After reading this column by Robert Novak I think the Gop race is finally reaching a conclusion that really wasn't that hard to foresee. John McCain will be the Republican nominee in 2008. I thought that it was premised on a Hillary Iowa win but now I think the Romney collapse after Iowa will be so complete that McCain will win NH even without overwhelming #s from indies that he got in 2004. McCain as Novak says is simply the last man standing.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/...
Sen. John McCain, given up for dead a few weeks ago as he ran a cash-starved, disorganized campaign, today is viewed by canny Republican professionals as the best bet to win the party's presidential nomination. What's more, they consider him their most realistic prospect to buck the overall Democratic tide and win the general election. Indeed, if Mike Huckabee holds on to actually win the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, the road forward could be clear for McCain.
But when Republicans get together privately, they tend to agree that McCain is the Republican most likely to defeat Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Even while some consider the old naval aviator as cranky and hot-tempered, he has not exhibited those negative characteristics in debates. Rather, he exudes a heroic aura that goes beyond managing New York City or the Utah Olympics. That quality is shown in his Christmas card television ad depicting a North Vietnamese prison guard making a cross in the dirt. McCain has managed to support the invasion of Iraq while criticizing President Bush's management of the invasion, and he maintains his fiscal integrity in a pork-driven, spendthrift Republican Party.
That faint distinction may not be sufficient to stop McCain in New Hampshire if Romney loses Iowa. That is why McCain is praying for the former governor of Arkansas on Jan. 3. The GOP nominee can be determined by how many Iowa social conservatives that night support a high-tax, big-spending opponent of school choice who is called a member of the religious left by critical Southern Baptists. The Republican Party's internal competition has become as peculiar as the Democrats' used to be.
Romney is collapasing having to fight a two front war in addition to being pounded in NH as a fraud by the press and the GOP leaning Union Leader. Huckabee is the type of guy everyone who doesn't vote for him wants to stop. Guliani is like a b2 bomber that simply got engine failure before takeoff, McCain is starting to take all his votes and Rudy isn't going to get them back after NH. The dems will be facing the best and least polarizing candidate the GOP has to offer. Who will we send up to do battle? A candidate who half the country dislikes and doesn't trust or the man who has proved his ability to reach out across party lines while never surrendering his progressive principals. McCain's only real weakness is his age and tempermant, a change candidate is our only real hope against a guy that over the course of a nine month general election campaign will cease to be known as a conservative Republican circa 2000. In fact McCain's greatest asset in a general election campaign against our front runner will be the fact that he doesn't need to appeal to his base, J-Mac will have free reign to appeal to independants and Democrats because one word will take care of his right flank, Hillary.