I'm not saying McCain is a "winner" in the Hail-to-the-Chief sense, I'm just saying right now he's most likely to wind up with the nomination. This is beginning to feel like a thriller with tons of wild plot twists but a disappointing finale. Imagine 1996 with exciting car chases round hairpin bends but you still wind up with Bob Dole.
Mark Steyn does an excellent job of summing up where we are at right now. McCain is by no means coronated yet, but this (South Carolina) is a big boost to his momentum. Disappointingly, Fred Thompson finished third behind Huckabee. It is going to take one hell of a Super Tuesday to keep him in it. I'll admit that I have been very leaning Thompson since he entered the race, but I wanted to see a Thompson campaign that grabbed voters by the shoulders and said, "you've got no reason not to vote for him." Without it, I never could see him winning a general election. Unfortunately, while he's shown a little fire, his campaign has never been up to par. Unless they have some secret strategy that they've been holding back, I'm not sure he'll even be a candidate by the time Wisconsin's primary rolls around.
As for McCain, I do vomit in my mouth a little when I think of him as the nominee. He is moderately conservative in that he is pro national security and marginally fiscally conservative, but this is a man who actually took some time to consider the Democratic Vice Presidency just 4 years ago. I'm not even going to take the time to enumerate his many non-conservative positions. Plus, given his age as a potential first term president, his VP choice would become all too crucial. If he were to become the nominee, he might have an outside chance against Hillary, but I fear he'll get crushed by the Carter-like Obama.
As an addendum to this post, Peter Robinson has perhaps the strangest analogy to the Thompson campaign that I have ever seen. Apparently even Robinson doesn't see Thompson getting the job done, despite the promise he shows.
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