Some interesting news in the race for the GOP nomination today.

First from The AP, Mitt Romney is set to endorse John McCain at a joint appearance in Boston later today:

Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney agreed Thursday to endorse Sen. John McCain for the party's presidential nomination and ask his national convention delegates to swing behind the front-runner, according to officials familiar with the decision.

Romney collected 280 delegates during his run through the early primaries and caucuses, enough to move McCain close to the total of 1,191 needed to clinch the nomination a full nine months before the November general election.

The anti-McCain forces within the GOP, whether voters, activists or talk radio hosts, who had embraced Romney as the conservative alternative to McCain (which in itself is funny) must be livid that Romney is making a spectacle of the endorsement instead of letting the fight for the nomination just run its course. As The AP makes clear, even if you add Romney's delegate total to McCain's it's still not enough to put him over the edge. So what's Romney's angle here? No doubt part of it is to project some party unity, a commodity that's been in short supply with the GOP civil war storyline that has dominated coverage of the Republican race since McCain emerged as the frontrunner. But there's also speculation that this is merely phase one in Mitt's attempt to become McCain's VP nominee. That seems to make sense to me. Not only would bringing Romney on board balance McCain out fairly well both age-wise and expertise-wise, but it would also set Romney up as the 2012 nominee apparent if McCain were to lose this year, something that is probably in the offing anyway.  

In related news, or, I should say, speculation, The Phoenix Business Journal says that "McCain resignation talk swirls" even as his office claims "McCain has 'no current plans' to step down from his Senate seat."

If McCain were to resign this summer to focus on his presidential run:

Gov. Janet Napolitano would appoint an interim senator to serve until the November election if McCain resigns. State law requires that appointment to be of the same party as the officeholder.

As for who might be interested in either being appointed (on the GOP side) or running for the seat, the Phoenix Business Journal throws some names around:

Business and political sources familiar with the issue already are talking about possible interim contenders, including Phoenix attorneys Grant Woods and Patrick McGroder, McCain aide Deb Gullett and Secretary of State Jan Brewer. Phoenix Congressman John Shadegg -- who just announced he was not running for reelection next year -- also could be in the mix.

And among Democrats...

Possible Democratic contenders include real estate developer Jim Pederson, who lost a U.S. Senate bid in 2006, Phoenix Congressman Ed Pastor and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard.

Pederson, a major Democratic Party donor, said Wednesday he would consider a Senate run if McCain resigns. Pederson said Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Napolitano also could be contenders.

Napolitano, popular with Arizona CEOs and tech executives, also could end up with a cabinet post if Barack Obama becomes president.

I suspect McCain's seat would be difficult to take but imagine this scenario: John McCain loses his bid for the presidency and a Democrat wins his seat, pushing us just over the 60-seat filibuster-proof majority threshold in the Senate. Essentially, McCain's last act as senator, i.e. resigning, will have been one final poke in the eye to the party that distrusts him and considers him akin to a Democrat anyway. That would be poetic justice indeed.

Update [2008-2-14 16:15:4 by Todd Beeton]:Just to give you a glimpse of what "true conservatives" are feeling today, here's William Green of RightMarch.com on Fox News regarding Romney's endorsement of McCain:

For him to come out now and endorse the guy who really is the most liberal Republican in this race, it's a disappointment, I think it shows his true colors, it shows why it was good that a lot of us true conservatives didn't endorse Romney all along. [...]

I'm afraid we'd have to sit this election out. So many times in the past conservatives have been told "look, you've got to vote for this Republican. Yeah we know he's not really a conservative but if you don't vote for him, we're going to get a really bad liberal." [...]

We're talking short term victory if we were to get McCain in there over Hillary or Obama. Long term, we're going to lose the Republican Party entirely in terms of conservative principles.

Update [2008-2-14 16:32:39 by Todd Beeton]:Romney just "officially endorsed" McCain and asked his delegates to vote for McCain at the convention. He's really kissing McCain's ass in this speech.

Update [2008-2-14 16:36:42 by Todd Beeton]:Romney: "The Democrats are fighting. While they're fighting, let's us come together and be united."

What often goes unmentioned about Tuesday's Virginia primary is that it is an open primary. As I wrote a week ago, some Republicans, assuming McCain would have sealed the deal on Tuesday, were planning to vote in the Democratic primary in order to help Hillary Clinton secure the nomination (working under the assumption that she'd be the easier Democrat to beat.) But the fact is, Virginia is very much being contested on the Republican side.

From First Read:

While everyone is proclaiming McCain the presumptive nominee after Romney's exit, the GOP race still isn't over. And do remember that McCain has never been a good front-runner -- he has always seemed to trip up when in that position. Huckabee is still in the race, and his last stand is Virginia. He may not say it, but it's pretty obvious when one looks at the potential Republican electorate. Should many indies and moderate Republicans decide their vote is better spent in the Dem primary, then Huckabee's passionate evangelical supporters could be enough to keep things close.

So not only may McCain's base (independents and moderates) sit the Republican primary out and vote Democratic, but with Romney's exit, the conservative anti-McCain vote has but one option: Huckabee. Interestingly, Survey USA was in the field when Romney bowed out and released the results from the small 1-day sample (237 LVs, Feb. 12, MOE +/- 6.5%) they had collected prior to Romney's exit. The results show McCain with 45% and Romney and Huckabee splitting 42% of the vote. But things aren't quite as dire for McCain or likely to be as close a call as First Read suggests, for McCain actually wins 41% of the conservative vote (which makes up 62% of the expected Republican primary turnout.) Assuming this is close to accurate (note that the poll does have a very high MOE since it's such a small sample) Tuesday shouldn't even be close for McCain, although, always the superstitious one, McCain isn't taking any chances, airing three ads in Virginia in advance of Tuesday's vote.

As for the impact on the Democratic primary, I don't expect there to be much of a spoiler effect by cross-over voters. In Survey USA's final Democratic poll of Virginia (588 LVs, Feb. 7-8, MOE +/- 4.1%,) Clinton wins 40% of both Republicans and Democrats. Her poor performance among independents against Obama could be mitigated by a lower than expected turnout of independents in the Democratic primary (in favor of what is a somewhat competitive Republican primary,) but for the most part, her campaigning in Virginia yesterday and then again tomorrow when she appears in front of the VA Democratic Party's Jefferson Jackson dinner (Obama will be there too,) is about minimizing losses and maximizing delegates in a contest she is expected to lose by double digits.

By the looks of a new Survey USA poll out of Maryland (737 LVs, Feb. 7-8, MOE +/- 3.7%), which also votes on Tuesday, a similar dynamic appears to be developing there. Clinton likely won't be too terribly damaged by losses in Virginia and Maryland (even if they are by double digits) since they're expected, but Clinton had better hope she can avoid a new Obama juggernaut narrative if he sweeps the contests this weekend and on Tuesday. Chris Bowers has a good post about the state of the upcoming contests and sums up what Clinton needs to do over the next few days:

Obviously, Obama looks really good over the next five days, where 360 pledged delegates are at stake, total. The goal for Clinton, I think, is to limit the damage by winning a state or two (possibly Maine or Virginia?), and keeping Obama's pledged delegate lead under 100, thus giving her the perception of an "overall" delegate lead. Currently, my latest pledged delegate count is Obama 896, Clinton 878, with 18 delegates still outstanding form Super Tuesday. In order to take a pledged delegate lead of 100 or more, Obama needs 230 of the 378 pledged delegates floating around between now and Tuesday. Unless he scores a 2-1 blowout in Washington, I doubt he will win quite that many.

Looks like the right's equivalent of ActBlue attempted a one-day moneybomb to help the GOP would-be nominee.

F7: One Day to Stop Hillary (and Obama) is a grassroots campaign by Rightroots to mobilize thousands of Republican donors to contribute to our party's nominee on Thursday, February 7, 2008. This critical date falls two days after the "Super Duper Tuesday" primary on February 5th, the soonest (and still most likely) date that the presumptive nominee will be known.

Here's how it works: you take the pledge to make their online contributions to their candidate on February 7th. Leading up to the big day, you'll receive periodic updates and reminders. And when F7 hits, we'll make history by helping level the fundraising playing field leading into the most important election of our lifetimes.

Presumably it's over now, what with its being February 8th and all, and check out the counter over at RedState: $2,646 raised from 32 donors.

Sigh.

I landed in Washington, DC this afternoon to the news that Mitt Romney had used his appearance at CPAC to announce that he's dropping his bid for the Republican nomination, essentially coronating John McCain as the nominee. As I rode in a shuttle bus to my rental car, I heard Bill Kristol being interviewed on a right-wing radio show, spinning John McCain as a true conservative, an attempt to push back against the "he's not acceptable" meme propogated throughout conservative talk radio and TV. Kristol's essential goal was to convey that in order to make nice with conservatives, McCain needs to be respectful of the differences he has with them, and also rattled through a long list of issues where he actually does agree with them: pro-Iraq war, pro-surge, anti-big government, anti-waste, anti-earmarks, pro-Roberts, Alito, Bork et al...

The problem with Kristol being the mouthpiece for this argument is that he's not really a conservative either, he's a neo-con. I was a bit startled to see Bay Buchanan (from team Romney) snap at Chris Matthews the other day that "real conservatives are not for pre-emptive wars." You see, John McCain is simply a manifestation of something that's been bubbling under the surface for years -- that conservatives thought George Bush was one of them only to wake up one day to discover they'd sold their souls to a president who represents many things they were supposed to be against. My Dad's take: "He's no conservative" and "he's as big a wimp as his dad."

So while this split in the Republican Party offers a challenge to Democrats running against McCain, namely that an attempt to sever the appeal he has among independents by revealing his true extremist views will actually contribute to making him more acceptable among conservatives, who might otherwise stay home (or {gasp!} vote for Hillary Clinton,) the active spinning going on to try to heal this rift in the Republican Party tells me that they are very worried about going into the general in what is essentially a civil war. After the betrayal by Bush, the base would seriously rather lose than elect McCain. In fact, I wouldn't rule out a third party challenge from the right. Something to look for amidst the ongoing Republicans eating their own sideshow.

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OK, so McCain is supposedly trying to assuage conservatives' fears and to unite the party, so what does he do...?

"I do hope that at some point we would just calm down a little bit and see if there's areas we can agree on," McCain said at a news conference in a Phoenix airport hangar.

Tells them to just calm down. This got Charles Krauthammer all up in arms on Fox News earlier. His point was that it's not necessarily his positions that conservatives take issue with, it's that, well, I'll let Dr. Dobson take it from here:

"I am convinced Senator McCain is not a conservative, and in fact has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are."

In other words, he's their Lieberman, but hey at least we had the sense to boot Joe from our party.

In a sign that McCain really just doesn't get this whole anti-him thing, he rolled out a soothing letter from none other than Bob Dole.

The attacks have gotten so heated that former Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole Monday wrote Limbaugh defending McCain.

In the letter, Dole says McCain is a "mainstream conservative" who supported the party on critical votes during Dole's time as the Senate Republican leader. [...]

"Whoever wins the Republican nomination will need your enthusiastic support," Dole says in the letter. "Two terms for the Clintons are enough."

Seriously, Bob Dole coming to John McCain's defense just proves the point of the Limbaughs, the Coulters et al because, Bob Dole lost. To conservatives, Bob Dole and John McCain are two peas in a pod, the old guard candidate pushed on the party by the establishment without the base's support. So they say.

Which leads me to an interesting phenomenon I'm experiencing lately. I have an independent friend who assures me that Hillary Clinton will lose to John McCain because indies will vote for him and despise her; and I have my conservative Dad telling me that McCain will lose no matter who the Democratic nominee is because conservatives will sit this election out. And of course they're both convinced they're right.

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If the exit poll numbers are even close to right in the southern states, Mike Huckabee is going to emerge out of February 5th a player. From Stoller:

Huckabee (who already won West Virginia today):

   * Alabama: Huckabee 42 percent, McCain 33 percent, Romney 20 percent
   * Tennessee: Huckabee 34, McCain 28, Romney 23
   * Arkansas: Huckabee 33, McCain 21, Romney 19
   * Georgia: Huckabee 34 percent, Romney 31 percent, McCain 30 percent

Despite a lot of talk about a McCain-Huckabee alliance (drink!) word from MSNBC is that the McCain camp is NOT happy about the prospect of the three candidates' essentially splitting the states tonight. The upshot: while Huck splits the anti-McCain vote, it's also a sign that McCain is not able to consolidate the conservative vote and gives Romney more time to become the conservative alternative.

Rachel Maddow just put it well. The story out of tonight:

Huckabee lives!

Timmeh just said it's about bargaining power, I don't know, seems to me it's a matter of buying Romney time for the conservative message to spread throughout the country that McCain is not acceptable.

From Jim Geraghty:

The early wave in California: McCain 40 percent, Romney 36 percent, Huckabee 10 percent.

Fascinating and fun as it is, I remind my readers that this doesn't tell us that much, as we don't know what the district-by-district breakdown is. Also, there are three million absentee votes that I'm pretty sure are not included in this. So while these numbers are nice to hear for McCain fans, I take them with even more caution, skepticism and grains of salt than usual.

So go tell all the Republicans you know in CA to vote for Romney! He needs their help. You do know Republicans in California don't you?

A sidenote: I propose a new drinking game. You have to drink every time Chuck Todd says "McCain Huckabee alliance."

Maine Republicans caucused today and have given Mitt Romney another win.

Mitt Romney won Maine's presidential preference voting contest on Saturday in the Republican Party's municipal caucuses, which were heavily attended across the state.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, had a little over half of the vote with about two-thirds of the towns holding caucuses reporting. John McCain worked to keep his vote above 20 percent, trailed by Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee.

The article elaborates on the uptick in attendance at this year's GOP caucuses.

Kim Pettengill, who has been a party activist for more than three decades, said Saturday's was the largest Kennebec County caucus turnout since 1980, the year Ronald Reagan won his first GOP nomination for president.

What the article fails to mention, however, is that, according to the Maine Democratic Party (h/t Dean Barker at Blue Hampshire):

"Currently, it looks like the number of Maine Democrats who are caucusing by absentee ballot alone outnumbers the projected number of Republicans who showed up for today's Republican straw poll.

What Dean said:

More absentee ballots for a contest a week away than live and in person today.  Unbelievable.