Don’t Call It A Comeback
JOHN MCCAIN WINS SOUTH CAROLINA REPUBLICAN PRIMARY
FITSNews - January 19, 2008 - A little over a year ago, John McCain was the odds-on favorite to win the South Carolina Republican primary. He had racked up key institutional endorsements, poured money into local races, set up a vast ground operation and most importantly, had taken steps to mollify the social conservatives who voted against him here eight years ago.
Then the wheels fell off. McCain’s popularity plummeted as his controversial position on immigration and his unwavering commitment to the war in Iraq sapped his public support. As if that weren’t enough, his campaign badly mismanaged its finances to the point that it seemed unlikely he would be able to continue. National reporters had his political obituary written and saved on their computers, ready to publish it when he made the seemingly-inevitable announcement to withdraw.
Somehow, though, McCain managed to stay afloat, even though most political observers still agreed his campaign was a lost cause. But then along came Mike Huckabee, whose meteoric rise helped put the brakes on Mitt Romney’s campaign in Iowa, thus putting New Hampshire back in play for McCain. And then along came Fred Thompson, who was competing for the same votes in South Carolina that Romney and Huckabee were competing for.
Now all of a sudden John McCain - who six months ago was deader than a doornail, politically-speaking - is not only the winner of the South Carolina Republican primary, but once again the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.
In case you’re keeping score at home, here is the official Palmetto State count with 94% of precincts reporting:
John McCain - 139,306 (33%)
Mike Huckabee - 124,910 (30%)
Fred Thompson - 66,079 (16%)
Mitt Romney - 63,305 (15%)
Ron Paul - 15,429 (4%)
Rudy Giuliani - 8,801 (2%)
Duncan Hunter - 1,001 (0%)
UPDATE - We’ve got to give our bud Adam Fogle over at The Palmetto Scoop some props tonight. In addition to his candidate of choice winning, Fogle accurately predicted the final percentages for the top four candidates down to one point, and he was only off by two points on fifth-place finisher Ron Paul. Talk about a crystal ball …
Comments
By Aaron Wakling on January 19th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Aaron Wakling
By Palmetto Mouse Jockey on January 20th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Has John McCain won the Republican vote in any of these Republican primaries where independents and Democrats can vote? Nope. Has he even come close to getting a majority anywhere? Nope. He tops out at about a third of the vote, max. This thing is going all the way to the convention unless Rudy overwhelms everyone in Florida and then again on Feb. 5. Fred should not drop out. If anything he should just suspend his campaign after Feb 5. He could be the consensus candidate at a brokered convention– it wouldn’t be McCain or Huck, that’s for sure.
By Palmetto Poop on January 20th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Will, your comment about Fogle and his “candidate of choice” is pure BS. Is it a “crystal ball” or…did the Palmetto Scoop propaganda machine get some insider polling numbers from Quinn and the rest of the McCain team? Everybody knows that Fogle’s paycheck comes directly from McCain’s top SC political consultant.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7604.html
By Harden Gervais on January 20th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
McLovin got his numbers from the Quinns just like Donnie Fowler got his “secret” internal polling numbers he shared at the Dan Rather thing from the Clinton camp. No big surprise there.
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