McCain wins South Carolina primary, Huckabee second

January 19, 2008

South Carolina was John McCain’s biggest stumbling block eight years ago. Today, his win in the same state arguably puts him at the front of the pack.

With just about every precinct reporting:

1. John McCain — 33.2%
2. Mike Huckabee — 29.8%
3. Fred Thompson — 15.8%
4. Mitt Romney — 15.1%
5. Ron Paul — 3.7%
6. Rudy Giuliani — 2.07%
7. Duncan Hunter — 0.2%

Here’s an interesting tidbit: in 2000, McCain had nearly 240,000 votes in a losing effort. Tonight, he won a competitive race, but garnered about 135,000 votes.

As I’m usually inclined to do, let’s briefly go one at a time, taking a look at Spin vs. Reality for each of the Republican candidates.

John McCain — What McCain fans are saying: We got the win we needed to solidify us in front of the pack. What McCain critics are saying: Romney’s still leading in the delegate count.

Who’s right? Time will tell. McCain needed South Carolina, and got the win he needed. One gets the sense that the field is about to narrow a bit, and if the anti-McCain vote can consolidate, things could get trickier for him.

Mike Huckabee — What Huckabee fans are saying: A close second should keep our guy in the game. What Huckabee critics are saying: Today was your chance for a breakthrough win, and it didn’t happen.

Who’s right? I think critics are. Huckabee’s path to the nomination was always going to be tricky, but this setback in South Carolina makes matters even worse.

Fred Thompson — What Thompson fans are saying: Our best showing to date! What Thompson critics are saying: South Carolina was make or break, and now you’re broke.

Who’s right? Critics are. Thompson conceded publicly that he was effectively putting it all on the line in South Carolina, and he didn’t come close. The next two questions are how soon he’ll drop out and who he’ll endorse.

Mitt Romney — What Romney fans are saying: We weren’t really trying in South Carolina anyway. What Romney critics are saying: Didn’t you have the lead in South Carolina as recently as December?

Who’s right? Well, probably both. The bad news for Romney is that he would have much preferred a Huckabee victory, slowing McCain down. That obviously didn’t happen.

Ron Paul — What Paul fans are saying (probably in all-caps): We kicked Giuliani’s butt again. What Paul critics are saying: Paul still isn’t going to win anywhere.

Who’s right? Both are.

Rudy Giuliani — What Giuliani fans are saying: Florida, 9/11, Florida, 9/11. What Giuliani critics are saying: Yet another humiliating sixth place finish is a reminder of what a loser Giuliani is.

Who’s right? I’m going with the critics.

Duncan Hunter — What Hunter fans are saying: (crickets chirping) What Hunter critics are saying: Duncan who?

Who’s right? Critics. He actually kinda sorta tried to compete in South Carolina, and it didn’t much matter.

Stay tuned.

The Really Big Story is McCain winning with 135,000 votes where he lost with 240,000 8 years ago, while the Democrats set records in Nevada (again – third time out). The Republicans are not fired up and the Democrats are. It’s going to be interesting to see the vote totals in the Democratic SC primary next weekend to compare with the Republicans. There’s maybe a chance the “solid south” isn’t so solid or bright red anymore.

It is nice that McCain won here, after he said yesterday about how proud he was of the majority of South Carolinians who came together and took the Flag of Southern Treason off the statehouse – and he got overwhelming applause for so saying (OK, he didn’t call it more than “that flag”). The mouthbreathers must not be spawning like they used to.

  • Breaking News: A Ron Paul surge in Nevada

    Boy, oh, boy! Hidden behind all the hoopla, headlines and the Nevada caucus victories of Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton is one little-noticed but stunning political development and number:

    Ron Paul, the one-time Libertarian candidate and 10-term Republican congressman from Texas, was in second place. That’s right, Second Place. The 72-year-old ob-gyn who’s always on the end of the line at GOP debates or barred altogether, was running ahead of John McCain, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, in fact, ahead of….

    all other Republicans except Romney, who easily captured his second state in a week after Michigan.

    Now, Romney and Paul were basically the only Republicans who actively campaigned and advertised in the desert state. But a win is a win. And second place is second place. When Romney won Wyoming a couple of weeks ago, Paul won zero there.

    In Iowa, Paul also beat Giuliani and he topped Thompson in New Hampshire, where Paul was excluded from the Fox News debate, which only energized his fervent followers. His jump in GOP election standings comes despite recent reports about a long series of newsletters from the 1990s carrying Paul’s name and numerous racist and anti-Semitic remarks. Paul has denied writing them and denounced their contents.

    Thanks to those passionate and tireless supporters, Paul, the only Republican to oppose the Iraq war and favor significant dismantling of the federal government, won about 10% of the vote in Iowa and 8% in New Hampshire, coming in just behind the former New York mayor in the Granite state.

    But in Nevada today with a poor Republican turnout of less than half the Democrats (just under 45,000 vs 115,000) and with 99.7% of the precincts reporting, Romney had 22,644 votes, or 51%. Paul had about a quarter of that, 14%, or 6,084 votes.

    Paul built a slow steady lead of about 400 votes over the veteran Arizona senator’s 5,648 total.

    Huckabee sneaked past Thompson into fourth place with 8%, or 3,613 votes, a tiny vote lead over the former Tennessee senator, who had 3,518. Both had 8%. Giuliani, who’s counting on a late-state surge to salvage his one-time now-faded national front-runner status, had only 4% of the Nevada Republican vote with 1,910 ballots. And California’s retiring Congressman Duncan Hunter was last again with 2% or 890 votes.

    Now, of course, comes tonight’s South Carolina primary vote results where Paul needs to be a bit more realistic perhaps. He’s got three campaign offices there and has advertised and campaigned actively. But McCain is well-known there, has been ahead in polls, relying heavily on his strong support in the state’s large active and retired military population.

    And, as in Iowa where he won the caucuses, Huckabee is counting on another large turnout among South Carolina Christian evangelicals. Polls showed the Baptist preacher narrowing McCain’s lead in recent days and Thompson, the former senator who’s got the most riding on a strong South Carolina showing to invigorate his sagging campaign, also gaining some.

    It was reported to be snowing heavily in the state’s Piedmont region, where the evangelicals are concentrated, and that could depress turnout, while McCain’s coastal territory was getting some cold rain. Now, whose crowd gets more depressed? And can Thompson make a strong enough showing to stay in the race? He planned to return home to ponder the future with no campaign activities planned for coming days.

    The results tonight will show whether Ron Paul’s fine morning and afternoon turn into a nice all-around day or not. Either way, he was likely the top GOP fundraiser in the fourth quarter, raising nearly $20 million, and his website reports gathering in another $1.34 million so far this month. So while Giuliani stopped paying his top staff this month, Paul is likely to linger long.

    Paul’s crowd plans another “money bomb” on Monday when thousands will deliver new donations on the same day. One previous time they did this, the Paul campaign set a new one-day online record of $6 million.

  • Good. I can’t imagine a Democratic campaign machine so woefully incompetent that it couldn’t make hay out of McCain’s endless flip-flopping on nearly every issue. Perhaps Republicans are so stupid they think that taking both sides of an issue entitles you to claim you were both for and against it – but given the way they pounced on Kerry for making the same suggestion in a light-hearted way, I kind of doubt it. It’s perfectly all right for McCain to revise history nightly on his voting record and his support/opposition to various initiatives, especially the Iraq war – for now. I’d be seriously disappointed in the Democratic nominee if he/she didn’t point out, in the most unambiguous manner possible, that something which is not true is a lie. You’ve already had a liar for president, and most would agree that didn’t work out too well.

  • Good. I can’t imagine a Democratic campaign machine so woefully incompetent that it couldn’t make hay out of McCain’s endless flip-flopping on nearly every issue.

    Mark, sadly, I can. In 2000 I was shocked that the election was so close that some crap in Florida could throw it to Bush. Knowing what it had in Bush, the country re-elected him anyway in 2004. There is no election that Democratic incompetence coupled with Republican dirty tricks and a POS media can’t tilt to the Repubs.

  • South Carolina was John McCain’s biggest stumbling block eight years ago. Today, his win in the same state arguably puts him at the front of the pack. — CB

    Buyers remorse in SC? They voted for him, *this time*, to atone for being played for suckers in 2000? Much as we’d have voted for Gore (some of us for the second time, but some of us as a “mea culpa”)?

    Duncan, Who?, Hunter has dropped out of the race earlier in the evening, BTW; TP reported on it by 18:50. I suppose he made his decision as soon as half of the precincts reported his “stay the course” non-movement…

    And now there are… ?

  • Mark @ #3 “I’d be seriously disappointed in the Democratic nominee if he/she didn’t point out, in the most unambiguous manner possible, that something which is not true is a lie.”

    Me too. But have you ever heard an elected Dem asked, “Are you saying the President is lying?” There seems to be a party dictum against using that word, as well as a right wing media strategy to try to get one to do so. I just wish one would say either “yes” or “I can’t think of a better word for it!”

  • Second place, Lisa? You’re actually boasting about a second-place finish that’s less than one-third of what the first-place guy got? That’s got to be an all-time record for “most embarrassing second place finish ever in a presidential primary.”

    You’re in Nevada, for crying out loud. People with that kind of luck shouldn’t even look at a casino!

  • Ron Paul isn’t going anywhere despite beating Giuliani in South Carolina and coming in second in Nevada. Paul came in second in Nevada primarily because he was the only one besides Romney to spend money there, yet he still came in far behind.

    There is one point where Paul’s results do have meaning. It is sure hard to justify having a debate which includes Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson but excludes Ron Paul. (I made my views on Ron Paul pretty clear in a post here last weekend, but procedural decisions such as who qualifies to go to a debate should be made entirely separate from one’s opinion about a candidate.)

  • Over at Redstate.com they’re still rooting for Fred, because he’s the only “true conservative.”

  • Oh geez. As I look further through Redstate.com, I find Ben Domenech has written a fantasy withdrawal speech where he has Fred say:

    “They want an endorsement? I endorse a brokered convention, so we can get a president who believes in the things I believe in: in big guns, red meat, cigar-chomping, manly suits, and hot trophy wife poontang.

    That’s the America I believe in. It’s the America I grew up in. And it’s the America we all deserve.

    You can all suck it. Now get the hell off my lawn. ”

    See? They really want Ted Nugent to be president.

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