The playoffs begin with the Florida primary. It’s the wildcard game. Romney and McCain have won their respective divisions and are guaranteed to compete on Super Duper Tuesday. Romney, who has actually polled the most votes and scored the most delegates so far, is now the candidate of mainstream conservatives. McCain, the darling of the news media, is now the candidate of moderates and cranky conservatives. The noble and eloquent Fred Thompson tried but failed to earn a wildcard spot. Regarding of whether he formally withdraws or hangs in until Florida, he’s no longer competitive. Not sure whom that helps more, because Thompson’s voters are mainstream conservatives on the issues but he’s closer to McCain in style and personality.
Oddly enough, the real contest to watch in Florida is going to be between the two most dissimilar candidates, Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani. Each must do very well — win or run a strong second — in order to survive as a viable candidate on Feb. 5. Neither McCain nor Romney need necessarily do either, though they are certainly capable of doing so. I think we get essentially a three-man race after Florida, and a two-man race after Super Duper Tuesday. Sorry for the jarring switch of metaphors, but past performance does not guarantee future results. As the field narrows, lots of previously committed activists, commentators, donors, and voters are going to be reverting to second and third choices. Who will they pick? Or will they pick at all?
— John Hood is chairman and president of the John Locke Foundation.
Lawrence Kudlow
Sen. John McCain capped off his big win in the South Carolina primary with the single best victory speech of anyone in the campaign season so far. Following his New Hampshire win, Mac gave a boring, stilted, vision-less, down-market talk that pursued him throughout his Michigan defeat.
Saturday night, the senator gave an uplifting and patriotic speech that highlighted America-first security and freedom against the jihadist enemy abroad and heavyhanded government at home. Focusing on conservative values and pro-growth economics, McCain defended the free market, low taxes, and small government.
In an interview McCain said he would make the Bush tax cuts permanent, cut the corporate tax, and restrain spending. On the so-called stimulus package, he said he would not support a larded up pork-barrel package. This is a well-balanced tax-and-spending-cut message.
It’s a welcome relief from what McCain consultant Charlie Black has been putting out. Black keeps telling interviewers about spending cuts to reduce interest rates. Pure root-canal austerity. Rubinomics. Not true analytically, with rates sinking in the slowdown economy, and not a trace of pro-growth tax-cutting. Every time Black appears, he loses McCain five percent of the primary vote in whatever state he is speaking.
Let Jack Kemp, who just crafted a big corporate tax-cut package for the senator, or Phil Gramm, become McCain’s economic spokesman.
Finally, I really liked Mac’s references to God, country, and service. He told the crowd “I will not let you down, so help help me God.” And then he closed with: “God bless you, as you have blessed me.”
With a strong and positive speech, and a big smile on his face, Sen. McCain is going to roll into Florida. If he stays on message, he’ll keep rolling right on to the nomination.
— Larry Kudlow, NRO’s economics editor, is host of CNBC’s Kudlow & Company and author of the daily web blog, “Kudlow’s Money Politic$.”
Yuval Levin
The prospects of an endless messy Republican nomination process are probably overstated. One of Saturday’s two winners — John McCain or Mitt Romney — will very likely be the Republican nominee. Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee both needed to do well in South Carolina, and both tried so hard they prevented each other from succeeding. Neither can look forward to a state with better demographics and politics for him, and although Huckabee can hang on and perhaps win one or two of the February 5 states in the south, neither man can go further.
Rudy Giuliani could still surprise, to be sure, but he has allowed himself to sink while betting everything on Florida, which has badly hurt his national standing, and yet hasn’t even assured him of a win in Florida. He has gone nearly broke and has so far nowhere placed better than fourth — which seems a most unpromising path to victory.
Romney and McCain are both stronger than they seem. The knock on Romney is that he can’t connect with voters, but he has won more voters than anyone else, and twice as many delegates to the convention as McCain. McCain, meanwhile, routinely wins head-to-head match-ups with both potential Democratic candidates in national polls.
The trouble for both of them is that although one of them is likely to win, the field will not clear quickly enough for Florida and Super Tuesday to be two-man match-ups. So Romney can’t quite run as the anti-McCain (the generic if newly minted conservative who will spare us the maverick drama) and McCain can’t present himself as the anti-Romney (the conviction politician who knows where he stands and doesn’t care what you think). One of them will win, but not exactly by defeating the other. What a year.
— Yuval Levin is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and senior editor of the The New Atlantis magazine.< Back 1 2 
