John McCain campaigned hard in Louisiana and lost. Mike Huckabee stayed away and won a hollow victory by rtbohan
(libertarian)
Sunday, February 10, 2008
John McCain has a large delegate lead and an apparently clear track to the Republican nomination for President. But he hasn't stopped campaigning. He can't afford to. He was in Louisiana the day before that state's primary and both he and his state campaign manager made a point of the fact that McCain's closest remaining competitor, Mike Huckabee was not. They seemed upset that Huckabee could disrespect their state, where he has a strong base among religious consrvatives, to campaign in Kansas.
McCain is the presumptive nominee of the Republican party. Last week one the three candidates still competing for delegates to the national convention, Mitt Romney, announced the end of his campaign. This is not exactly a withdrawal, but it amounts to the same thing. A second, Ron Paul, announced that he was continuing to pursue delegates so his ideas would have some impact on the convention, but that he was going to concentrate his efforts on winning re-election to his seat in Congress. So it would seem that McCain had fairly clear sailing. But he is not winning.
Mike Huckabee has suporters in Louisiana, particularly among the evangelical Christians. But he has that same kind of support in Kansas which had its primary on the same.day. He decoded. probably because his campaign continues to be financially strapped to concentrate his efforts on Kansas to win a big victory and trust that he had the support in Louisiana to either defeat McCain without campaigning or keep the margin of any loss small.
As it turned out, McCain was defeated by Huckabee, although at this point Huckabee gets nothing from it but satisfaction and good publicity. The rules of the Lousiana primary awards all twenty delegates at stake to the winner of the primary, but only if that cndidate receives at least 50% of the vote.. Huckabee appartly edged McCain by a margin of43% to 42%. That means that the delegates will be distributed a week from today at the state convention on the basis of delegates selected in the party caucuses a week ago.
So McCain's defeat will not damage him except in reputation and the aura of inevitability and electability. The caucuses provided support not only for Huckabee but for Paul and Romney, neither of them fans of McCain.
So the campaign goes on with McCain seeking acceptance by his party, Huckabee seeking, perhaps, the vice=preidential nomination, and Paul and Romney each seeking to shape the party itself to what their radically opposed ideas of what the Republican Party ought to be.
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