John McCain's cratering campaign is an object lesson in how to kill a candidacy in three simple steps: 1) locate the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history 2) embrace it 3) implode. (Bonus step: spend money like you are Paul Bremmer).McCain's implosion in the primary race for the GOP nomination has almost nothing to do with his stance on the war. Granted, a growing number of Republican voters are disenchanted with the course of the war in Iraq, but know enough about politics to know that McCain supports the war because it is the right thing to do. They also know that McCain is like a lot of Republican voters, they believe that defending this country from terrorism is a good thing.
McCain's fate should be a warning to all Republicans seeking office in 2008: continue to back the president's war policy at your own risk.
McCain's fall has been precipitous -- tumbling from establishment GOP front-runner to single-digit also-ran.
Through much of 2005 and 2006 he was widely regarded as the presumptive Republican nominee. Hypothetical 2008 matchups regularly had him beating presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll in December 2006 had him beating Hillary by 14 points -- 50% to 36%.
That's when he decided to go all-in on Iraq, anointing himself head cheerleader for the surge.
No, McCain's problem is not foriegn policy, but domestice policy. McCain's support for the Amenesty bill killed his support amoung the GOP base. The McCain-Feingold bill had weakened his appeal, but it was immigration that killed him. Look at the speed of his fall since the Senate debate on immigration, he has all but died in the last five weeks. To be honest, outside of military affairs, McCain has largely been outside the Republican mainstream for years. His "maverick" status with the maintream media was never about his personal appeal, which, to be honest is considerable, but based more on the fact that he was on the left side of the GOP spectrum.
The fact that Huffington choses McCain's stance on Iraq has the cause of his downfall says more about the liberal left than it does about McCain. The left has a laser like focus on Iraq, thinking it will be their savior in next year's presidential election, that Huffington, one of their supposed "opinion" leaders, can't even see past the war to the real cause of John McCain's fall from grace. Sure McCain has done himself in, but his demise amoung the GOP is about a failed domestic policy initiative with his name on it more than any war policy that he has nothing to do with.
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