So it's still possible that there will be a brokered convention on the Republican side, as the anti-McCain forces in the Party, of which there are many, are right now working hard to pull together around a strategy for dead-locking the convention. Romney, as well as obviously Huckabee and Giuliani, have pretty much lost any chance of winning the nomination outright. The question is now whether they can get to a brokered convention by each of them picking off enough states and enough delegates to stop McCain from getting over 50%. The odds are against them, given the winner-take-all rules in some states. But they still have a shot if all the anti-Nelson forces have a coordinated strategy.
However, it's clear that we have to assume that we have to beat McCain in the fall. That's going to be a huge challenge. McCain is beloved by the media and independent voters generally like him pretty well. They think of him as genuine, a maverick, a war hero, and overcoming all of that likability and those kinds of clichés about him is going to be very tough.
First of all, very, very early, we are going to have to make people understand more about his basic character, make people understand that he has sucked up to the right in this campaign, and there is plenty of evidence of that. We have to make sure people understand that he has given a lot to his special interest friends and he is closer to them than he claims. The public has an image of McCain that is not going to be easy to overcome, but we have got to pound him very early and work very hard, quickly and very aggressively to do that in all different kinds of ways. I would describe this as the "He's not the guy you think he is" phase of the battle.
Secondly, we have to make this a battle about ideology. That's something the Democrats have tended to shy away from the last 30 years. They've taken the conventional wisdom that this is a conservative country. Whatever truth that was 30 years ago or 10 years ago or even 4 years ago, it's not true today. The country has moved to the progressive side of issues more than it has in years, and is moving strongly in that direction today. (Even though Paul Rosenberg is right that the country has never been as conservative on most issues as the conventional wisdom has said it was.) Our best hope- in addition to redefining his character- is to make this about the conservative Bush ideology vs. a progressive ideology that's more popular.
I think there are going to be other things that we need to do in going after McCain. We are going to have to spend a lot of time thinking what the strategy against him is. But I think we start with those two things: define his character and his ideology early, and don't back down. With that combination, I think a man who looks very tough can be beaten, in part because of what I've discussed above, but in part because of the Santorum train ride, the Tom DeLay quotes, the Rush Limbaugh quotes, etc. suggests that this is going to be a very divided and deeply uninspired Republican party going into the fall, at least as divided as any time since 1992, when conservatives were pissed at George H.W. Bush for breaking his "read my lips- no new taxes" pledge… and perhaps even more divided than that. McCain is someone who is viscerally disliked by movement conservatives. Not because he is any less conservative, but because they don't like him personally, and they don't like the fact that on occasion, he has had the temerity to stand up to them on particular issues. So this is going to be a divided Republican Party. We have a chance to go at McCain and define him.
We have to go to work and hope the divisions in the Republican Party remain deep. And we have to hope that our candidate- Hillary or Obama- runs a really strong, aggressive race.
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