(From left) John McCain, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani during Sunday’s debate in New Hampshire (as posted at the ABC News web site).
Anyone with even a remote interest in the presidential election knows that John McCain is being described as the new (old?) rising star going in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. He has rebounded from the near-catastrophe this summer when he ran out of money and most of his top campaign staff were fired or abandoned ship.
McCain has surged back because immigration largely has been removed as a campaign issue this fall and winter. The other Republicans have been talking tough about enforcement first and McCain says he has heard the people loud and clear, setting aside his previous support for an immediate path for citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the U.S. This means there’s almost no difference on immigration reform at this point among the GOP candidates.
The Iraq war is the other big issue that has created a deep, emotional divide between Americans. For likely Republican voters, McCain has a clear track record since 2003 of calling for more troops and a more aggressive approach to dealing with insurgent violence. Democrats and independents want to end the war as soon as possible (tomorrow would be a nice goal), while many Republicans were interesting in leaving Iraq only because it didn’t seem the cycle of violence could be broken. The changes in 2007 have renewed hope that a stable, functioning Iraq still can be achieved if the U.S. just stays committed to right course.
The other Republican candidates haven’t been as vocal and consistent on Iraq as McCain, which seems to be swaying at least some of that party’s voters.
Another factor that I think must be involved is McCain has received the endorsement of virtually every major newspaper in the country that’s offering an opinion about who should be the Republican nominee. Newspapers don’t have nearly the same influence over public opinion as they once did. Still, such a strong collection of endorsements from opinion writers across the political spectrum must be prompting voters to take another look at McCain’s credentials.
But let’s be honest. McCain must win in New Hampshire Tuesday. Coming in second or worse means he won’t meet the expectations largely established by his own campaign. The national media would envision a Mike Huckabee vs. Mitt Romney sprint to the huge bevy of primaries on Feb. 5.
McCain doesn’t have the resources to continue fighting from behind as the campaigns move into the other early states such as South Carolina, Michigan and Florida. So he needs the wealth of free publicity that will flow from a win, even if it’s a win from the state that some people think he’s been campaigning in ever since he lost the 2000 Republican nomination to Bush.
On a side note, forget about Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. Giuliani’s entire campaign strategy is based on winning Florida’s Jan. 29 primary, which wouldn’t give him nearly enough of a bounce going to the Feb. 5 contests. And Thompson doesn’t seem to in position to win anywhere.
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