Arizona Senator John S. McCain, III is everywhere. He virtually lives at NBC. If not there how about CNN. And talk shows. And late night shows. Oh, how the media loves him. A maverick who came close in 2000, he is looking to make one more run at the Presidency. And at the same moment, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says he is thinking very seriously about running for President. Rudy, too, is loved by the media. How many times have you heard "America's Mayor" in introducing him. He is available to any network at the drop of a hat. My fondest hope is that they both run because they will be going after the same voters. Those voters within the GOP are driven by one issue alone and that is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). Fear of Clinton's election to the Presidency is palpable.
To cast aside issues of great importance from immigration to right to life to guns to marriage and many more merely for a theoretical match-up in the media is stupid to say the least. Polls I have seen show McCain edging Hillary by only a point or two. The same for Rudy. We don't know for certain that Clinton will run in 2008.
If she were to run she may or may not have a primary opponent. Just last Friday morning there was a story in a Washington, D.C. newspaper which suggested that if Senator Joseph I. Lieberman were to lose the Connecticut Democratic primary Hillary would be much more likely to face a challenger from the Left because of her support of the war and the defense build-up.
If both McCain and Giuliani run they would do so in the Republican primaries as well as caucus states, in which a state party convention rather than Republican voters at large elects delegates to the national convention.
This is the first time in many years that neither party has a presumed nominee, although with the Democrats Hillary is well ahead at the moment. Think about it. Ronald W. Reagan became the presumed nominee after his close but failed attempt in 1976. So Reagan won in 1980 and again in 1984. Then Reagan's hand-picked Vice President, George Herbert Walker Bush, won a convincing victory in 1988. He sought reelection in 1992 and went down miserably. Senator Robert J. Dole was the 1996 nominee because it was "his turn," not because anyone thought he could win. Meanwhile George W. Bush had been elected and re-elected as Governor of Texas, and he ran for President in 2000 and won one of the closest contests in our history. He ran for re-election in 2004 and polled more votes by far than any Presidential candidate yet his victory was one of the narrowest in history as well, although he won by an outright majority. Now comes 2008. There is no presumed nominee. Had Florida's retiring Governor Jeb Bush agreed to run he would likely start out as the favorite. But Governor Bush has said no, no way. That is where McCain and Rudy step in. There are Republican voters for whom defeating Hillary is their only motivation. So which of these two popular candidates to choose? Would it be McCain? No Senator has won the Presidency since JFK in 1960.
Moreover, long-time Senators have cast hundreds of votes, any of which can be used in an attack ad. On the other hand Rudy, married three times but raised as a Catholic, favors abortion rights, special rights for homosexuals, gun control and more. Yes, he was an effective Mayor. But has a mayor ever tried to become President? Has any succeeded? If both of these potential candidates were on the primary ballots in most states the pragmatic voters, those driven solely by Hillary fear, would cancel out each other.
That would be helpful to the principled voters who want to elect someone who believes in their issues. A number of potential candidates will be running on a conservative, pro-life, pro-family platform. While pragmatists were splitting their vote conservatives would have the opportunity to do the same thing.
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