McCain has it virtually sewn up

What happened

Arizona Sen. John McCain solidified his position as the presumptive Republican nominee this week with three more primary victories. McCain rolled up double-digit victories over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Maryland and the District of Columbia, though his 9-point margin in Virginia was narrower than had been expected. Huckabee became McCain’s sole challenger last week, when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney dropped out of the race. Huckabee did win primaries in Louisiana and Kansas last weekend, but McCain now holds an insurmountable 821–241 lead in delegates. “He keeps things interesting,” McCain said of Huckabee, “maybe a little too interesting.”

Huckabee continues to draw the majority of conservative primary voters, especially evangelicals, impeding McCain’s ability to launch a full-bore general election strategy. But so far Huckabee has brushed off calls to step aside, saying conservatives need a voice in the process. “I know that people say the math doesn’t work out for me,” the former Baptist minister told a cheering audience. “I didn’t major in math, I majored in miracles.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What the editorials said

This notion that McCain is not conservative is growing tiresome, said Investor’s Business Daily. He is “the man of the hour on the global war on terror,” and from abortion to free trade, his record is solidly conservative. Still, if McCain must “assuage the base,” that may not be as hard as it seems. If he gets more specific on how he would “secure the border,” that will ease concerns over his immigration position. He also could agree that over time, the free-speech restrictions in the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law could be phased out. Most Republicans want to rally behind him—he just needs to make that a little easier.

So far, though, McCain has done just fine without abandoning his principles, said the Chicago Tribune. Why start now? Before the primaries began, most experts dismissed McCain as too moderate, too willing to buck the GOP line. But he’s on the verge of locking up the nomination for a simple reason: Even when voters disagree with him, they give him high marks “for being honest and for being straightforward.” His “evident character” has brought him this far. If he holds his ground, it could carry him all the way to the White House.

What the columnists said

Alienating conservatives would invite disaster for McCain and for the Republican Party, said John Dillin in The Christian Science Monitor. Conservatives “aren’t just voters, they are the foot soldiers” in elections. They man the phone banks, drive neighbors to polling places, and contribute money. Without “energized, excited conservatives,” the Republican candidate—any Republican candidate—is sunk.

Maybe, but that doesn’t mean McCain must kowtow to the so-called talk-radio wing of his party, said Mark Helprin in The Wall Street Journal. It’s not just that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and their ilk are unhinged, it’s that McCain couldn’t stop their “hissy fits” even if he tried. That’s because their true goal isn’t to get a “pure” conservative elected but, rather, to stoke the fires of outrage and grievance on which their careers are based. They know they’ll get more listeners if they spend the next four years attacking President Obama or Clinton; “it isn’t worth it, however, for the rest of us.’’

Thanks to Huckabee, though, a more attractive brand of conservatism is still in play, said Byron York in National Review Online. With his common touch and firm yet gentle belief in traditional values, Huckabee, 52, has emerged as “the best natural campaigner in the 2008 field.” This may not assure him the No. 2 slot on McCain’s ticket, but it does make him “a national figure in GOP politics” and the de facto leader of the GOP base. Not bad for someone who just a few months ago was dismissed as a little-known country bumpkin.

What next?

With McCain’s nomination all but sewn up, speculation is intensifying about his choice of running mate, said Thomas M. DeFrank in the New York Daily News. It’s “critical for him to pick a veep who helps negate Democratic whispers” that, at 71, McCain is too old for the job. Three candidates fit that bill—Huckabee, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Crist, 51, may have the inside track. His endorsement of McCain helped him capture the crucial Florida primary, and he could deliver the must-win state in November.