But when Republicans get together privately, they tend to agree that McCain is the Republican most likely to defeat Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Even while some consider the old naval aviator as cranky and hot-tempered, he has not exhibited those negative characteristics in debates. Rather, he exudes a heroic aura that goes beyond managing New York City or the Utah Olympics. That quality is shown in his Christmas card television ad depicting a North Vietnamese prison guard making a cross in the dirt. McCain has managed to support the invasion of Iraq while criticizing President Bush's management of the invasion, and he maintains his fiscal integrity in a pork-driven, spendthrift Republican Party.
Having fallen behind Huckabee in Iowa, Romney has concluded he must stop McCain in New Hampshire. He launched daily attacks on McCain last week after having ignored him for months. Apart from assailing McCain for not being a team player, Romney deplored his votes against Bush's tax cuts. McCain has admitted to me that those votes were a mistake, as Romney confesses he made a mistake in his former support for abortion rights. The difference, Romney insiders insist, is that their man freely acknowledges error.
That faint distinction may not be sufficient to stop McCain in New Hampshire if Romney loses Iowa. That is why McCain is praying for the former governor of Arkansas on Jan. 3. The GOP nominee can be determined by how many Iowa social conservatives that night support a high-tax, big-spending opponent of school choice who is called a member of the religious left by critical Southern Baptists. The Republican Party's internal competition has become as peculiar as the Democrats' used to be.