|
There are really only 3 viable candidates left. Guiliani is toast.
Huckabee would need a miracle to win, and if he won, the Republicans would lose the support of the fiscal conservatives, who give them most of their money for always supporting tax cuts for the wealthy.
Conservatives HATE McCain with a passion. Limbaugh has already said nominating him would split the Republican party. His positions on immigration, McCain Feingold, his opposition to the tax cuts, and his willingness to compromise. He's also the oldest candidate. If he wins the nomination, the right-wingers will stay home or vote third party. He might get some independent support, but his position in immigration and the war will hurt him there.
Conservatives are starting to coalesce around Romney. Rush is talking him up. He is now the leading candidate among Freepers in their poll. For some reason, they are starting to overlook his flip-flops on virtually every major issue. Even Evangelicals who view his religion as a 'cult' seem willing to overlook it. He's a decent looking, smooth-talking, snake oil salesman who will say anything to get elected. And being the world's biggest customers for snake-oil, the Republican base will buy it. If he's already got 1/2 the freepers supporting him, despite his being a north-eastern, Harvard-educated lawyer, who up until months ago supported abortion rights and gay marriage, he will have the whole base supporting him by November, as blinding as they swarmed about Shrub in 2000.
Maybe that's not a bad thing. God only knows what positions he'd support if he actually WAS elected. Most likely, he'd do his best Bush impression, giving lip service to abortion and gay marriage, while pushing tax breaks for the rich and corporate welfare. That would only make him slightly less tolerable than Hillary to me. At least he was valedictorian at BYU, unlike the brain-dead current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania.
|