Posted by
Steve on Monday, January 28, 2008 1:54:12 PM
On Saturday, John McCain may have committed a blunder so big it could sink his campaign. He accused Mitt Romney of wanting to set a timetable for removing our troops so we could give victory to Al Qaeda. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you listen to the quote from Mitt Romney in question, you understand that he supports the troops and the timetables are for the President and the President of Iraq, and no-one else. John McCain said something very similar at the very same time. Of course, he claims that his comments mean something completely different than Romney’s comments.
McCain was looking bad for a few days as he clearly does not understand the economy. He needed to change the topic of conversation. He chose to bring it back to Iraq, which is his strength. He chose a comment by Romney that clearly does not mean what McCain says it means. He probably thought he could sneak it by everyone and be home free. Unfortunately for him, that does not work in today’s hyper-fast media environment. Almost before he was finished saying it, he was being slammed by the new media. It took the old media a little longer, but they did not bite either.
McCain must have some internal polls that show him losing to Romney for him to pull this stunt. This is not the kind of thing a front-runner does on the eve of an election. This is the kind of thing that someone does that is in trouble. The big problem with this attack is that it goes against the grain. McCain has always been known as a person of honor. This is a dishonorable thing to do. He should have said it was a mistake and apologized right away. He stuck with it all the way through yesterday. I have not heard anything today that would change his status.
The last poll from Florida has Romney at 33% and McCain at 28%. That is just outside the margin of error. On Saturday, the Governor of Florida endorsed McCain. That should give him a boost. This mistake may cost him a lot of the undecided voters. They may not want to vote for someone that pulls this kind of dirty trick on the eve of an election.
Rush Limbaugh credited someone named McCarthy with the idea that McCain should not be allowed to use the name of another candidate within thirty days of an election. That would be consistent with McCain-Feingold. With this attack, a Romney support group could not put out information that put the lie to McCain’s comments. Romney himself had to put out a comment refuting McCain’s comments.
Tomorrow, in the Florida primary, I predict that Mitt Romney will win with 35-38% of the vote. McCain will come in second with 25-28% of the vote. Third will go to Huckabee with about 15% and Giuliani will take fourth at around 13%. That will be the end of the Giuliani campaign and maybe the Huckabee campaign. They are both out of cash and getting trounced that bad will cause their already diminished fundraising ability to dry up completely. A win by Romney will propel him to win most of the elections on Feb. 5. McCain will win Arizona and maybe one or two others. Romney will win the rest.
On the Democrat side, Ted Kennedy and the John Kennedy side of the family are endorsing Barack Obama. They are hitting Mrs. Clinton and the Clinton machine with a lot of heavy hits. There is a lot of bad blood in the Democrat party over the way the campaigns have been conducted. A Clinton-Obama ticket is out of the question at this time.