Posted by
Steve on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 1:27:30 PM
Super Tuesday was yesterday and it did not turn out anything like I expected it to. I expected John McCain to win big in the east, he did. I expected Mitt Romney to do well in the west, he did. I did not expect Mike Huckabee to win the South, he did. I did expect Mike Huckabee to win Arkansas and maybe another state, but not the entire South. The McCain team gave Huckabee his first win in West Virginia. Romney was in first place with about 46% of the vote. McCain’s people got with the Huckabee people to put Huckabee over the top and victory. That should have telegraphed what kind of a day it was going to be.
The polls had Romney tied or even ahead in California. He lost the state 40-26%. One other surprise was Arizona. Romney did not campaign here at all and took 39% of the vote. McCain got just under 50% of the vote in Arizona. That does not bode well for a campaign.
Right now the delegate count has McCain with a commanding lead. It is still possible for Romney to win the nomination, but he would just about have to win every state from now on. That would be almost impossible. The best that could be reasonably expected is for no candidate to get the number needed for nomination. That is a real possibility, since the delegates are split between three candidates.
Since a Republican needs to win the South to win in November, it would be logical for John McCain to put Mike Huckabee on the ticket with him. For me, that is a real problem. I cannot in good conscience vote for John McCain or Mike Huckabee. I might be able to stomach one or the other with a good running mate, but both would be too much for me to handle. I would probably vote for the Libertarian Party candidate. They, at least, would be closer to my ideals of a smaller government and lower taxes. I realize that would probably give the election to the Democrats, but liberal Republicans are almost worse.
I am really torn as to what to do. I cannot vote for any Democrat. All the Democrats propose to move us to socialist positions and towards communism. The Republicans, at least, would move us in that direction slower than the Democrats. I do not think we should go in that direction at all. We need a conservative candidate that would return us to the principles of the Reagan revolution and smaller government.
The Libertarian party does believe in smaller government and lower taxes. Unfortunately, they also believe in removing all laws about drugs and to ignore Islamo-Fascism. The last two are issues that I have strong feelings about and could not support from a Libertarian candidate. Those are the reasons I did not support Ron Paul in his candidacy.
There is still a lot of time before November 2008. I have a lot of thinking to do between now and then. The candidates will have a lot to say and that will have a big influence on my decision. But, if forced to make a decision right now, I would vote Libertarian rather than John McCain.