MCCAIN AND BUCHANAN | 2000-02-12
Bush was depending on South Carolina to save his candidacy against the winner in New Hampshire, John McCain. After all, South Carolina saved his father when Buchanan did well in that state, and South Carolina really saved Dole when Buchanan beat him in the Granite State. But everyone has, as always, forgotten the reason for that.
Respectable conservatives have no memory, so Bush forgot that the reason South Carolina Republican voters saved his father and Dole was because, at the time, the national media were quoting poll after poll that showed that Bush Senior, and then Dole, would beat Clinton in the general election. Needless to say, both were crushed in the general election, getting about the same percentage as Goldwater did in his 1964 landslide defeat.
But the media loves McCain, and the media are not there for Bush this time. This time, the respectable conservatives can go with the candidate that the press - for the moment - dearly loves. Now the media are unanimously insisting that the New Hampshire winner is the one who will beat the Democratic nominee come November.
Maybe, just maybe, the nomination of McCain will give a major kick to the Buchanan campaign this year. I plan to discuss that point in a later WOL.