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McCain Wins South Carolina; Enter Giuliani

John McCain's victory in South Carolina is a testament to his resilience and ability to appeal to Republican voters of all kinds. But don't call him the frontrunner. Rudy Giuliani, until recently the long-time leader in national polling, enters the race on January 29 in the Florida primary, and nothing can be judged until he competes.

McCain took the stage last night to deliver his victory speech at The Citadel and said, "What's eight years among friends?" It was an awfully forgiving line. Eight years ago, South Carolina (particularly the George W. Bush operatives there) tore John McCain apart, with allegations that his adopted Bengali daughter was actually an illegitimate black lovechild and that he had abandoned his fellow POWs in Vietnam. Those charges and others cost McCain the state and derailed his presidential chances. This time around, McCain ran into some of the same dirty tricks (a flier once again claimed that he had betrayed his fellow POWs), but his main competition, Mike Huckabee, never attacked McCain directly and McCain used a rapid-response team that immediately shot down any wild claims. (Huckabee actually stated in his concession speech that he would rather take second honorably than win using negative attacks, furthering speculation that he would love to be John McCain's VP.)

The result was that McCain could actually get out his message, instead of playing defense. He focused on patriotism and foreign policy issues, as he always does, but expanded his message to focus on economic issues like cutting taxes and reducing spending. It helped: McCain ended up winning a fairly broad base of voters. Of the 80 percent of voters who identified as Republicans, McCain beat Huckabee by one point. Of the 20 percent who identified as independents, McCain beat Huckabee by 14. Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor, won big amongst voters who attend church multiple times a week, but McCain beat him amongst voters who attend once a week, a few times a month, and rarely. McCain actually claimed 27 percent of those legendary evangelical voters who were assumed to be Huckabee's base. Voters who considered the economy the most important issue split evenly for McCain and Huckabee, voters who prioritized the immigration issue went slightly for Huckabee, and voters who valued terrorism and the Iraq War went hugely for McCain.

But it's not time for McCain Fever yet. Pundits love to point out that the winner of the South Carolina primary has always won the Republican nomination. But the primary has only been held since 1980, and was not held in 1984 or 2004 because Republican incumbents were uncontested. That leaves a sample size of just five elections ('80, '88, '92, '96, and '00), and in each of them the candidate who won did so by a huge margin. In this race, McCain won by just three percent. Never has the Republican race been so wide open; never has a candidate won the all-important Palmetto State by so little.

And besides, Rudy Giuliani throws all assumptions out the window. He eschewed campaigning in South Carolina and in Nevada prior to yesterday's contests (following a pattern started in Iowa), choosing instead to criss-cross Florida while he had the terrain to himself. On TV yesterday, he told the other candidates to "come on down." He holds a lead in Florida, but it is dwindling. Romney, Huckabee, and McCain have been gotten weeks of press because of their participation in (and victories in) earlier primaries, and polling shows all three of them gaining on Giuliani. Currently, they are all bunched in second, a few points behind the former New York mayor. McCain's bounce from South Carolina may or may not put him above Giuliani in Florida polling for the first time.

But the point is that no one has a good feel for the Republican race until the current contenders meet Giuliani in Florida's battle royale.

And one final reason not to get too excited about McCain or any part of the Republican Party—votes are down. Way down. McCain won South Carolina yesterday with 143,000 votes. He took second in South Carolina in 2000 with 235,000 votes. And that's not an effect he can attribute to the fact that there were more viable candidates in the race this time around. There were 430,000 total votes in the primary this year; there were 565,000 in 2000. Regardless of who the frontrunner is and who has new-found momentum, Republican voters are simply not energized about their president, their party, or their slate of choices.

Comments

I really think Rudy doesn't have a shot. It would be one thing if he trailed in the previous primaries from not campaigning, but still made a respectable showing, but in fact he did ABYSMALLY in those states. Absolutely abysmally. Why isn't anybody asking why? YOu'd think on name recognition alone, he would have done better. ANd people don't like being ignored. They want to be courted. I don't think he'll win florida, and even if he does, I don't think it's a guarantee of victory in the feb 5 states at this point.

Posted by: lionny on 01/20/08 at 7:25 AM Respond

I'd like to see McCain pick Thompson or Rudy as VP IF he wins.

Still a big IF

Posted by: Mark on 01/20/08 at 12:19 PM Respond

Rudy has no chance.

Posted by: Ames Tiedeman on 01/20/08 at 2:49 PM Respond

"Rudy has no chance."

I hope you're right. At minimum it is nice to be able to say so without any Rudybots freaking out like the Paultards used to.

We can also say Rudy is toast without the race issue.

Rudy would be a very bad choice either way and in any color.

Posted by: capt on 01/21/08 at 6:07 AM Respond

I'm glad to see Rudy tanking. I don't who his campaign manager is but Rudy should sue him for the decision to stay out of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. I plan on voting for Ron Paul the one
TRUE CONSERVATIVE in this entire race. Go Ron Paul!!!

Posted by: Rocketman on 01/21/08 at 6:58 AM Respond

Thisd freak should be buried, he is an Anti-american, radical tolatarian fascist, anyone who supports him, should be subject to citizen's arrest. I'm dead serious, Reudy supporters are enemies Of America, guilt by assiciaction. He is an enemy, we must let him nowhere near the Whitew House

Posted by: Jared on 01/21/08 at 7:45 AM Respond

If you really want to get
the real information on
the candidates look at the
web site:(www.realchange.org).

Posted by: Thomas on 01/21/08 at 7:45 AM Respond

In my opinion electing someone like Guiliani would be electing another "warped-brain" ego maniac to the White House. Haven't we had ENOUGH?

Posted by: Frank Lieb on 01/21/08 at 4:56 PM Respond

In my opinion electing someone like Guiliani would be electing another "warped-brain" ego maniac to the White House. Haven't we had ENOUGH?

Posted by: Frank Lieb on 01/21/08 at 4:57 PM Respond

It's time for Scary Squirrel (aka Guiliani) to gather his nuts & hide in his oak tree in Central Park.

The best chance the GOP has is McCain, and I think he'd be best served by a moderate Republican (a very rare sub-species of homo sapien) running mate, which excludes all current Repub candidates. Though McCain may have a bit of a temper sometimes, he doesn't seem to show it in the big decisions he makes. And he's not afraid to go against the GOP talking points as issued by FOX Noise.

Still, any Republican candidate is looking at an uphill battle in the current Presidental campaign. The Manchurian Candidate (Dubya) and his administration has destroyed so much of what has made America respected & admired by most nations/people around the world. It is amazing how quickly world opinion changed from empathy after 9/11 to outrage at the arrogance of the 4 Horsemen (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, Wolfowicz)...that will take many years to repair

Posted by: Cujo's Buddy on 01/22/08 at 12:29 AM Respond

What if McCain does win not only the nomination, but the election as well? Would Americans opt to move to Canada in order to avoid his proposed "100 years war" in Iraq? I heard Canada was ramping up its immigration centers in expectation of another wave of "Blue Staters" in the event of a Republican victory: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/index.asp
In the independent film "Blue State," the protagonist does exactly that. He decides to flee the United States after another republican victory in 2004, due to strong liberal ideals: www.bluestate.com

Posted by: NinaBr on 01/22/08 at 4:50 AM Respond

I despise Rudy...Get him the "f" out of here (Florida). We are sooooo sick of him running around using the 9/11, Bin Laden, terrorists ads. The pisser is another ad that says "Floridians are concerned about hurricanes". Another scare tactic! Well RUDY let me set ya straight, we hate you and our concerns are like everyone else's...the wild cowboy disease that's been unleashed for 8 yrs. And McCain isn't scoring points either. He's using ads of Islamic Militants are here, be afraid. I'm not a senior you can try scaring the hell out of. MY VOTE GOES TO EDWARDS OR HUCKABEE.

Posted by: MP on 01/27/08 at 3:22 PM Respond