Why John McCain Won

In the summer of 2007 the John McCain for President Campaign was out of money, out of momentum, and basically out of luck. By February 2008 McCain was the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party. How did such a thing come to pass?

In order to understand how John McCain managed to claw up the greasy pole of American politics to where he is now, one has to understand how the nomination process in the Republican Party works. It usually involves the moderate wing vs. the conservative wing fighting out for the privilege of seeing whose candidate gets the nod.

In 1952 Eisenhower, the moderate candidate, beat out Robert Taft, a conservative icon since the New Deal era. In 1964 Barry Goldwater, the conservative, beat Nelson Rockefeller, the moderate. In 1976, Gerald Ford, the moderate, beat Ronald Reagan, the conservative. In 1980, Reagan came back to beat the moderate George H. W. Bush. In 2000 George W. Bush, the more conservative candidate, beat John McCain, considered the more moderate. Now, in 2008, John McCain has triumphed.

When one faction or another in the Republican Party wins the nomination fight, it is usually the case because the other faction is unable to coalesce behind a single candidate. So it was in 2007-2008. There was no one conservative behind which the Right could get with enthusiasm. Newt Gingrich, who toyed with the idea of running, refused in the end to throw his hat in the ring. Fred Thompson entered late, which turned out to be a strategic error, and was seen as too lackadaisical a campaigner. Mitt Romney was regarded with suspicion for a host of reasons, some having to do with his religion, some having to do with his somewhat late conversion to conservative ideals. Mike Huckabee, a late bloomer who catapulted from the second to first tier, has not been able to break out of the evangelical, social conservative ghetto to win the broader universe of economic and national security conservatives. The rest of the GOP field, Brownback, Hunter, Tancreado, and so on were also runs. Ron Paul was in a class all by himself and, while entertaining, was never a serious candidate.

The only candidate who could compete with McCain for the title of the moderate front runner was Rudi Giuliani. Giuliani made what was only later to be seen as a strategic error in waiting to campaign full out until the Florida Primary. As a result, while he started as a front runner at the same time McCain was given up for dead, by the time Florida rolled around it was McCain, who campaigned with vigor and tenacity, racking up victories in New Hampshire, where he was always popular, but also South Carolina, where he had been beaten soundly in 2000. Defeated in Florida, Giuliani quickly withdrew from the race and just as quickly endorsed McCain.

With McCain the sole moderate candidate, he faced a divided conservative field with Romney and Huckabee. Too late, conservative activists started to line up behind Romney. Even so, Huckabee showed enough strength in the south to deny Romney a number of victories that he might have pulled out had he been running alone during Super Tuesday.

After Super Tuesday, Romney, having seen that his shot at the nomination had long odds, withdrew from the race as well. That leaves John McCain as the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party for 2008. Huckabee is still technically in the race. But even he has suggested that it will take a miracle for him to take the nomination from McCain.

This result is not only a testament to the dynamics of the Republican nomination race, but also the dogged tenacity of John McCain, who refused to surrender even when all hope seemed lost. That tenacity will serve him in good stead in the fall, when he battles for the Presidency against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.