How did McCain win the nomination?

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Looking back from 2017 and how universally McCain is hated by the Republican base now, it seems strange how easily he won the nomination in 2008 Did his hawkish foreign policy credentials help him? Why wasn't Romney as strong as he was in 2012?

[Mr. Smith]

The Dubya Wing had clout back then, and McCain was a decent embodiment of that.

And the other choices were Mitt Romney (just as wooden as in 2012), and Mike Huckabee (arguably more "far-right religious guy" than Rick Santorum in 2012).

And none of them had good attacks on him the same way Gingrich had at Romney

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

The Dubya Wing had clout back then, and McCain was a decent embodiment of that.

And the other choices were Mitt Romney (just as wooden as in 2012), and Mike Huckabee (arguably more "far-right religious guy" than Rick Santorum in 2012).

And none of them had good attacks on him the same way Gingrich had at Romney

Actually, Romney was reportedly a favored candidate of many in the Dubya wing in 2008, but he couldn't hold onto Evangelican vote, that in large part went over to Huckabee. Beside this division, McCain was viewed as "most electable" and it was part of a narrative.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

The Dubya Wing had clout back then, and McCain was a decent embodiment of that.

And the other choices were Mitt Romney (just as wooden as in 2012), and Mike Huckabee (arguably more "far-right religious guy" than Rick Santorum in 2012).

And none of them had good attacks on him the same way Gingrich had at Romney

Actually, Romney was reportedly a favored candidate of many in the Dubya wing in 2008, but he couldn't hold onto Evangelican vote, that in large part went over to Huckabee. Beside this division, McCain was viewed as "most electable" and it was part of a narrative.

Romney was definitely more electable than McCain.

[The Govanah Jake]

The Dubya Wing had clout back then, and McCain was a decent embodiment of that.

And the other choices were Mitt Romney (just as wooden as in 2012), and Mike Huckabee (arguably more "far-right religious guy" than Rick Santorum in 2012).

And none of them had good attacks on him the same way Gingrich had at Romney

Actually, Romney was reportedly a favored candidate of many in the Dubya wing in 2008, but he couldn't hold onto Evangelican vote, that in large part went over to Huckabee. Beside this division, McCain was viewed as "most electable" and it was part of a narrative.

Romney was definitely more electable than McCain.

In 2008? If anything his financial ties would of made him perform worse in 2008 then McCain.

[TML]

McCain was considered the "my turn" candidate for 2008, given his performance in the 2000 primary. By extension, Romney was considered the "my turn" candidate in 2012 based on his performance in the 2008 primary.

[Mr. Morden]

The Dubya Wing had clout back then, and McCain was a decent embodiment of that.

I would say the opposite, actually.  Bush's job approval ratings were anemic, and there was a substantial faction of the GOP electorate that was disillusioned with him, and McCain cleaned up among this group.  See, e.g., the Florida exit poll:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#FLREP

68% of GOP primary voters had a positive opinion of the Bush administration, and Romney beat McCain among this group, 35% - 31%.

But 32% of GOP primary voters had a negative opinion of the Bush administration, and McCain clobbered Romney with this group, beating him 45% - 23%.  And that was enough to win the primary.  McCain dominated among Independents, weak GOP partisans, and Republicans who were disillusioned with Bush.  (He also did well with older voters, so many of his 2008 voters are dead now.  )

McCain also benefited from the fact that the states he was winning were mostly WTA or pseudo-WTA.  E.g., he won a plurality of the vote in Florida, with help from an endorsement from Gov. Crist, but that was enough to win all the delegates there.  And then on Super Tuesday, he wins WTA New York.  And California was WTA by congressional district, and he won by a large enough margin there to take almost every congressional district.  In contrast, the delegate allocation in the Huckabee and Romney states tended to be more proportional.  So after Super Tuesday, even though McCain had only won ~40% of the vote so far or whatever the number was, it was pretty clear that he was the de facto nominee, and Romney dropped out because his position was hopeless.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Several things to consider.


1. War on Terrorism was still the dominant issue for Republicans who were not yet feeling the economic impacts by early 2008. Had the main issue been the economy, Romney would have beat McCain. The situation in Pakistan also exploded in December, putting foreign policy back on the radar just prior to the early primary contests. Immigration receded as an issue over the latter part of 2007 and McCain backtracked on the issue to some extent. His campaign basically collapsed in June 2007 and he fired most all of his staff and auctioned off his donor list to keep the campaign running on fumes. This largely occurred after the Senate immigration bill was defeated 46-54, and there was scene of McCain pulling his own luggage, boarding a plane to head to NH, following that defeat.

2. Romney's base was basically limited to College Educated, suburban Conservatives. A very narrow band, with College educated moderates going to Rudy and McCain and rural whites going to Huckabee, with McCain in the hunt as well. You see this dynamic in a state like GA, where Romney dominated the Atlanta suburbs, while placing third in rural GA.

3. The withdrawal of Brownback, allowed Huckabee to unify the Christian Right vote in Iowa, costing Romney the state. Also it has been argued that Fred Thompson was never a serious candidate and only got in the race to spoil from Romney and prempt Huckabee. After Rudy collapsed nationwide, he also pulled out of the early contests and focused on Florida. Rudy was also a long time friend and ally of McCain. This created the opening for McCain to unify the independents in NH. Romney won registered Republicans in the primary by 1%, but lost indies by double digits to McCain.

4. Obama was expected to win New Hampshire. This meant that independents who would have voted for Obama, slid over and voted in the Republican Primary for John McCain, creating the opening for Hillary Clinton to win NH.

5. Romney had no base of support in SC and Huckabee was very short on funds. Thompson and Romney were both still in the race taking a chunk of the vote (Fred came in 3rd and Romney in 4th), allowing McCain to narrowly beat Huckabee, making him the front runner. Romney pursued a different track and won Michigan a few days prior against McCain, and won Nevada in a landslide the same night as SC, the two of which kept Romney alive.

6. The two tracks collided in Florida, and Romney was gaining on McCain, but 3 things happened. McCain dominated among the Florida Cuban vote. Governor Charlie Crist endorsed McCain just days before the election. Lastly, McCain falsely claimed that Romney had endorsed a timeline for withdrawal in Iraq.

7 A week later, Super Tuesday was front loaded with something like 20 some states. McCain came out dominant winning, NY, ILL and CA and Romney suspended his campaign soon afterwards, Huckabee dropped out the following month.

[Mr. Morden]

3. The withdrawal of Brownback, allowed Huckabee to unify the Christian Right vote in Iowa, costing Romney the state. Also it has been argued that Fred Thompson was never a serious candidate and only got in the race to spoil from Romney and prempt Huckabee.

I have long wondered if McCain actually benefited from only coming in 4th place in Iowa rather than 3rd place.  Before Iowa, there was speculation about whether Thomspon might drop out of the race if he did really poorly in the caucuses.  He narrowly beat McCain for 3rd place, and continued in the race until South Carolina.  If McCain had edged out Thompson for 3rd in Iowa, then maybe Thompson calls it quits right then and there.  In which case, Thompson isn't around to split the Evangelical vote in South Carolina, meaning that Huckabee quite possibly wins South Carolina instead of McCain.

And if McCain loses South Carolina, then his path going forward becomes more complicated.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Dubya Wing had clout back then, and McCain was a decent embodiment of that.

I would say the opposite, actually.  Bush's job approval ratings were anemic, and there was a substantial faction of the GOP electorate that was disillusioned with him, and McCain cleaned up among this group.  See, e.g., the Florida exit poll:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#FLREP

68% of GOP primary voters had a positive opinion of the Bush administration, and Romney beat McCain among this group, 35% - 31%.

But 32% of GOP primary voters had a negative opinion of the Bush administration, and McCain clobbered Romney with this group, beating him 45% - 23%.  And that was enough to win the primary.  McCain dominated among Independents, weak GOP partisans, and Republicans who were disillusioned with Bush.  (He also did well with older voters, so many of his 2008 voters are dead now.  )

McCain also benefited from the fact that the states he was winning were mostly WTA or pseudo-WTA.  E.g., he won a plurality of the vote in Florida, with help from an endorsement from Gov. Crist, but that was enough to win all the delegates there.  And then on Super Tuesday, he wins WTA New York.  And California was WTA by congressional district, and he won by a large enough margin there to take almost every congressional district.  In contrast, the delegate allocation in the Huckabee and Romney states tended to be more proportional.  So after Super Tuesday, even though McCain had only won ~40% of the vote so far or whatever the number was, it was pretty clear that he was the de facto nominee, and Romney dropped out because his position was hopeless.

Romney tried to wrap himself around Bush with the exception of one issue, his trump card, Immigration. (Pun very much intended ) There was a sense by Republicans that I heard expressed at the time, that Bush was great for the most part but there were a couple of things he needs to do differently.

1. No Amnesty for Illegals
2. A greater degree of competence
3. A more effective communicator.

Now there was another group of people that were more dissatisfied then that even. Moderate Republicans who had formed a base for McCain 2000, Anti-War Republicans and other factions as well. And while McCain was certainly not an anti-war candidate, he was very much a good fit for the former group.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Dubya Wing had clout back then, and McCain was a decent embodiment of that.

And the other choices were Mitt Romney (just as wooden as in 2012), and Mike Huckabee (arguably more "far-right religious guy" than Rick Santorum in 2012).

And none of them had good attacks on him the same way Gingrich had at Romney

Actually, Romney was reportedly a favored candidate of many in the Dubya wing in 2008, but he couldn't hold onto Evangelican vote, that in large part went over to Huckabee. Beside this division, McCain was viewed as "most electable" and it was part of a narrative.

Romney was definitely more electable than McCain.

In 2008? If anything his financial ties would of made him perform worse in 2008 then McCain.

I don't agree with this. Romney was much more in touch with the economic situation then McCain was. For instance in 2008, Romney had as a campaign center piece a $20 billion annual investment in energy and transportation technology. McCain called this a "bailout for the Auto industry", during the Michigan primary. Delicious irony!

Romney supported drilling offshore and in ANWR, McCain had to flip flop on offshore drilling in early August to hammer Obama on that issue when Gas hit $4 a gallon. Romney would not have had to do that and could have been hitting him all Spring and summer.

As we know from what happened, fracking, LEDs and fuel efficient cars eliminated our energy shortages. You don't hear anyone talking about peak oil anymore, Oil is stuck around $50 a dollar and the energy issue completely swirls around the death of coal (largely because of natural gas fracking), being blamed on Obama regulations. And I think it has been shown, the economy does best when energy is dirt cheap. The cost of energy is a regressive tax for all intents and purposes that squeezes out the disposable income of the poor.

In 2007, there was a lot of talk of a "savings gap", because Americans were not saving enough and some wrongly attributed to this as being a culprit behind the credit crunch. In a round about way it was, because people were creating investment capital from inflated asset valuations and when the assets (sub prime Mortgage Backed Securities) crashed, the credit dried up. Romney's tax plan had an incentive for middle class saving and investment.

Romney was more in touch with various root problems in the economy and had proposals aimed at fixing them, and McCain really didn't understand the economy beyond generic talking points. Towards the end of 2007, Romney was moving very much in a proto-Trumpist direction, attacking "poorly written trade deals" and impact of illegal immigration on wages.

For a Republican to win in 2008, they had too:
1. Be an outsider. McCain was a maverick so it worked somewhat but he was still tied to votes and stuff, Romney and Huckabee were Governors and had never been in Washington.
2. Equalize the blame for the crisis so it that wasn't framed as a "Republican economic mess", but a "bipartisan mess" resulting from bipartisan legislation in the 1990's. Romney and Huckabee were not Senators at the time and didn't vote for those bills. McCain voted for them.
3. Coming off as competent on economic matters. Obama did because he had Wall Street people keeping him tapped into what was happening. McCain didn't have that, he also didn't have a clue about economic matters. McCain is the guy you call for a FP crisis, the 3 AM phone call because something happened in Iran. Romney would not have been caught flat footed in September 2008.

[catographer]

McCain was considered the "my turn" candidate for 2008, given his performance in the 2000 primary. By extension, Romney was considered the "my turn" candidate in 2012 based on his performance in the 2008 primary.

Primary runner-ups typically don't do too well. Hm... (Dole, McCain, Romney, Clinton). Sanders anybody?
Alternatively, Reagan did quite well.

[darklordoftech]

McCain was considered the "my turn" candidate for 2008, given his performance in the 2000 primary. By extension, Romney was considered the "my turn" candidate in 2012 based on his performance in the 2008 primary.

Primary runner-ups typically don't do too well. Hm... (Dole, McCain, Romney, Clinton). Sanders anybody?
Alternatively, Reagan did quite well.

Wasn't HW a primary runner-up in 1980 and wasn't Lyndon a primary runner-up in 1960?

[darklordoftech]

Now there was another group of people that were more dissatisfied then that even. Moderate Republicans who had formed a base for McCain 2000, Anti-War Republicans and other factions as well. And while McCain was certainly not an anti-war candidate, he was very much a good fit for the former group.

Am I correct in thinking that in 2000, McCain was seen as more hawkish than Bush?

[UWS]

There are many factors that explain how McCain won the nomination :

1. In a time of war against global terrorism, McCain's foreign policy experience as well as his hawkish stance helped him. In fact, experience was one of the best qualities his supporters saw in him.

2. His reputation as straight-talker might also have favored him over some other GOP candidates like Mitt Romney who flip-flopped on his political positions like abortion, health care, gun rights, etc.

3. McCain finished second during the 2000 GOP primaries against George W. Bush and in the recent history of the Republican Party, the candidate who finished second in the previous primary race went on to win the Republican nomination like it happened with Ronald Reagan (who finished second against Gerald Ford in 1976) in 1980, George H. W. Bush (who finished second against Ronald Reagan in 1980) in 1988, Bob Dole (who finished second against George H. W. Bush in 1988) in 1996, John McCain (who finished second against George W. Bush in 2000) in 2008 and Mitt Romney (who finished second against John McCain in 2008) in 2012.

4. The hard-core conservative vote represented by Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson during the 2008 Republican primaries was divided, thus giving the advantage to a moderate like John McCain. For example, McCain won the South Carolina primary by only 3 percentage points over Huckabee (33 % for McCain over Huckabee's 30 %) partly because Thompson took several social conservative votes from Huckabee with 16 % of the vote. And since 1980, the winner of the South Carolina primary most of the time went on to win the Republican nomination.

Despite the fact that it's hard for a moderate to perform well in southern states, the divide between the social conservative vote between Romney and Huckabee also explains how McCain did so well in southern states during Super Tuesday when he finished second in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee (states that Huckabee narrowly won by only between 2 and 4 percentage points) in addition of winning Oklahoma and Missouri.

5. As we can see in these exit polls in several primaries, even though the economy was Romney's strongest asset due to his business experience, McCain edged Romney among primary voters who selected the economy as the most important issue, so Romney could not really have counted that much on that issue to prevail.

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#NHREP

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#SCREP

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#FLREP

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#CAREP

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#GAREP

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#ILREP

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#MOREP

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#NYREP

http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#OKREP

[Lord Admirale]

Now there was another group of people that were more dissatisfied then that even. Moderate Republicans who had formed a base for McCain 2000, Anti-War Republicans and other factions as well. And while McCain was certainly not an anti-war candidate, he was very much a good fit for the former group.

Am I correct in thinking that in 2000, McCain was seen as more hawkish than Bush?

Possibly. IIRC Bush criticized Clinton for Kosovo. McCain was socially/economically moderate compared to Bush.

[mencken]

The Dubya Wing had clout back then, and McCain was a decent embodiment of that.

And the other choices were Mitt Romney (just as wooden as in 2012), and Mike Huckabee (arguably more "far-right religious guy" than Rick Santorum in 2012).

And none of them had good attacks on him the same way Gingrich had at Romney

Actually, Romney was reportedly a favored candidate of many in the Dubya wing in 2008, but he couldn't hold onto Evangelican vote, that in large part went over to Huckabee. Beside this division, McCain was viewed as "most electable" and it was part of a narrative.

Romney was definitely more electable than McCain.

In 2008? If anything his financial ties would of made him perform worse in 2008 then McCain.

I don't agree with this. Romney was much more in touch with the economic situation then McCain was. For instance in 2008, Romney had as a campaign center piece a $20 billion annual investment in energy and transportation technology. McCain called this a "bailout for the Auto industry", during the Michigan primary. Delicious irony!

Romney supported drilling offshore and in ANWR, McCain had to flip flop on offshore drilling in early August to hammer Obama on that issue when Gas hit $4 a gallon. Romney would not have had to do that and could have been hitting him all Spring and summer.

As we know from what happened, fracking, LEDs and fuel efficient cars eliminated our energy shortages. You don't hear anyone talking about peak oil anymore, Oil is stuck around $50 a dollar and the energy issue completely swirls around the death of coal (largely because of natural gas fracking), being blamed on Obama regulations. And I think it has been shown, the economy does best when energy is dirt cheap. The cost of energy is a regressive tax for all intents and purposes that squeezes out the disposable income of the poor.

In 2007, there was a lot of talk of a "savings gap", because Americans were not saving enough and some wrongly attributed to this as being a culprit behind the credit crunch. In a round about way it was, because people were creating investment capital from inflated asset valuations and when the assets (sub prime Mortgage Backed Securities) crashed, the credit dried up. Romney's tax plan had an incentive for middle class saving and investment.

Romney was more in touch with various root problems in the economy and had proposals aimed at fixing them, and McCain really didn't understand the economy beyond generic talking points. Towards the end of 2007, Romney was moving very much in a proto-Trumpist direction, attacking "poorly written trade deals" and impact of illegal immigration on wages.

For a Republican to win in 2008, they had too:
1. Be an outsider. McCain was a maverick so it worked somewhat but he was still tied to votes and stuff, Romney and Huckabee were Governors and had never been in Washington.
2. Equalize the blame for the crisis so it that wasn't framed as a "Republican economic mess", but a "bipartisan mess" resulting from bipartisan legislation in the 1990's. Romney and Huckabee were not Senators at the time and didn't vote for those bills. McCain voted for them.
3. Coming off as competent on economic matters. Obama did because he had Wall Street people keeping him tapped into what was happening. McCain didn't have that, he also didn't have a clue about economic matters. McCain is the guy you call for a FP crisis, the 3 AM phone call because something happened in Iran. Romney would not have been caught flat footed in September 2008.

Do you think Romney could have beaten Obama (or Clinton for that matter) in 2008, or would the Bush stench have been too much to overcome?

I have long suspected that Huckabee would have been able to win, provided he could keep his foot out of his mouth on social issues.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

3. The withdrawal of Brownback, allowed Huckabee to unify the Christian Right vote in Iowa, costing Romney the state. Also it has been argued that Fred Thompson was never a serious candidate and only got in the race to spoil from Romney and prempt Huckabee.

I have long wondered if McCain actually benefited from only coming in 4th place in Iowa rather than 3rd place.  Before Iowa, there was speculation about whether Thomspon might drop out of the race if he did really poorly in the caucuses.  He narrowly beat McCain for 3rd place, and continued in the race until South Carolina.  If McCain had edged out Thompson for 3rd in Iowa, then maybe Thompson calls it quits right then and there.  In which case, Thompson isn't around to split the Evangelical vote in South Carolina, meaning that Huckabee quite possibly wins South Carolina instead of McCain.

And if McCain loses South Carolina, then his path going forward becomes more complicated.

Thompson might have stuck it out if one buys into the theory that the only reason he ran in the first place was to split the vote and enable McCain to win.

If Huckabee wins SC, Romney beats Huckabee in Florida because Huckabee was out of money. He would have gained some but he was too far behind.

Probably something like 32% for Romney, with McCain and Huckabee at about 22%.

Then Romney comes out dominant in CA and possibly defeats McCain in AZ, as well as some of those close Southern states like GA and MO.

Depending on when McCain, Fred and the like get out, and the vote splits could increase substantially the chances of a brokered convention. Also Huckabee versus Mitt had potential to get very nasty as they hated each other.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Dubya Wing had clout back then, and McCain was a decent embodiment of that.

And the other choices were Mitt Romney (just as wooden as in 2012), and Mike Huckabee (arguably more "far-right religious guy" than Rick Santorum in 2012).

And none of them had good attacks on him the same way Gingrich had at Romney

Actually, Romney was reportedly a favored candidate of many in the Dubya wing in 2008, but he couldn't hold onto Evangelican vote, that in large part went over to Huckabee. Beside this division, McCain was viewed as "most electable" and it was part of a narrative.

Romney was definitely more electable than McCain.

In 2008? If anything his financial ties would of made him perform worse in 2008 then McCain.

I don't agree with this. Romney was much more in touch with the economic situation then McCain was. For instance in 2008, Romney had as a campaign center piece a $20 billion annual investment in energy and transportation technology. McCain called this a "bailout for the Auto industry", during the Michigan primary. Delicious irony!

Romney supported drilling offshore and in ANWR, McCain had to flip flop on offshore drilling in early August to hammer Obama on that issue when Gas hit $4 a gallon. Romney would not have had to do that and could have been hitting him all Spring and summer.

As we know from what happened, fracking, LEDs and fuel efficient cars eliminated our energy shortages. You don't hear anyone talking about peak oil anymore, Oil is stuck around $50 a dollar and the energy issue completely swirls around the death of coal (largely because of natural gas fracking), being blamed on Obama regulations. And I think it has been shown, the economy does best when energy is dirt cheap. The cost of energy is a regressive tax for all intents and purposes that squeezes out the disposable income of the poor.

In 2007, there was a lot of talk of a "savings gap", because Americans were not saving enough and some wrongly attributed to this as being a culprit behind the credit crunch. In a round about way it was, because people were creating investment capital from inflated asset valuations and when the assets (sub prime Mortgage Backed Securities) crashed, the credit dried up. Romney's tax plan had an incentive for middle class saving and investment.

Romney was more in touch with various root problems in the economy and had proposals aimed at fixing them, and McCain really didn't understand the economy beyond generic talking points. Towards the end of 2007, Romney was moving very much in a proto-Trumpist direction, attacking "poorly written trade deals" and impact of illegal immigration on wages.

For a Republican to win in 2008, they had too:
1. Be an outsider. McCain was a maverick so it worked somewhat but he was still tied to votes and stuff, Romney and Huckabee were Governors and had never been in Washington.
2. Equalize the blame for the crisis so it that wasn't framed as a "Republican economic mess", but a "bipartisan mess" resulting from bipartisan legislation in the 1990's. Romney and Huckabee were not Senators at the time and didn't vote for those bills. McCain voted for them.
3. Coming off as competent on economic matters. Obama did because he had Wall Street people keeping him tapped into what was happening. McCain didn't have that, he also didn't have a clue about economic matters. McCain is the guy you call for a FP crisis, the 3 AM phone call because something happened in Iran. Romney would not have been caught flat footed in September 2008.

Do you think Romney could have beaten Obama (or Clinton for that matter) in 2008, or would the Bush stench have been too much to overcome?

I have long suspected that Huckabee would have been able to win, provided he could keep his foot out of his mouth on social issues.

Yes it is possible, if Romney was willing to continue sounding like a populist on trade, attack Obama for blocking efforts to reform Fannie Mae and have a clear plan for failing institutions like Lehman brothers.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

2. His reputation as straight-talker might also have favored him over some other GOP candidates like Mitt Romney who flip-flopped on his political positions like abortion, health care, gun rights, etc.

Romney actually embraced his healthcare efforts in MA and used even went so far as to push it as an advantage against Clinton, who was seen as the likely nominee for most all of 2007. Because it was believed that she would champion the issue and therefore Romney could be there to say "but I actually got it done".