I've been extremely skeptical about John McCain's ability to win over the Republican base in the next two years, which would likely be required for him to pick up the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. But Senator McCain has been intent on doing this, moving ever further to the right -- a difficult move given how conservative he already was.
For all of the talk of how successful or unsuccessful McCain has been in wooing over the more regressive segments of the GOP base -- and given his anemic showing at the SRLC, it doesn't look like he's been so succussful yet -- the great factor missing in the debate is how this overt selling out to the right wing might affect him should he make it into the general election. The Charlie Cook, the ultimate insider's insider, polled this exact question last week, however, and came out with some very interesting data.
The one really intriguing nugget of data in the new Cook Political Report/RT Strategies poll has to do with 2008. Thus far, when Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., have been matched up in hypothetical ballot tests, McCain has won each easily. Now that McCain has embarked on a grand repositioning of himself in the political marketplace, moving from the independent, moderate maverick to a mainstream Republican team player, it raises the questions of what he gains, what he loses, and what is the net effect.While the truth is that on most important, substantive issues, as opposed to process issues (e.g. campaign finance reform), McCain's voting record has always been very conservative and there is no shift. Indeed, his strong support of the war in Iraq has not wavered one bit. On measures of style, rhetoric and political positioning (e.g., going to Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty University to give the commencement address), though, McCain is clearly moving. As McCain begins to solidify himself on the right, does he sacrifice support in the middle?
It is far too soon to say, but comparing the late February Cook Political Report/RT Strategies numbers to the newest ones, McCain has gone from a 10-point, 47 percent to 37 percent advantage, to a five-point, 44 percent to 39 percent lead. Among registered voters, McCain's advantage has had a smaller drop from a 12-point margin (48 percent to 36 percent) in February to a 9-point margin (46 percent to 37 percent). [emphasis added]
Cook rightly notes that it's a bit hasty to draw hard and fast conclusions from two polls; after all, there could have been statistical noise in either one of the recent surveys that actually accounted for the fairly noticeable shift in the head-to-head matchup between Senators McCain and Clinton. That said, it is not inconceivable that the data are correct -- that as a result of McCain's posturing to the extreme right the general public is much less enamored with him. If this is indeed the case, as might be borne out in data from future surveys, McCain might ironically be poised to emerge from the Republican primary unelectable in a general election on account of his far right views.
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