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McCain and Edwards: Super-secret frontrunners?
By Ned | December 24, 2007
That are rumors swirling that McCain and Edwards might be doing stronger in their primaries than current polling indicates. On the GOP side, Greg reports that McCain is trending upwards and could possibly get a strong second-place finish in New Hampshire. That would be potentially embarrassing for Romney, considering, as one McCain staffer points out: “no Massachusetts candidate has ever won in New Hampshire by less than eight points.”
My initial reaction to all of this was to write off the McCain surge (extra points for irony in the name) as wishful thinking on the part of a lot of beltway Republicans who clung to the old image of McCain as some sort of maverick freedom fighter. But with Giuliani slipping fast in the early states and no plausible alternatives, I could see McCain becoming the candidate of choice for the GOP hawks. Sure McCain doesn’t seem to share Giuliani’s distaste for checks and balances and civil liberties, but if video evidence is correct he’s still got the “national security candidate’s” full-on war-boner for Iran.
The fact that the media loves McCain would give him a huge boost too, particularly since right-wing punditry is flailing for somebody who can be the anti-Huckabee. Right now they’ve more or less settled on Romney, but I’m willing to bet that if McCain started to look like a viable choice again they would dump him.
Edwards looks like a little bit less of a long shot, considering how tight polling is in Iowa right now. Obviously the race doesn’t begin and end in Iowa, but if Edwards finished first there and Obama second, we’re looking at a three-way race. If Edwards finishes first and Clinton second, then it’s a two-way race. I predicted a first-place finish for Obama in Iowa, but Chris Bowers seems to think that Edwards has a couple percentage points in his pocket that aren’t represented in polling. We’ll see about that.
It might not be relevant, though. Bowers is still reporting that Edwards will finish in second to Obama, which I think would be more of a reflection of Clinton’s current weakness than Edwards’ strength. If this is what the lineup looks like after Iowa, I don’t see a two-way race or a three-way race - I see a month or so of Obama playing touch football in front of a phalanx of cameras and pausing every once in a while to flash a youthful and vigorous grin and tell the American people about the importance of hope and optimism.
So as of right now? Both of these secret-surge theories have merit, but I don’t think they’re going to change the ultimate outcome. My prediction is still for a Romney v. Obama general election.
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