Yepsen: Fear of Hillary makes McCain look better in Iowa
DAVID YEPSEN
REGISTER POLITICAL COLUMNIST
April 15, 2006
Arizona Sen. John McCain started his 2008 presidential campaigning in Iowa last week. The conventional wisdom holds that he'll have a tough time in the state's caucuses.
After all, he bypassed those events in 2000 and has criticized subsidies for ethanol. He also doesn't march in lockstep with religious conservatives, or with nativist Republicans who think the United States can somehow force 11 million illegal immigrants to go back to Mexico.
As with much conventional wisdom, it's wrong. John McCain could easily win the Iowa caucuses and the 2008 Republican presidential nomination for one reason: Hillary Clinton.
He may be the only Republican who can both win a GOP presidential nomination and then defeat the New York senator, who is anathema to Republican activists. That fact won't be lost on them as they trudge out on a cold January night to pass an early judgment on their party's presidential candidates.
Here's how it could work: Republicans are likely to take a bath in the 2006 elections. Strategists differ over just how bad, but if it happens, it will spook the GOP and give Democrats the momentum in the race for the White House in 2008. Right now, Clinton leads in polls of the Democratic contest. Many general-election matchups show there are only two Republicans who can defeat her — McCain and Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York.
But Giuliani can't win the GOP nomination. Too liberal. He might not even run. That leaves McCain, who is actually a lot more conservative than his image.
Whatever quibble the party's right may have with him over old issues and slights will melt in comparison to their fears of President Hillary Clinton picking Supreme Court justices.
Already, some leading religious conservatives can see this coming and are making up with McCain, who is also reaching out to them. The right may love a Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback or a Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo or an Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, but when it comes to voting for a candidate, they'll be looking for someone electable.
McCain has no insurmountable problems in Iowa. Yes, he once bashed ethanol subsidies, but he's softened that view in light of oil at $60 a barrel. And what if he did bash subsidies? When it comes to presidential decisions, few people make up their minds on the basis of a gasoline additive. Larger issues — like character, trust, integrity and, yes, electability — are far more important.
(Frankly, there are some Iowans who don't like big farm or ethanol subsidies either. There are 2.9 million Iowans. Only about 90,000 are farmers. So the vast majority of caucus-goers aren't in agriculture. That means it's not necessary to engage in agri-pandering to win Iowa.)
Another factor in McCain's favor is that the 2008 GOP field will be crowded. Historically, centrist candidates do well in such scrums. More extreme candidates don't. (In this usage, centrist means the relative position of the candidates among themselves.)
So, while the social conservatives may love a Tancredo or a Huckabee, they might still not vote for them because they're not seen as electable. (See Gary Bauer for details.)
Or, they'll split their votes among the most conservative candidates, enabling someone like McCain to do well. (Note George H.W. Bush's performance in 1980 to see how that works.)
Bypassing Iowa in 2000 will be irrelevant to the politics of 2008. That was then. This is now. Politics is about the present and the future, not some eight-year-old slight. For example, in 1988, Al Gore bypassed the Iowa Democratic caucuses. But he made up with local Democrats and won a big victory in the 2000 caucuses.
Iowa GOP caucus-goers aren't so parochial as to say, "I'm not going to support this man for president because he didn't campaign here eight years ago."
It's far more likely you'll hear an Iowa Republican in 2008 say something like, "I don't agree with McCain on everything, but he's a hero with integrity. And he can beat Hillary, so he's got my vote."
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