WHAT CAUSED THE MCCAIN MOMENTUM - THE SUNDAY COMMENTARY

Super Tuesday is just around the corner and whether one likes him or not John McCain is the front runner for the GOP nomination and has the clear momentum going into the 22 State National Primary on February fifth.


Many within the GOP, especially Conservatives are asking how the Senator from Arizona gained such strong momentum so quickly and why did it happen ? After all this was the man that Republicans clearly did not want in 2000 and until recently nearly everyone gave him no chance of winning the nomination. Now with Super Tuesday upon us John McCain has risen from near nomination obscurity to an almost unstoppable run to the nomination.


Some equate his rise to a fundamental shift in the Republican Party away from Reaganism and Conservative ideology. While this may play a very small roll, if any, I beleive this evaluation of the McCain momentum is flawed for two reasons. The first is the fact that even though McCain nor Romney for that matter are true Conservatives both as well as Huckabee and Paul who still remanin in the race, and every GOP candidate have spent a considerable amount of speech, debate and commercial time trying to claim the mantle of Conservative.


If Conservativsm were an ideology of the past in the GOP then candidates would not try to court the Conservative vote or claim the title. As for Reaganism, that to is obviously extremely strong in the GOP for the very same reasons. Every candidate claims to be either part of or from the , "Reagan Coalition." Again a considerable amount of time is spent envoking President Reagan's name and ideology and without exception every debate has had a question concerning how each candidate might compare themselves to Ronald Reagan.


If a fundamental shift had taken place in the core of the Reapublican Party then neither Conservatism or Reagansim would be a factor in the race, and both have become key issues that the candidates are wrapping themselves around.


In actuality there are two lesser and one greater factor that have lead to the metioric rise of John McCain as the front runner and most likely the nominee for the GOP. The lesser has to do with blunders by two candidates who have already dropped out of the race and the other has to do with a candidate that is still in the 2008 Presidential race.


First the lesser factors:


1. The Thompson factor - Of all the candidates who have thrown their hat into the ring for the GOP in 2008 Fred Thompson had the best chance to gain the nomination AND truly claim the mantle of Conservative. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, though staunch Conservatives never gained any backing by the voters and as such had little chance for the nomination.


Thomspon had not only excellent Conservative credentials with a record to match but he also was well known because of his movie and television career and his recent spear head of the Roberts and Alito nomination to the Supreme Court. Thompson was accused of running a, "lazy, " campaign but that is not the case at all. He patterned his Presidential run after a very successful Grassroots campaign that worked magnificantly in his election to the Senate from his home State of Tennessee.


Thompson as such was not prepared to run the type of campaign that is necessary on a National level. While his Grassroots approach worked at the State level, the tools were not there to run a successful National campaign which was a major miscalculation by Thompson and as such he never caught on as he should. Had Thompson run the exhaustive style of campaign with a large advertising budget and massive fund raising capability which is necessary for a Presidential campaign today, I beleive that the front runner would now be Thompson and not McCain.


2. The Giuliani factor - When Giuliani announced his run for the Presidency in November of 2006 nearly every pundit in the political rhelm stated that the nomination was his to lose. Giuliani, because of 9/11 was the best known candidate in the field. He also has leadership qualifications that had been witnessed by the entire country during a major crises.


For nearly a year Giuliani ran a National campaign and until just before the hard hitting campaign season began last fall he had held the lead in every major poll from the beginning and during most of that time the lead was double digits. Then Giuliani made a major blunder. Just when he should have kicked his campaign into a higher gear, he did the opposite and literally dropped off the screen pulling all of his resources out of the early States to concentrate only on Florida.


This major miscalculation by Giuliani not only cost him the nomination but seriously put into question whether he actually wanted to run for President and was basically giving up because he was tired of the campaign. Some beleive that his move was to positon himself for the Vice Presidency looking toward the Presidency in 2012 since McCain has indicated that if elected he would only serve one term.


The major factor:


Hillary Clinton - While the Thompson and Giuliani factors played a lesser role in the rise of John McCain the major factor for his skyrocket to front runner is Hillary Clinton. After Iowa many beleived that her chances had dimmed to the point of no return. Then when the polling and the pundits competely missed New Hampshire, I beleive something happened with Republican voters. They came down with a bad case of Hillaryitis, the fear of a Hillary Rodham Clinton White House.


With the exception of only a few months last summer when Giuliani was still leading most GOP polls and was also polling higher than Hillary, John McCain has been the ONLY Republican candidate who has consistantly lead Clinton in every major poll in a one on one match up. The same holds true as we approach Super Tuesday.


Hillary is very beatable and polls indicate that McCain is the one to beat her. There is a growing fear in the GOP and with many Independants of a successful run for the White House by Hillary. This is combined with a large number of voters who do not like her as a person and are also just plain tired of the Clintons. Her disdain for the military, her massive entitlements proposed and her very Socialist agenda strike a fear and anger that takes a voter who would usually vote their conscience and the issues and transforms them into one who votes for the electability of the candidate who can beat Hillary and polls show that is John McCain.


This more than anything else, I beleive, attributes to Republicans who had previously rejected McCain because of his many partnerships with Democrats and his betrayals of the GOP voting for him which has resulted in the rise of John McCain. If the momantum holds true, which it should especially after the Giuliani endorsement which virtually gave him California, New York and New Jersey whose delegate totals add up to more than the rest of Super Tuesday States combined, John McCain will be the nominee.


Not so much because Republicans believe he is the best candidate to represent the GOP and will make the best President but because he can beat Hillary Rodham Clinton and prevent the Socialist from gaining the power of the White House and leading the dangerous decline of the nation that her Presidency would cause. Conservatives, for good reason do not like McCain but voters see him as the best option to keep a Socialist Hillary or a very liberal Obama out of the Oval Office.



Ken Taylor