Romney state I am thinking. Florida is up in the air between him, Romney, McCain, and Giuliani and Giuliani has already got the shop up and running in Florida while the others were working South Carolina. Super Tuesday will be a lot of liberal minded states that won’t take to Huckabee either.
Regarding Fred Thompson, I think he will drop out of the race. He has said repeatedly for the past two weeks that he has to do very well in South Carolina and that wasn’t the case tonight. Judging by his speech this evening I got the impression he was giving his supporters and staff a final hoorah. I think we will hear an announcement within the next few days.
Duncan Hunter has officially dropped out of the race.
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Duncan Hunter was running for President? When?
I agree with Sam’s analysis. The only thing I’d caution you on is Huckabee’s appeal to the evangelical base in Florida. Now, he’ll be lucky to get more than two votes to rub together down in Broward or Dade counties, but north-central Florida is FULL of Southern Baptists and other evangelicals who are just itching to vote for him. I know- I’m friends with some of them!
Now, are they going to give him more than 25-27% of the vote? No. But in a four-way race with no other obvious Christian-Right candidate, 27% might be enough.
I know some Fredheads here too. I don’t know where they’ll go if Fred drops out. Watch out for them.
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This country is going straight to Hell. If Thompson’s supporters drift to McCain (as they likely will because if and when Thompson drops out, he’ll endorse McCain), then Thompson will have done more damage to the conservative cause by entering this race than he would have done by staying out of it completely.
I’ve written and said so many horrible things about Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani, and I’d say those things again and mean every word, but those two super-RINOs are looking better and better every day as the prospect of a McCain presidency gets more and more realistic. I just can’t stand what I, as a conservative, have been reduced to.
WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING TO THIS PARTY?!?!?!
::sigh:: If Thompson drops out, I’ll have no choice but to support Romney. McCain is my absolute last choice, and it looks like Romney will be the one most likely to beat him.
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Alan, it’s not that bad. Huckabee would be the worst candidate in my opinion because of the explosive growth of government we would see under him.
McCain has a strong fiscal record of fighting against waste and that is the number one issue that has caused the GOP to lose the fiscal conservatives. He will also manage the war a hell of a lot better than Bush has and I think will be wise enough not to take us into any more wars of choice.
McCain has his flaws, no doubt. I have criticized him multiple times on this Web site, but he can win the general election and rebuild the Reagan coalition.
In any case, it’s still too early to be worried about what will happen. This race is not close to over still. We won’t have a good idea until after Super Tuesday which direction we are going.
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Langley, are you going to publicly apologize for being so ridiculously wrong about Thompson’s chances?
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McCain has a strong record of fighting against conservatives.
What kind of judges is this man going to appoint? You think any judge he appoints would hold his signature accomplishment–McCain-Feingold–unconstitutional? Of course not. Good luck finding judges who’ll uphold McCain-Feingold but overturn Roe v. Wade. (In any event, the last time McCain ran for president, he said Roe should never be overturned–so why expect him to appoint the kind of judges we want, even aside from the McCain-Feingold issue?)
And McCain is the worst of the worst on immigration.
And he voted against the Bush tax cuts, for reasons that could’ve (and did) come out of the Democrats’ mouths–talking about how the tax cuts favored the wealthy (as if that’s a problem, when it’s the wealthy who create jobs).
I can’t even go over all the major, major issues where McCain is just flat wrong for this country. Suffice it to say that he’s spat in conservatives’ faces for so long, seeing him as president is going to make us pine for the days of George W. Bush. I don’t look forward to this at all. This is a disaster we’re headed for.
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Utter chaos in the Republican ranks. Florida might make it worse since Giuliani has a pretty good shot there seeing he is the only one with an organization and its such a divided race.
I guess the big question is where does Thompson’s support go from here? Some will go McCain, but others will probably split between Romney, Huckabee, and Giuliani. This will only add more chaos to the race.
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Am I going to apologize for being passionate about and supportive of a candidate?
Uh, no.
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I won’t be apologizing either. I still think he has a chance in a brokered convention. We have a bunch of idiots voting right now.
I don’t know where the support goes. I would think more would go to Romney than McCain (even if Fred supports McCain). I think it is more likely that a lot of supporters just sitting on their butts and do nothing–and that could easily carry on through the general. It wouldn’t be a big number, obviously.
Add to that the co-called “So-Cons” who will defect with either Mitt or McCain and it may be enough to destroy the Republican nominee in the general.
Stupid, stupid, stupid…..
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Just because someone takes a position against pork barrel spending it doesn’t mean they’re an economic conservative.
Mccain is against tax cuts and for big government… pork is nothing compared to that.
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Alan, the country already is in Hell.
Have you seen the economy?
And why is the party worried about immigration, such a non-issue. The party was grasping at straws to find an issue that would stick, this stuck with those of you in the south and mid-west.
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Roger, I’m a New Yorker, and the immigration issue took my state by storm when Eliot Spitzer said he was going to give drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens. You’re blind if you don’t see what a hot political issue this is, nationwide.
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Roger, the immigration issue is also having a significant impact on the economy.
On a national level, security always has to be the #1 issue–and immigration is part of that. Economy is a close #2 issue.