It is not support for the Iraq war which dooms a GOP presidential candidacy, but the opposite: any real questioning of the wisdom of the war or any agitating for withdrawal or opposition to Bush's commitment would immediately and single-handedly destroy the viability of a GOP candidacy. Ask Ron Paul, or Chuck Hagel, or even Sam Brownback, whose flagging campaign has triggered the wrath of the base despite his radical social conservatism as a result of his ongoing questioning of Bush's Iraq policy.
The war in Iraq remains popular with the GOP base. They want to stay and keep waging war. They would immediately turn against anyone who advocated withdrawal or even questioned the wisdom of staying. The Republican Party continues to be the Party of the Iraq War, and -- directly contrary to the conventional wisdom that is arising -- loyal support for the Iraq War is an absolute pre-requisite for winning the nomination.
In fact, the only praise McCain has received over the last several months from the GOP's base is due to his unwavering support for the war. McCain's candidacy is failing not because of excessive support for the Right's war in Iraq; that was the only thing keeping it afloat. Instead, it is due to his excessive deviation from the Right's mandated views -- on torture, on McCain-Feingold, and especially on immigration.
On the surface, I am tempted to agree with Greenwald. McCain is no more hawkish on the Iraq war than any other current, or former, "top tier" Republican candidate for President. Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson have shown nothing but unwavering support for the war, for the escalation, and for an indefinite occupation. Apart from serving as a more public face on the war than Giuliani, Romney, or Thompson, why should McCain's candidacy suffer from holding an identically hawkish view?
The answer, I think, lies with the peculiar nature of McCain's base, and in the end proves both Huffington and Greenwald to be correct. Back in 2000, every single primary McCain won over Bush came on the back of Independent, and even Democratic, support, rather than Republican support. He did not win the majority of Republicans in any state in the country, except for his home state of Arizona (although he may have won a plurality of Republican support in New Hampshire). Further, even in states he did not win, Independent and Democratic support kept him close. For example, in the 2000 California primary, Bush won overall by a margin of 52.21%--42.87%, but among Republicans he crushed McCain 60.58%--34.72% (more than 25%). However, McCain won non-Republican voters in the California primary by a whopping 350,000 votes, or more than 25% of non-Republican votes (source). Unlike other Republican presidential candidates, McCain's base of support is not among the winguts nor among the insiders. Those groups hated him in 2000, and still hate him today.
Compared to other Republicans, McCain has always enjoyed disproportionate support from Republican-leaning independents, "true" independents, and even Democratic-leaning independents. His primary base of support, both in terms of polls and fundraising, has a far more independent, purple hue to it than that of any other Republican. Thus, given the sharp independent turn against the Iraq war over the last two years, not to mention the Indycrat phenomenon of the same time period (a trend that was first identified by Jerome Armstrong), his hawkish positions made him far more out of step with his base of support than other top-tier Republicans. His base of support made him more immediately vulnerable to a hawkish position on Iraq, and that is why his campaign imploded first.
Greenwald is correct to argue that no one can win the Republican nomination without demonstrating unwavering allegiance to Bush's new model Republican war in Iraq. At the same time, Huffington is correct to argue that McCain was, in fact, doomed by his never-ending support of sending more American troops to Iraq. The real lesson to be learned from this is that it is impossible to be popular among national independents, who formed McCain's base, while holding a hawkish position on the Iraq war (to note the possible exception, Lieberman may be able to win his home state, but even then, just barely. Keep in mind that he crated nationally when he ran for President in 2004, too). McCain's fate should thus be seen as a foreshadowing of the fate of whoever ends up winning the Republican nomination.
Six months ago, McCain and Giuliani led every Democrat in every general election poll--often by double digits--but now every Dem leads every Republican in every general election polling average. While some polls still show Giulaini and Thompson close to one or all of the top-tier Democrats, that simply will no longer be the case once they announce their undying support for the Iraq war to the country in 2008. Already, in 2007, John McCain saw his presidential campaign go down in flames because his hawkish position on Iraq made him unpalatable to the same independents he nearly rode to the Presidency back in 2000 (McCain would have mopped the floor with Gore, had he won the nomination). The war ain't gonna be any more popular in 2008 than it was in 2007, and every Republican nominee will suffer the same fate among independents--now properly known as Indycrats--that McCain has faced. His implosion, along with the consistent Democratic rise in general election polls against Republicans, demonstrates what I have believed for several months now: any Democratic nominee will defeat any Republican nominee by at least 5% in 2008. It is impossible to win the Republican nomination without supporting the Iraq war until it destroys us the way the invasion of Afghanistan destroyed the Soviet Union. At the same time, as McCain has discovered, and which many other Republicans discovered in 2006, it is impossible to win the support of Independents unless you oppose the war and want to end it more or less immediately.
The war in Iraq has not finished ruining the Republican Party just yet. They could have learned a lesson from the 2006 campaign, but they did not. Still, there are more Demorats in Congress who support the war than there are Republicans in Congress who oppose it. Leaving aside the question of whether or not Demcorats are doing enough to end the war, talk about a losing electoral formula for Republicans! Right now, the only wildcard in the 2008 general election is if the Republican nominee ends up opposing the war himself. If that does not happen, then the Democratic nomination campaign is the real campaign for the presidency. Count on it. |
