There's been alot of talking going on about how the Democrats are hurting themselves, how McCain is laughing at the Democrats, how the GOP is just eating this up as they sit back and enjoy the chaos.
Maybe to an extent they are, but at the same time maybe they aren't. One thing I noticed about the GOP polls tonight, something that so far hasn't been remarked on is the possible trouble John McCain is still having unifying his party. More after the jump
Now I know this is my first diary and I know this is speculative and I know I even probably sound crazy but hear me out.
If John McCain has unified his party, if John McCain is pulling in the support of 90+% of the GOP in those match up polls that have been floating around then why is it that he only got 72.7% of the vote tonight? (source )
I mean sure it's a possiblity that some of that was because the race didn't matter, that because this wasn't the General Election that people just voted for who they wanted. But at the same time I suspect that this result is more damning then it appears. Why? Because it's the first result we've seen of a race after McCain has wrapped up the GOP nomination and yet the party famous (or infamous take your pick) for loyalty to the nominee still had over a quarter of it's voters buck the party.
Secondly because even for candidates that have wrapped up thier runs getting any more then a couple percent points is statistically unlikely and rather significant. For example there were no votes for 'other' on the democratic side at least none that were statistically significant. This means that both Huckabee and Paul have enough supporters that there is possiblly somethign significant going on here, perhaps a concern that McCain hasn't addressed enough? Or perhaps just a weakness in McCain that he can't rectify?
Third this is important because PA (as we are hourly reminded) is an 'important swing state' but even more importantly it's a state that can swing Republican but has been hit hard by economic probelms and thus could swing Democratic. Which means this lack of support could underscore a key probelm with McCain and his admitted 'weakness' on the economy.
Now I'm not going to pretend that I have a crystal ball and that this quarter of the GOP is going to act that way again in the General but the GOP keeps claiming it's solidly behind thier nominee I think it could be informative to actually watch the races and see just how supportive they really are. Honestly while I was looking forward to the Democratic results of Indiana, I am now also interested in the Republican ones because as one of PA's neighbors it could provide additional information.