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The McCain Surge

19 Dec 2007 12:03 pm

Proof, perhaps, that if the media wants something to happen badly enough, and trumpets it long enough even in the absence of compelling evidence, it will eventually happen.

(This lesson is not applicable if the poll in question turns out to be an outlier.)

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Ross, check out the recently released IA poll: He's now 3rd (albeit a distant 3rd) in IA, a state he has put almost no effort and very little money into. When he does visit the state, he goes to great lengths to point out that, in a nutshell, Iowa corn farmers with their ethanol subsidies are little better than welfare queens.

Wow. Weird race.

Posted by Adam | December 19, 2007 12:29 PM

Ah yes - the great and powerful media is the reason! It couldn't be that the rest of the field is just pathetic?

Posted by Multiple Choice Mitt | December 19, 2007 1:55 PM

McCain is

a) popular with moderates - see his favorables and head-to-head polling
b) pro-war
c) pro-life
d) has sold out whatever principles he momentarily had on taxes
e) against most social spending

His non-orthodoxies are purely on immigration, torture, and campaign finance reform, and that two-year period where he voted weird on tax cuts.

I'd say this is a sign that conservative voters are finally getting it through their skulls that McCain both agrees with them on most issues and is highly electable.

Posted by DivGuy | December 19, 2007 3:09 PM

Ross, are you part of "the media"?
Lots of people have been predicting a McCain rise once Republicans started seriously considering an actual 9iu11ani or Romney or Huckabee nomination. McCain's the safest choice by far and both parties tend to go for the safe choice most of the time.

Posted by tgb1000 | December 19, 2007 8:24 PM

Do media endorsements (Boston Globe, Union-Leader) count as the media forcing something to happen that isn't happening, though?

Posted by Brittain33 | December 19, 2007 8:38 PM

Get over it, Ross. The reason McCain is surging is that Republicans are finally starting to realize that he's the strongest, best-positioned candidate to take on and defeat Hillary Clinton in November. THAT is THE top priority!!!

The media have basically ignored McCain's candidacy for quite some time now, all but having left him for dead. As much as the low-brow knuckle-draggers on the religious right would like to see a Huckabee (Honest to God, that very name makes me laugh!) or Romney candidacy, there's simply no way that either one of them would ever beat Hillary head-to-head. No way in hell. Anyone who seriously belives otherwise is deluding themselves.

Fred Thompson is a dud and Rudy Guiliani, as much as I like him, would be vulnerable on ethics issues himself, nullifying a critical advantage against the Hildebeast. By contrast, John McCain is a decorated war hero who stood his ground on Iraq when everybody else was running for cover. We need that kind of courage and forthrightness in the White House and we need someone who is more interested in getting things done than in adhering to some rigid standard of ideological purity. I hope to God he wins.

Posted by Dan | December 24, 2007 1:16 AM