Wednesday, February 06, 2008

"Constrain McCain"   [Mark Krikorian]

Stanley is on target in fearing the consequences of a McCain candidacy for the prospects of congressional Republicans in November. I'll certainly get out in November and vote for whichever hapless Republican tries to succeed Tom Davis, but realistically speaking, most people who, like me, can't bring themselves to vote for Amnesty John will just stay home. Unless ... they have someone else to vote for. A third-party candidate for president may be essential for limiting the damage to Republicans in Congress. For instance, the Libertarian and Constitution parties, which are on the ballot in almost all states, could agree on a joint anti-McCain ticket (with one person from each party) — yes, I'm sure they can't stand each other, but the question is whether they fear McCain more. Such a ticket could conceivably get 1 or 2 percent of the vote, and some of those voters would otherwise have stayed home, potentially spelling the difference between congressional Republicans getting creamed like 1974 and merely suffering small losses that could be reversed in Hillary's mid-term election, after she's made a hash of things. Would such a strategy cost McCain the election, by siphoning away people who'd otherwise hold their noses and vote for him? Two things — first, I want him to lose, and second, he's going to lose regardless. So congressional Republicans need to do whatever they can (and maybe that's not much) to save themselves from the deluge.

02/06 01:34 PMShare