February 5, 2008 may go down in political history as the day Rush Limbaugh lost his grip on Republican voters – and the day Ann Coulter may have lost her grip altogether.
Despite a concerted effort by the conservative chattering class to tar Sen. John McCain as a “liberal†or a “phony Republican,†and Fmr. Gov. Mike Huckabee as a “spoiler†who would “hand the nomination to McCain†by not dropping out, voters were not persuaded to support Mitt Romney to save the party from perdition.
Sen. John McCain won nine of the 21 states holding primaries and caucuses – and perhaps more delegates (they’re still doing the math as of this writing) – to Romney’s seven states and Huckabee’s five states.
In addition to his home state of AZ, McCain won the lion’s share of delegates in CA, IL and OK, which are apportioned by congressional district – as well as delegates in several “winner take all†states, such as MO, NY, NJ, CT and DE. In the Northeastern states, McCain clearly benefitted from having inherited Rudy Giuliani’s moderate base, and across the board he won the votes of those who believe the Iraq war or terrorism are the most critical issues facing the U.S.
But winning CA – the nation’s most populous state – and MO – an important swing state – by huge margins over Romney cements McCain’s front-runner status.
Huckabee swept the South, winning his home state of AR, AL and GA (both winner take all states), TN and WV. Roughly one in two voters in AL, GA and TN are evangelicals or Christian conservatives, and Huckabee got 40 percent of their votes.  Romney ran third in the Southern states, which undercuts his claim that he is the conservative alternative to McCain. As McCain advisor Steve Schmidt put it, “Mitt had a very bad night. You can’t say you’re ‘Mr. Conservative’ and not win the South.â€
WV, in particular, proved that a vote for McCain or Huckabee is a vote against Romney: At the state Republican convention, Romney beat Huckabee on the first ballot but failed to get a majority (41 percent to 33 percent). Huckabee won the state with a boost from the McCain delegates (15 percent) who voted for him on the second ballot.
More bad news for Romney: As in FL, McCain was the top choice of the 40 percent of Super Duper Tuesday voters who cited the economy as the nation’s Number One issue. While Romney did better than McCain in AZ and CA amongst voters who cited illegal immigration as the most pressing issue on their minds, McCain won both states handily.
For his part, Romney won his home state of MA, as well as AK, CO, MT and UT (states with significant Mormon populations), MN (a swing state) and ND. Romney had the advantage of having a near-lock on the Mormon vote (9 out of 10 votes in UT, for instance) in these states – plus unusually strong support for Rep. Ron Paul (yes, he’s still in the race) in AK (17 percent), MN (16 percent), MT (25 percent) and ND (21 percent).
Outside the South, Romney won a larger share of the conservative vote than McCain – even in AZ – and Huckabee, with much of this support coming from “late-deciders,†suggesting that the relentless pounding McCain got from Limbaugh and other conservative pundits had some effect amongst hard-core conservatives – but did not sway evangelicals and Christian conservatives who were inclined to support Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, or moderates who don’t rely on Limbaugh to tell them how to vote.Â
Early exit poll data also shows that McCain is regarded as the candidate who is most electable, most experienced, most “authentic†and most qualified to be commander in chief.
Note: The Stiletto writes about politics and other stuff at The Stiletto Blog.
7 users commented in " Republican Voters Defy Pundits, Radio Talk Show Hosts "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI will never support McCain. If the Republican Party and the Media want McCain. The Democrats win this election…And I will go to work helping to remove the cancer of the Neo-conservatives (means not conservative, communist-lite) from the Republican Party. I just hope the U.S. is still here in 2-4 years.
The GOP better get united . . . fast.
A McCain/Huckabee ticket would be a great way to do it. McCain is strong in the West, Northeast and with moderate/independents. And Huckabee is a great communicator that vanquished Romney in the deep South on the strength of mere enthusiasm.
And both McCain and Huckabee need to do very well before CPAC this week.
The alternative is unthinkable for conservatives.
Allowing Clinton or Obama to appoint as many as 4-5 young “living constitution” liberals to “lifetime” appointments on the U.S. Supreme Court and to stock the balance of the federal judiciary with rabid ACLU/NOW activists and hand-picked cronies of trial lawyer John Edwards as a consequence of a pre-school temper tantrum against McCain is analogous to dropping a hydrogen bomb to retaliate against a school yard bully.
Helping Hillary or Obama lose the war in Iraq and thereby empowering Iran, encouraging a comeback by radical islamofascism, and creating chaos in the Middle East merely to teach John McCain a lesson is like burning down your house to kill a cockroach.
SERIOUS THOUGHTFUL CONSERVATIVES can see ANY of the Republican candidates are vastly preferable to Hillary/Obama.
Conservatives (including Rush) need to “grow up” and dial back the internecine rhetoric.
The Stiletto also sees the merits of a McCain-Huckabee ticket – but Karl Rove did not seem to think so the other day on Fox News. Not really sure he ever said why …
None of the Republican candidates was perfect – or the Second Coming of Reagan – so we need to unite behid the nominee. No matter how “liberal” McCain seems to die hard conservatives he’s nothing compared to what they will get if either Hillary or Obama gets in the White House with a Dem-controlled Congress.
What know one seems to realize is that the people who voted for McCain (many of them Democrats) don’t listen to conservative talk radio. Those who do, did not vote for McCain. I would venture a guess that those people have no idea what McCain stands for except what their hear on the MSM. Talk radio doesn’t represent the entire spectrum of the Republican Party…only the conservatives. Many speak of conservatives as “far right”. If we must be labled with something, then fine. Many are also overlooking that McCain has only 40% of the votes of the Party. That’s hardly an endorsement by Republicans, nor is it any indication that voters are “defying” talk radio. Bush got over 50million votes in 2004. Assuming 60% of those Republican votes are conservatives, John McCain better figure out how to change his positions on many key issues if he expects to beat the Democrat. If anyone wants to see how he’ll do without the 30million talk radio listeners, let him continue to tack to the middle-left.
I would love Huckabee to be the nominee, but whoever happens to win in the end, let’s all gather round and heartily support him. The objective is to WIN. Much is at stake here. The Democrats are pumped; we’d better be too.
Linda
orlandocajun Says: If anyone wants to see how he’ll do without the 30million talk radio listeners, let him continue to tack to the middle-left
Mmm…I’d say, pretty darn good. McCain isn’t about to cater to the hard Right when it is pretty obvious that it doesn’t work for the “Real” Conservatives…Santorium, Hayworth, Tancredo, Fred, or Romney.
Unfortunately, America isn’t made up of Conservatives only…and McCain is running for leader of ALL of America.
I always said that the GOP would lose the White House if it didn’t shake the belief that the Talk Show Mafia was controlling them.
NOW maybe the party of Republicans have a real chance to keep the position of Commander In Chief of the world’s most powerful military during time of war…and to appoint judges like Alito and Roberts…and cut pork spending and ear marks…you know the REAL important issues concerning ALL Americans not just conservatives.
we need to bring the new conservative names to the forefront, that have a high constitutional
voting record as seen in thenewamerican.com
and expose the old phonies as seen with sean
hannity and fox news, like nute gingrich
nute gungrich the establishments conservative
see the article in thenewamerican.com
december 9 09 issue.
As for mcain get the phony from long island
hannity to play the mcain sound bites that
support illegals, when he said let them rise
let them rise, and when you white people would
not last a day working in the fields making
18 an hour and when he accused the troops
of torture, then wrote anti torture legislation
Then at a rally during the campaign he told the woman, no no,no no, obama is a good man
and i would not be afraid to have him as president. You stupid people in arrizona put
down your peyote. It should be a no brainer
a real conservative J.D HAYWORTH
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