Can McCain Close The Deal?

Maybe not. Here's Joe Klein, on the weekend's GOP action:

I watched tonight's debate with the Frank Luntz focus group at the famed Merrimack Diner, while about 50 Ron Paul supporters--angry that their guy hadn't been included--ranted and raved outside. I"m not sure this was a representative group of Republicans. They seemed pretty conservative. And they...Just. Loved. Romney. Most of those who came in undecided had switched to Mitt by the end of the show. They just adored his position on illegal immigration (their dials plummeted when McCain said we had to be "humane.") They loved his explanation of why he had switched his position on abortion. They loved it when he nailed Huckabee as a tax raiser...in fact, Huckabee's failure to acknowledge that he was a net raiser of taxes ended his credibility with the audience (which, since this is New Hampshire, had been wary of his flagrant religiosity from the start).

Meanwhile, McCain was nowhere. His answers lacked zing. He seemed tired. He was unable to make a vigorous case for himself as a leader--even his references back to his days in the military didn't cut it with this Republican audience. McCain won here in 2000 because independent voters found him far more compelling than the independent alternative on the Democratic side, Bill Bradley. This time, he's competing with Barack Obama for independents in a state decidedly more blue than it was in 2000...He may still have enough heft to win this thing. But I wouldn't be surprised to see the race tighten or swing toward Romney over the next few days.

I still expect McCain to win New Hampshire; I can't imagine that four days of campaigning, even with two debates crammed in, will be enough time for Romney to shift the polls back into his favor. But I think McCain had an opportunity, with Romney hurt by Iowa, Huckabee hurt by being Huckabee, and Thompson and Rudy seemingly out of the running, to seize the mantle of GOP frontrunner this week, and consign Romney's campaign to near-oblivion. After watching the debates, which highlighted McCain's weaknesses as a candidate for the Republican nomination rather than his strengths, I don't think that's going to happen. Even if McCain takes New Hampshire, I don't think this race will be any less wide-open going into Michigan and South Carolina than it is today.

Comments

It's Scott Rasmussen's line -- they all have such problems that it's hard to imagine any one of them winning the nomination. If McCain does win convincingly tomorrow, he'll still have over half of the party dead-set against him going forward. The same applies to Huckabee and Giuliani, should they start to do well, who are also divisive figures.

Romney and Thompson are the only ones who are broadly in line with GOP doctrine. Fred can't run a campaign, and Mitt hasn't convinced people he's for real.

So, I think even if someone wins a couple in a row, there will be an energized faction within the party strong enough to prevent any candidate from becoming the consensus pick. Except Fred, but then, he doesn't seem likely to win anywhere (SC if Huck starts making monster gaffes?)

Expect this thing to be decided after Super-tues, not before.

Posted by Gyrd | January 7, 2008 9:14 AM

Question I haven't seen addressed anywhere: if Romney wins in New Hampshire, is there any way he loses the nomination? My sense is no way.

Posted by right | January 7, 2008 9:15 AM

There are allegations that Fran Luntz is coaching the focus groups to reflect the political views of Fox News. Please check out the video on dailypaul.com.

Posted by Althusius | January 7, 2008 9:35 AM

For all the incessant hyping of "who won the debate", I never see this question addressed - does anyone actually watch these things? I certainly don't, and I'm a grad school Ivy league professional. I never hear anyone else talk about them either. My sense is only rabid partisans and political junkies watch them, I really doubt they do much to swing undecideds. The post-debate press spin is what's truly important - if the papers and news shows say "Romney won the debate", then that's the impression most voters are going to have, and that may swing people.

Posted by vanya | January 7, 2008 9:55 AM

Actually about 300 Ron Paul suporters "ranted and raved" outside about such absurd things as "liberty", following the Constitution, fiscal sanity, ending an unfunded illegal war and in response to Fox News obvious censorship and news manipulation. Perhaps 50 were helping Lunt with his ahem "poll", when they weren't busy trailing Sean Hannity back to an anti free speech zone.

What does it say about our media when the people who support the Constitution are portrayed as "fringe"... Fair and balanced? You decide.

I know what went down, I was there.

Fox phony focus group is a sham and Frank Luntz is the poster boy for how to manipulate polls.

Ignoring a liberty oriented movement, does not make it go away, it reveals the absurdity of the positions of the so called "top tier" candidates. "They hate us because we're free" ? How about they hate us because we're in 130 different countries on 700 bases? Couldn't be that, could it?

Tired of the same old, same old?

google Ron Paul for President 2008

Posted by Bob C | January 7, 2008 10:08 AM

To Althusiius,

Fox News has generally been in favor of Rudy and puts Dick Morris on as an analyst who regularly rants against Romney and in favor of Rudy and Huckebee. Based on my observatioins, Fox is not coaching anyone to favor Mitt Romney. Mitt honestly had the best performance at the debate and won.

Posted by Ci2Eye | January 7, 2008 10:27 AM

To Bob C.

Did you actually watch the debate? I don't think Frank Luntz manipulated anyone. Your candidate, Ron Paul, was not there so there is no way the participants could have said he won the debate.

If you actually watched it, I would suggest that it is hard to conclude that anyone other than Romney won. He seemed in command, articulate, prepared and intelligent.

Posted by Ci2Eye | January 7, 2008 10:32 AM

What does it say about our media when the people who support the Constitution are portrayed as "fringe"... Fair and balanced? You decide.

Of course, by "support the Constitution" you really mean support RoPaul's highly idiosyncratic, extremely regressive interpretation of it.

Tired of the same old, same old? google Ron Paul for President 2008

I thought RoPaul fans were dedicated - can't you even be bothered to embed a link yourself?!

Not that it matters: Paul's 15 minutes is just about up, no matter what.

Posted by JC | January 7, 2008 10:54 AM

Ah, yes. Because Joe Klein really knows what's going on.

Please.

Posted by tinisoli | January 7, 2008 11:33 AM

I am amazed that McCain is getting so much support in NH. I am an conservative Arizonan that supported McCain in 2000, but I would never support him now. There are so many conservative issues that JM has voted against in congress--i.e. marriage ammendment. I can't tell you a single friend in JM's home state that currently supports him. I will be surprised if McCain wins his own state. I think Mitt is the one that will actually get the job done in Washington. If you look at what he has done in his home state, how can you not support him. Mitt has a lot more support in his own democratic state than John McCain has in Arizona.

Posted by Amanda Perkins | January 7, 2008 12:07 PM

Amanda Perkins writes: "Mitt has a lot more support in his own democratic state than John McCain has in Arizona."

Romney has said that he doesn't think he could win in Massachusetts in November, and for once he's right.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | January 7, 2008 12:14 PM

Amanda,
Which "home state" are you referring to with regards to Romney? Michigan? Mass? He's got ZERO chance in the latter, whether against McCain or a Democrat. He was barely here as governor, and if you look back on what he said and did here during or prior to his election, you find nothing but evidence of his enormous flip-flops. He's a joke here.

Posted by tinisoli | January 7, 2008 12:24 PM

As a fellow Arizonan, I agree John McCain is toast... Out with McCain in with Romney.

Time for change and thats Romney

Posted by Scott from Chandler AZ | January 7, 2008 1:02 PM

Mitt Romney had been having a hard time getting his illegal immigration message out. There is an elite consensus on mass immigration and nowhere is that more evident than in the elites who are in the media. And their elite agenda on immigration warps the coverage of the issue. But Romney has honed that message to cut through the distortion promulgated by the elites.

It's been noted elsewhere that Fox chose to superimpose a graphic about what Romney had said in the past about McCain/Kennedy just as McCain was speaking about it, probably a first. But I won't go into that here because I think this obsession with going back to find "gotcha" quotes does a profound disservice to the democratic process. What candidates have said and done in the past should take a back seat to first considering their current stated positions. If we like but doubt the sincerity of a candidate's current position, then looking back is relevant. But if we don't like what they've indicated as their positions in this campaign, that ought to be sufficient.

Romney has greatly clarified the immigration issue by explaining and elucidating the differences in an amazingly efficient way. In the debates and on the talk shows this weekend he effectively summarized the battle over the word amnesty. While accepting that there is a semantic rationale for denying that what McCain and the others propose is amnesty in some strict definition of the word, he correctly notes that it is close enough to and will likely be considered that by many if not most people. Then he explained the difference between his and McCain's proposals that form the basis of people's views on the question of amnesty. If truth is related to journalism, Romney was far more journalistic than millions of words written by professional "journalists" over the last year.

Posted by Jeff | January 7, 2008 1:36 PM

Let me insert by reference my comments ("NoMoreBlatherDotCom") on the Joke Line thread.

I'll also add that calling GOP voters inhumane over immigration (the dials bit above) is a stock trick he's employed before. Assuming he wasn't lying (not a safe assumption), the better explanation is that they knew that McCain was hiding support for illegal activity behind false compassion.

Posted by TLB | January 7, 2008 1:37 PM

There has been talk all day about weird stuff possibly going on with the focus groups - possible manipulation and possible impropriety.

Romney has been roundly slammed by the conservative press in NH.

Posted by TVV | January 7, 2008 2:01 PM

TLB- Thanks for the link. It was illustrative of my point about the elites in the media.

" I mean, if you care about illegal immigrants--which I don't understand in the first place, because I don''t--shouldn't you check the people working your lawn and, if you have doubts, hire another company? "

The elites consider themselves ever so tolerant of the illegal immigrants who service their lives of privilege. They don't consider the cost to legal residents who would otherwise do those jobs and would have the power to ask for better wages if there weren't illegal immigrants competing with them. These elites are the enemies of decent, law-abiding citizens who only ask for a fair shot in the marketplace. And they overwhelmingly dominate the media.

I suspect the reason that the audience reacted the way it did to the McCain's inhumane comment is that they are becoming wise to unstated but implicit argument within that argument, which is that enforcing immigration laws is inhumane.

Posted by Jeff | January 7, 2008 2:03 PM

I think a lot of people have a problem with McCain because he is rational. He is not as shiny as Romney or as I'm-your-buddy as Huckabee. The trouble is that what we really need is someone who is rational, thoughtful, strong-willed, experienced, and honest. McCain has shown he is all these things through his years of being a senator. Much that Bush did wrong, McCain was right about: troop levels, Rumsfeld, and spending.

McCain is probably the only Republican that has any chance of winning the general. Everyone else is too socially conservative.

Posted by John | January 7, 2008 2:27 PM

I think people need to factor in the (very) conservative impulse to "fall in behind your leader".

Even with the lackluster prospect of Bob Dole you saw this tendency among republicans.

I would expect this phenomena to occur around John McCain before super Tuesday.

Posted by Fitz | January 7, 2008 3:00 PM

It's indicative of how hateful the immigration debate can be that McCain using a word like "humane" in reference to immigrants causes the dials to drop. Sorry, but that says a lot more about the people with the dials than it does about McCain.

Posted by Punditish | January 7, 2008 3:06 PM

Punditish: can I suggest reading the comments above from me and Jeff?

Posted by TLB | January 7, 2008 3:42 PM

Romney is as phoney as a three dollar bill, and everyone outside the semi-official organs of the conservative movement recognizes it.

His endorsement by National Review and unofficial endorsement by the likes of Hannity, Rush, etc. are reminiscent of organized labor's decision to push Mondale on the Democratic Party in early 1984. Both endorsers and endorsees were diminished in the process.

In a general election, Romney's inauthenticity would make him the GOP's weakest possible candidate against Obama (aside from, perhaps, an angry Rudy Giuliani).

Posted by Simon | January 7, 2008 3:42 PM

Fitz is actually right this time: "I think people need to factor in the (very) conservative impulse to "fall in behind your leader".

Even with the lackluster prospect of Bob Dole you saw this tendency among republicans.

I would expect this phenomena to occur around John McCain before super Tuesday."

It is true that conservatives are a pretty ovine bunch, but if McCain doesn't look like a winner funding and Election Day turnout will be off. That was the case with poor Bob Dole, who probably can't be blamed for his dyspeptic '96 campaign because he was dead at the time.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | January 7, 2008 4:12 PM

Moe, perhaps the most "ovine" types on the planet could be found daily at Kos. While, as Fitz suggests, conservatives fall in behind their leaders, so do liberals. Most people in democracies eventually fall in behind their political leaders without necessarily agreeing with them on all issues.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | January 7, 2008 4:50 PM

McCain wins NH.
Huck wins SC.
McCain wins Michigan - a big maybe.
McCain wins Nevada.
Huck wins Florida, as Giuliani siphons off McCain support.
Giuliani wins NY.

California matters!

Posted by cazart | January 7, 2008 5:54 PM

Gyrd - "They all have such problems it's hard to imagine any one of them winning the nomination."
Too true. This is the Patriots vs. the patriots. If the GOP was really playing to win the long game, they'd move all of the money to congressional races - trying to save seats like Coleman's in Minnesota.
The AFC has won 5 out of 6 of the last Super Bowls. Where are you going to put your money this year? The AFC, of course.
Who's the GOP quarterback? Romney? McCain? The GOP blogosphere is passionately anti-McCain, anti-Huckabee, and anti-Paul, cool to Romney, wary of Rudy, and bewildered by Thompson's sleepwalking.
Move the money to the congressional races, '08 is a bad bet.

Posted by fougasseau | January 8, 2008 6:22 AM

I think David Brooks has it right about what sets McCain apart from pretty much everyone he's running against, both Republican and Democrat:

"Some politicians try to persuade their audience that they agree with them. McCain welcomes disagreement and talks about it."

Something that strikes me about McCain is that when tough questions, hypotheticals, come up, McCain is not afriad to state wildly unpopular opinions. E.g., he told Russert we could be in Iraq for a hundred years and that would be fine. Russert balked, but then something amazing happened-- McCain clarified what he meant, pointed out that Americans don't mind our presence all over the world but they mind the casualties and war. McCain was exactly right about that, he mentioned a list of other countries and regions where we have a military presence and noted how little Americans care that we're there.

Russert backed right off, and one could even say, McCain took him -- and us-- to school. Unlike with ALL of the other candidates, I felt like I actually had something to learn from this man, a different, more reasoned way of viewing policy issues. He could put this crisis in perspective, take the long view.

THAT's what we so desperately need in this country, after spending 8 years lampooning our commander in chief (whose communication deficiencies have hurt him in the area of respectability). Is it so wrong of me to want the leader of the free world to be above potential criticism as inexperienced (Romney and Obama), another local yokel (Huckabee)? Hillary is the second most experienced foreign policy leader in this race, and so to me that makes the decision very easy-- everyone keeps focusing on whether McCain could beat Obama, but if you're concerned about national security issues like whether Iranians are building nukes, hands down, McCain gets your vote.

Posted by MD | January 8, 2008 11:41 AM

HILLARY & MCCAIN will not go quietly. If McCain somehow, though still unlikely,becomes the nominee of the party, he has already let it be known he might not run for a second term, I think we might expect a "UNITY TICKET" of McCain & Clinton. Clinton is not going to give up her Presidential ambition to OBAMA. Stranger things have happened. McCain I suspect will plummet like a rock after New Hampshire. He is going to get eaten alive by Romney and Giuliani, one of whom will emerge victorious. Huckabee has served his purpose which was to slow down the game.

Posted by Christopher London | January 8, 2008 3:11 PM

Romney is a charlatan. Pure and simple. The man has yet to encounter something he wouldn't say or a position he wouldn't change if he thinks it would score him a vote.

It is terrifying that such a large percentage of the population is unable to recognize this.

I doubt that I would even vote for McCain, but I think it is disgusting that a man with the record of service of which he can boast has to share a stage with someone like Mitt Romney.

Can McCain close the deal? Tough to say. When the notion of treating illegal immigrants "humanely" is anathema to the Republican base, we might have reached a point where there is no longer any room for decent people in the Republican party. Sad, because I'm a registered Republican.

I think McCain could have closed the deal if at some debate he had looked at the audience, pointed at Romney, and said something to the effect of "THIS GUY?!?! You're going to go with this guy?!?! I spent 5 1/2 years locked in a tiger cage in Vietnam in service to my country, and you're going to go with the homecoming king who saved the Olympics?!? I can't raise my arms above my head because of the torture that was inflicted upon me in service to my country, and you're going to go with the guy who spent the same years spreading the LDS faith in France?!?" And walked off stage.

Posted by spider01 | January 8, 2008 3:18 PM

spider01 - Well said. Candidates don't do the most damage to the body politic when they enrage us, it's when they disappoint us. We listen and believe and then they fail to deliver. We lose hope.
McCain has become a disappointment. I wish he had attacked Romney strongly and directly...but he didn't.
I've also come to see how odd he is. When he looks into the eyes of a complete stranger like a long lost lover, because he's wearing a cap from the VFW, well, he's either faking it or he's goofy.

Posted by fougasseu | January 8, 2008 6:11 PM

Spider01,

You state about Romney that “The man has yet to encounter something he wouldn't say or a position he wouldn't change if he thinks it would score him a vote.”

To that I would ask one question: Given that his religion has been a major hurdle for him in this campaign, wouldn't renouncing his Mormon faith be the most politically expedient thing for him to do? Overnight his poll numbers would surely soar and a win would likely be assured. Yet, Mitt won’t do that. Why do you think he won’t?

Posted by Ci2Eye | January 9, 2008 2:57 PM