For those of you who have been asleep or just haven't paid any attention to presidential politics over the last several months, let's review how John McCain became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. There was no shortage of candidates, but only McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee had a realistic chance at the nomination.
Throughout most of 2007, Giuliani had led in the polls and it looked at as if he would head into 2008 as the clear frontrunner. However, his fortunes began to change shortly after Thanksgiving. That's when his polls numbers began to drop in the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. He was overtaken by Romney in those states before 2007 was over. However, Giuliani still ended the year at the top of most national surveys of GOP presidential candidates. McCain had a bad 2007 overall and, at one point during the summer, his fundraising suffered so much that it looked as if he might drop out of the race. However, he hung in there and, by the time the year ended, his poll numbers in New Hampshire were beginning to surge.
McCain got a major break when Huckabee became the surprise winner of the Iowa Caucuses, the first contest of the year. Had Romney won Iowa, he would have almost certainly won New Hampshire as well, with it being next door to Massachusetts, where he had recently been the governor. And from there, with of his financial resources and momentum in hand, he would have been poised to run the table the rest of the way and roll to the nomination. But Huckabee's win reshuffled the political deck of cards. Romney's disappointing second-place finish in Iowa, while not devastating, dealt him a setback and provided additional impetus to McCain's resurgence in New Hampshire. Although McCain finished fourth in Iowa, just behind Thompson, he didn't spend much time or money there. He was focusing on New Hampshire instead. Giuliani finished way back in the pack in Iowa.
McCain was able to edge out Romney in New Hampshire, handing him his second straight disappointing runner-up finish and further weakening his campaign. Huckabee's momentum from the win in Iowa was only able to get him a third-place finish in New Hampshire, but he seemed to be satisfied with that outcome. He knew going in that no southern candidate from either party, who was not an incumbent President or Vice President, had ever won a New Hampshire presidential primary. Huckabee, therefore, considered his next big battleground to be South Carolina. Giuliani had another poor showing, with Thompson doing even worse. Giuliani was putting all of his eggs in the Florida basket. Ditto Thompson in South Carolina.
Romney bounced back in Michigan by winning a tight contest over McCain. It was a must-win for Romney that left him, McCain, and Huckabee with one major win each after the first three contested matches. South Carolina and Florida would be the tiebreakers. In South Carolina, McCain won a close race with Huckabee. Thompson's third-place finish forced him out of the race. In Florida's winner-take-all primary, McCain won again, beating out Romney. Giuliani's poor showing there forced him out of the race. Therefore, heading into Super Tuesday, there were just three candidates remaining McCain, Romney, and Huckabee with McCain in the lead in delegates and having taken over the mantle of clear frontrunner for the nomination.
Romney was hoping to resuscitate his campaign on Super Tuesday by winning some of the southern and lower Midwest states like West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri (winner-take-all), and Oklahoma; and by beating McCain in California or at least coming close there. That would be in addition to Massachusetts and the heavily Mormon Utah, places where he was pretty much guaranteed to win. Huckabee was hoping to win his home state of Arkansas along with a majority of those southern and lower Midwest states that Romney was targeting. McCain was focused on those states as well, along with most of the northeast (most of which were winner-take-all), Illinois, California, and his home state of Arizona (also winner-take-all).
Romney was devastated on Super Tuesday when he won none of those southern and lower Midwest states that he had targeted and was blown out by McCain in California. He did win Massachusetts, Utah, Colorado, and caucuses in Minnesota and some smaller states. However, those wins could not save his campaign and he dropped out a few days later. Huckabee won Arkansas, West Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. That was enough to keep him alive to fight another day. In addition to his big win in California, McCain won New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Since most of those states were winner-take-all, he easily got the majority of the delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday. At that point, four of the five most populous states had conducted their primaries and McCain had won them all! Super Tuesday had left him on the verge of claiming the nomination.
A few days later, Huckabee was able to win in Kansas and Louisiana to keep his faint hopes for the nomination alive. However, McCain responded with crushing wins in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. On March 4, McCain finished Huckabee off and put himself over the top in delegates needed for the nomination by sweeping the states of Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island. It should be noted that if the Republicans had used a proportional system of allocating delegates like the Democrats use, many of McCain's victories would not have been nearly as decisive as they were and the nomination battle would have gone on much longer. As it was, however, McCain became the GOP presumptive presidential nominee in early March, long before the dust settled on the Democratic side.
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. His commentaries offer a unique point of view that is not often found in mainstream media. His articles here on SearchWarp represent only a small portion of his work. All of it can be found on his blog. If you like his articles, you'll love his blog.
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