...and then there was one. Kind of. Just about everybody has officially conceded that John McCain is going to be the Republican nominee and the most conservative candidate with even a slim hope of victory. Here's how it all happened, in a cascading series of events:
1. John McCain won a lot of winner-take-all states and did okay in the proportional representation states, building up a huge lead in delegates, so everybody else became a long shot.
2. Mitt Romney suspended his campaign but never released his nearly 300 delegates, and hasn't ruled out the possibility he would re-enter the race, like if McCain were to be abducted by ninjas before the convention. I know that sounds unlikely, but a guy who can spend $42.5m of his own money to come in a distant second probably has the money to run a secret dojo of secret assassins somewhere underneath the streets of Boston. (Every time part of the Big Dig has to be closed down for "flooding" it's just because somebody got too close to Romney's Bond villain lair, and his secret army of Teenage Mormon Ninja Turtles.)
3. Ron Paul decided to focus on his congressional race when Romney dropping out and McCain steamrolling everyone else meant there was no possibility of a brokered convention where Paul's delegates could swing the nomination.
4. McCain started ignoring Huckabee and campaigning against the Democrats, and Huckabee played nice because he still wants to be vice president.
5. The New York Times printed a story about McCain having an affair with a lobbyist that involved a lot of innuendo and not a lot of facts. Instead of doing a politician's denial and leaving himself room to weasel about the meaning of the word "the" like someone else we know, McCain unequivocally denied it, basically doing the Sam Jackson "Say 'what' again! I dare you!" scene from Pulp Fiction daring the NYT to contradict him and staking his political career and his legacy on it being a bullshit story. For conservatives, being attacked by the NYT is like an endorsement, so McCain picked up yardage as the conservative talk radio hosts (who were previously claiming their audience would desert the party if he were nominated) all circled the wagons around McCain.
6. With Romney and Paul hanging onto 302 delegates and McCain having another 1064, Mike Huckabee can win at most 1014 delegates, but he needs 1191 to win. Huckabee says he needs a miracle, and appeared on SNL in a sketch where he wouldn't leave the stage when his bit was over and it was time for him to go, sheepishly saying "Sorry, I usually pick up on these things."
So McCain can't be beaten, but nobody will drop out. This does seem mysterious, but there are some possibilities:
1. Conservative Republicans might stage a backlash to McCain he couldn't recover from. The NYT seems to have forestalled this possibility by giving him their endorsement.
2. McCain might die before the convention. The guy is in his 70's, and if he has a stroke in March that leaves half his face paralyzed, he's not going to be president.
3. McCain could suffer some other political embarrassment that makes him drop out, like if he adopts a wide stance at the Minneapolis airport and restlessly taps his foot waiting for his prune smoothie to kick in. (The Republican Convention is in Minnesota, so that's going to be one busy bathroom.)
4. McCain could get it over with and pick Huckabee or Romney as his running mate, so he can act presidential, shore up his base and woo independents while the Democrats are still squabbling. Either one would bring enough delegates to make the nomination official, and McCain needs somebody ready to take over the job since there is a serious risk he'll die in office.
5. The horse may learn to sing hymns, and Huckabee could run the table, or Romney who is still on the ballot could stage some resurgence, and they could convince caucus delegates to switch their votes, although given the giant lead McCain has in delegates they'd have an easier time trying to dub Nicholas Cage into Cantonese--
--Oh, holy shit! As I was writing that this asian woman came up behind me and scared the living daylights out of me. Fucking Republican ninjas.
Anyways, if something crazy happens, either Romney or Huckabee could be back in it as a candidate or a power broker if McCain should stumble. And McCain's vice president is likely to run in 2012 as the heir apparent, so forcing his hand on picking you isn't such a bad idea if you have enough delegates to clinch his nomination, but McCain is likely to be the nominee by next Tuesday and render all of this moot.
No comments:
Post a Comment