John McCain wins Republican Party nomination
John McCain clinched the Republican Party nomination with decisive victories in the March 4th primaries in Vermont, Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island.
The Republican Party nomination process had its share of interesting developments in 2008. In addition to McCain, the Republican field featured Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson (and a few others who had little impact). With the exception of Ron Paul, all of these candidates enjoyed at least some fleeting moments in the limelight as the potential front-runner.
2008 has been challenging for the Republican Party base. The Reagan coalition broke apart at least temporarily. McCain must reassemble most of these pieces to win in November.
Mitt Romney was McCain’s biggest challenge. Romney scored important victories in Michigan, Massachusetts, and elsewhere. One of Romney’s most memorable and best moments was an important speech he gave defending his Mormon faith and the principle of religious tolerance.
Some of the most negative campaigning in early 2008 involved Romney attack ads against McCain. At debates, McCain and Romney often traded sharp barbs. After a disappointing performance on Super Tuesday, Romney ended his campaign and endorsed McCain. McCain became the inevitable nominee.
Mike Huckabee and his campaign played an important role. His victory in Iowa forced people to recognize Huckabee as a serious candidate. He won several more states, mainly in the South. Huckabee kept going until losing all four primaries on March 4th. He ended his campaign and endorsed McCain. Huckabee energized conservative Christians especially, and they responded by enabling Huckabee to run a cost-effective impactful campaign. Huckabee performed remarkably well as a speaker, debater, and in interviews. He is also a fun TV personality and plays a mean bass guitar. The Colbert bump is now legendary.
Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson were disappointments. Giuliani’s “wait until Florida” strategy is now a textbook example of what not to do. Fred Thompson was briefly the front-runner in many polls. This status ended abruptly once Thompson started campaigning. Giuliani and Thompson both dropped out early and jumped aboard McCain’s “Straight-Talk Express”.
Ron Paul and his campaign deserve recognition. Paul presented consistent ideas challenging the status quo. Paul’s strong anti-Iraq war position and general message of less government attracted a sizeable and energetic base of support. Ron Paul’s campaign made headlines by setting a record for single-day donations, mainly coming from grassroots, web-based contributions.
We started this website on February 26, 2008. If www.electionreferee.com existed earlier, we would have called some fouls. These include a few around some tactics of the Romney vs. McCain battle. However, there was one important foul worth reviewing here and now. Someone unknown distributed flyers attacking McCain. These flyers were outrageous slanders on McCain’s prison-of-war experience. The mainstream media did a good job in exposing and forcefully refuting this worst kind of attack.
Another earlier foul was the FoxNews decision to exclude Ron Paul from one of its debates.
We would like to read your comments, especially if you think we missed any important fouls during the Republican primary season.
Finally, many in Talk Radio dislike John McCain. Look for our post on this topic soon.
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Comment by Aloysius
Posted on March 7, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I think what you said is right on - we are always going to have dirty politics but the way the “republicans” attacked McCain - again - is just plain shameful. I have the highest regard for this man and what he has been through but frankly, I’m tired of his story about what happened to him in Vietnam - that was a long, long time ago and they keep re-hashing it. I’ve heard this man speak and I do think he wants to put it behind him after all the healing has done and contend with the problems of today. I respect him personally but disagree with him on many issues, not the least being Iraq.
McCain and Obama have no experience “running” anything and I know as a business owner just how long it takes to really learn how to run a business (never, really do we get it) but I keep saying to people, “If you had a 20 trillion dollar company, would you bring a trainee in to run it?” McCain obviously has more life experiences than Obama, but in my own opinion, Hillary already has all it takes to step right in. I really believe that if she had dumped this looser Bill, there would be no question that she would be our next president.I also think he is jealous of her and is trying to undermine her chances.
How many people in this country, and we have these three? Good lord, we are in trouble. Who to blame, well lets’ start with the egomaniac Nader. Thanks for giving me a chance to say what I think -rather than listening to everyone else.
Comment by Patricia Herrera
Posted on March 10, 2008 at 6:35 am
Experience?…come on Now are we really under the belief that the President actually runs the country without a staff of advisors and is therefore required to have extensive political experience.
Hillary supporters really need to search for another angel.
Obama is SMART, WISE, RATIONAL, etc, etc. and I believe his educational achievements coupled with his commons sense and being grounded will allow him to make the right decisions for this country.
Besides let’s look at our current situation with Bush who “had experience” to supposedly run our country. Oh yeah that experience took us real far. The deficit is off the chain and we’re in a senseless war.
If I had a trillion dollars company I would definitely let Barack Obama run it hands down. I can come up w/countless of examples of “experienced people” running billion dollar corporations right into the ground w/bad decisions.