McCain claims front-runner status

What happened

The Republican presidential candidates barnstormed Florida this week in the hope of winning what may turn out to be the most important primary of the campaign, on Jan. 29. “We come into Florida with some wind at our back,” said John McCain, who arrived in Miami fresh off a critical victory in South Carolina’s primary last week. That victory, along with his win in New Hampshire, gave the centrist McCain fragile front-runner status over Mitt Romney, who is seeking the support of the party’s more conservative wing. Florida polls showed McCain with only a slight lead over Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee, who finished second in South Carolina and is running out of money. “Florida is the showdown state,” said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse.

Giuliani has largely avoided competing in previous primaries and is gambling on a big win in Florida to propel him into Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, when more than 20 states vote. “The reality is we need to win in Florida,” said Giuliani. Although Giuliani once held a commanding lead in the polls, his support has dropped precipitously in the last few weeks. Fred Thompson, a former senator whose campaign never caught fire, ended his presidential bid this week after placing a distant third in South Carolina.

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What the editorials said

Don’t look now, said USA Today, but it seems that “democracy has broken out.” Conventional wisdom is that the modern primary system had ruined presidential politics. The system is supposed to be rigged in favor of candidates with the most money in the bank—Romney and Giuliani—or the winners of the first two states—Huckabee and McCain. Instead, the race will still be wide-open going into Super Tuesday. “It looks as if large numbers of American voters will actually have a say in choosing the candidates.”

McCain’s comeback is the best thing that could have happened to the Republican Party, said the Orlando Sentinel. In a crowded field, McCain stands out as the candidate with the most experience and integrity. “On two of his most controversial stands—support for comprehensive immigration reform and more U.S. troops in Iraq—he has stuck to his principles at the risk of sinking his campaign.” Voters could have punished him for his maverick streak. Instead, they’ve rightly rewarded him.

What the columnists said

“Maverick” is one word for McCain, said Dean Barnett in The Weekly Standard. A better one is heretic. As a senator, McCain has violated a long list of conservative principles. He championed campaign finance “reform,’’ which was an unconstitutional restriction on free speech; opposes drilling for oil in Alaska; and has been a leading critic of tough interrogation of terrorists. There’s room for policy debates within the GOP, but what drives conservatives crazy is McCain’s “manifest lack of respect for those who disagree with him.” He doesn’t just challenge other Republicans, he acts as if he is morally superior to them.

McCain certainly rubs his fellow conservatives the wrong way, said Adrian Wooldridge in The New York Times, but he has “a solid record on the defining principles of the modern conservative movement.” Even his maverick policies are rooted in conservatism. He opposed the Bush tax cuts because they weren’t paired with lower spending, and he supports immigration reform because it’s good for business. McCain’s real problem, it seems, is that he won’t pander to the loud, powerful factions within the party. Conservative voters “will have to decide whether their loyalties lie with their beliefs or with their interest groups.”

The good news for Republicans is that Huckabee is no longer a threat to win the nomination, said John Fund in The Wall Street Journal. Huckabee turned out his evangelical base in Iowa and South Carolina, but his call to amend the Constitution to better reflect the Bible turned off everybody else. “Only one in seven non-evangelicals voted for him.” The GOP needs a candidate with broader appeal, and McCain may fit that bill.

What next?

A victory in Florida would enable McCain to raise the money he’ll need to compete with the well-funded Romney on Super Tuesday. But if Romney can’t come in at least second, “it’s hard to see how he slows McCain’s momentum and dents his aura of inevitability,” said Noam Scheiber in TheNewRepublic.com. “This is clearly a McCain-Romney race going forward.”