The Phoenix

How the Times Story Is Actually Helping McCain With Conservatives

        For weeks there’s been speculation about how John McCain could possibly convince his party’s right wing to rally around him.
         The New York Times may have helped him take a giant step in that direction.
         Opinions can differ about whether the Times should have gone with its story about McCain and his alleged close relationship ten years ago with a female lobbyist. But there are enough questions about its timing, the circumstances surrounding its publication, and its hints of improper personal improprieties without actually saying so, that there will be many who will smell a skunk.
         In some quarters, mostly Democratic ones, the Times is the beacon of truth. In others, mostly conservative Republican ones, it is anything but. Running against the “liberal media” has served Republicans well ever since Spiro Agnew helped Richard Nixon to mobilize the “silent majority” against the Eastern establishment. Conservative Republicans have suspected for years that McCain, by dint of his frequent bipartisan work in Congress, is actually a secret card-carrying member of that establishment.
         It will be hard to make that charge stick any longer. And that could actually help unify his party around him.


ADDENDUM LATER: Already conservatives appear to be rallying to McCain's defense, exactly as predicted.

Published Feb 21 2008, 01:16 PM by Importer

RB Scott said:

If the Times story is a stinker, it may indeed bolster McCain’s conservative credentials (the Times did endorse McCain, as I recall). However, if there is truth and currency to the report, McCain is cooked and it will throw the GOP into a complete tizz. I don’t think the party will turn automatically turn to Huckabee. But, just when you thought you were done with him, it could resurrect our former governor.

RB Scott

Dover, MA

February 21, 2008 2:45 PM
LorenzoJennifer said:

Hey, hey, if the oldest presidential nominee in the history of the republic can get it on with a hip blonde chick nearly half his age, more power to him!

The radical/evangelical right was all at sea following failed leadership by Romney, both Thompsons, Tancredo (who?) and others. All of a sudden, wrapped stacks of The New York Times float by. The bewildered seamen - or is it "semen" - grab on to the floating newspaper stacks to keep from drowning. Holding on to the stacks, they ride them toward shore as the news flows in an uncertain direction toward a familiar subject. Any port in a storm, I guess.

Probably to keep McCain clubby with The Religious, Mike Huckabee has recently announced that he may carry his crusade to the floor of the convention despite McCain soon having enough pledged delegates to legitimately claim victory. Huckabee, it would appear, will continue to campaign in all remaining primaries, caucuses and pow-wows to keep McCain's philosophically wandering feet close to the burning bush and burnt-out Bush.

February 22, 2008 1:44 PM
LorenzoJennifer said:

REPLY to RB SCOTT . . . Have read where the Romney camp is enraged that the New York Times held on to the story for so long. It was reportedly ready-to-go in December 2007, a month before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Timing is everything. Romney has technically suspended his campaign, he did not officially withdraw. He has pledged his 290 delegates to McCain, complicating and diminishing the value of any re-entry. Should Huckabee falter, then Romney could justify a re-entry. As a suspended candidate, Romney is still legally able to collect campaign contributions to perhaps at least "match" the $42 Million of his own cash that he poured into his campaign.

"...(R)esurrect our former governor"? Do you mean Michael Dukakis? Perhaps after 10 ballots, the Democratic convention informally "adjourns" to a smoke-filled (smoke-free?) back room in a hotel and the will of the people is freely interpreted . . . hey, that's how Warren Harding was nominated by the Republicans in 1920!

February 23, 2008 4:55 PM