Political Winds Begin Shifting Against McCain And Toward Romney

The New York Times' endorsement of John McCain should be the final nail in the coffin of the Arizona Senator's campaign.  Politicians usually like to trumpet newspaper endorsements in support of their candidacies.  An endorsement by the Times has the opposite effect.  No true conservative would ever want to see the New York Times write, "Hey, we like him, he's our guy.  The rub is that no the Times would never say that about any true conservative, ergo McCain's new problem.  Privately, John McCain may very well be cursing the Times for saddling him down with even more weight as he tries to cut through a headwind building into a gale force typhoon. 

Keeping with the sea analogy, I'm going to go out on a limb and conjecture that the S.S. Maverick is going to founder and splinter on the rocks after the results from the Florida primary come in.  Doing no better than a dead heat in some polls and trailing Romney in others, McCain has to contend with a closed primary, another candidate eating into his natural base of voters (Rudy), one less candidate to divide the conservative vote (Fred), a reduced effort by another candidate (Huckabee) whose presence in any contest works to McCain's benefit and a debate performance that, at the very least, didn't distinguish McCain as a strong front-runner.

Who came across as the frontrunner?  In my estimation it was Mitt Romney.  He was strong, decisive and thorough, almost wonkish, in his responses, particularly on the economy.  McCain wasn't particularly strong with his answers about how he would handle the economy, and in my view actually seemed to acknowledge that he would defer to others on the issue (Jack Kemp, Warren Rudman, etc.).  In a bizarre irony, the success of the surge, of which McCain was an early and strong proponent, has allowed the Iraq War to disappear from the forefront of voters minds to be replaced by concerns over the economy.  National security issues were to be McCain's calling card, but the issue hardly came up during last night's debate. 

This just goes to show how unpredictable elections can be.  The conventional wisdom in the Romney camp was that Romney would have to spend huge amounts of money to take himself from a relative unknown to the victor in the first three or four primaries.  This momentum was then supposed to catapult him to the nomination.  It didn't work out that way, but he hung in there, won some primary's and took a couple second place finishes.  John McCain was left for dead over the summer after pushing his ill-fated "it's not technically amnesty" bill.  He was saved by Independent and Democratic voters in New Hampshire and military voters coupled with multiple candidates appealing to various parts of the GOP coalition and splitting conservative voters in South Carolina. 

The nature of the race has changed with a deemphasis on national security and growing voter apprehension over the economy.  This couldn't have been foreseen, but it lends itself to some essential advantages possessed by Mitt Romney.  If I had to bet the house, I would contend that Mitt Romney will win Florida, gain momentum for Super Tuesday and have the inside track to the Republican nomination.