A few months ago, the GOP gurus were upset, but now they are happy. How can they be happy? All their most Rovian candidates were shot down in the primaries by John McCain, who’s never been in their pockets.
The GOP gurus are happy because they feel confident that McCain can be pushed into a graceful exit before the convention. Having taken the (minimal) heat and (even less) scrutiny from press for a year of primary season, he will step aside for a candidate who will look clean, exciting, and new, swapping loser for winner.
Republicans have been thinking about how they could profit from the Torricelli model since 2004.
Who is the secret candidate we will be handed? Condoleezza Rice? Maybe, but more likely General Petraeus.
3 responses so far ↓
1 TA // May 3, 2008 at 10:35 pm
It’s just an impression based on media reports, but McCain doesn’t strike me as likely to step aside for anyone. There would have to be a more compelling reason than some strategist claiming that another guy is more electable.
So… does this mean that yoy are sitting on some really juicy story which McCain would do anything to keep under wrap? :)
2 Betsy Devine // May 8, 2008 at 8:34 pm
It probably just means I need a new tinfoil hat.
But consider that McCain has a lot of genuine health problems. If health problem X acted up, I’m sure the American public would have lots of sympathy for his noble sadness as he stepped aside from the race for President.
Now imagine that some GOP Black Hat shows up at McCain’s door a week before the convention with some ugly “fact” about McCain or his wife, claiming that Democrats are about to make this public. But, says Black Hat, McCain can save his honor and his wife and his party from this dread fate just by stepping aside and telling the nation that he’s been hit by health problem X.
What do you think that McCain would do in that situation?
3 TA // May 8, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Punch the Black Hat on the nose. Hard. :)
After that, it would depend on the “fact”. McCain probably sees this as his last chance to run. He’s already being called “too old” now, at 71; imagine what it would be like in four years, even assuming a President Obama. So he has little to lose, and may be tempted to yell “damn the torpedoes” at anything short of absolutely devastating.
If such a devastating story does exist, you’d have to wonder why it wasn’t dug up and used before, like during the 2000 election, when the Black Hats were essentially calling him insane. It could be something more recent, but given McCain’s notoriously long list of enemies, it would still be strange for it not to have surfaced already.
It could be something fabricated, but I really don’t see him backing down because of a lie. The obvious response to that would be “If the Dems [you Black Hats] want to perjure themselves and lose all credibility for the foreseeable future, I say let them!”.