California Conservative

9:15- Not surprisingly, Mark Steyn has the night’s best post:

Huck seems very two weeks ago now. It’s obvious he has a base, but he can’t build on it. McCain’s loss is bad, too: He needed a win not just for poll momentum but for cash-raising. As for Fred, I’d love it if he won South Carolina and he’s been great in the last couple of debates, and is brilliantly well-informed in the more leisurely interviews, but he could use a couple of big campaign themes, and even a slogan.

As for Rudy, Florida seems a long way off. His best chance is that, for all the talk of Fredmentum and Momittmum and MomentMc and Momuckamee, this season is a momentum-free zone.

Huckabee’s win does seem like ancient history. Part of that is due to his inability to get beyond his once-clever one-liners.

I’d love to see Fred win in South Carolina, too, which suddenly seems quite possible. Tonight’s results take the wind out of McCain’s sails. While Mitt must be feeling relieved, he won’t benefit as much from this as he might’ve if he hadn’t essentially pulled out of South Carolina. The time he seriously campaigns in a state again, he’ll be 2 weeks removed from Michigan.

9:00- The NY Times Blog has an interesting, though a bit over the top, post analyzing what I just said about McCain not reading things properly. Here’s what their post focused on:

A lot of liberals and independents who loved Mr. McCain back in 2000 have turned on him now, partly because of his passion for the war in Iraq and partly because he has embraced other positions to make himself palatable to conservatives. (The most obvious example may be the Bush tax cuts, which Mr. McCain voted against, but which he now supports; his justification for this is so tortured that even anti-tax conservatives don’t really seem to buy it.) It’s true that, compared to the “straight talk” version in 2000, today’s McCain looks and sounds as doctrinaire as Tom DeLay. But compared to Mitt Romney and his other rivals in the field, Mr. McCain is still something of an anomaly, a longtime Republican senator who is willing—or even determined—to tell Republican voters what they may not want to hear.

The trouble conservatives have with McCain is well-documented. They don’t like his sticking his finger in the eyes of fellow Republicans. they don’t like his revelling in the media attention that he gets for not being a team player.

That said, it’s ludicrous to say that “today’s McCain looks and sounds as doctrinaire as Tom DeLay.”

8:15: CNN projects Romney the winner. Mitt’s currently getting 37% of the vote, with McCain getting 31% and Huckabee getting 17%.

8:30- NRO’s Jim Manzi sums it up perfectly on why McCain lost tonight:

It doesn’t seem so shocking that Mitt Romney has apparently won the Michigan Republican primary. Michigan has the one of highest unemployment rates in the U.S., and he put forward a plan to help the state’s leading industry. Whatever you think of its merits, it has to more appealing to voters than McCain’s approach of “kinda sucks to be you, but hopefully you’ll feel better knowing that you’re being sacrificed for the greater good of helping me to feel like I’ve made a statement about global warming.”

I’m not a big Mitt fan but Romney defeated McCain because he realized that something beats nothing every time. McCain’s inside the Beltway mentality figured things hurt him. I’m betting that he thought he could waltz into Michigan, tell everyone that he’s still the same great guy as he was eight years ago and collect a win. McCain didn’t notice that the world had changed in the last eight years, that people aren’t willing to accept manmade global warming just because Sen. American Hero says so.

That said, Mitt’s pandering in Michigan will return to haunt him. His saying that he’d be the person that’ll fix all of Michigan’s ills smacks of federal overreach and displays his arrogance.

Michigan isn’t in dire financial straits because of federal economic policy. It’s in dire financial straits because their governor keeps raising taxes.

Thus far, CNN is reporting that, with 4% of the precincts counted, Mitt Romney leads John McCain 35%-32%. NOTE: McCain has left Michigan to campaign in South Carolina.

The NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez is linking to this Huckabee quote:

Confronted by crying toddler on Tuesday, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee quipped the child must be for his rival Mitt Romney.

“He’s not the happiest boy today,” Huckabee said, smiling for a picture with the boy and his brother and sister. “I think he must be a Romney voter. Look at him. He’s so
sad.”

I’ve wondered when Huckabee’s ‘wit’ would get him in trouble. I think I’ve got the answer to that question. My next question is this: When will people realize how shallow and callous Huckabee is?

Technorati Tags: Mitt Romney, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, One-Liners, Michigan Primary, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 7:25 pm and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Economy, Election 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.