As I said in August in a As I said in August in a Baltimore Sun column, I still think John McCain is the Republicans' best bet to keep the White House in 2008. Though I sometimes disagree with David Broder, he's right about the lure of a McCain-Mike Huckabee ticket. Without repeating my reasons for believing McCain is the most electable Republican, let me switch to a discussion of the possible scenario for how McCain could pull the nomination rabbit out of the hat:
1. Huckabee wins Iowa, thereby sinking Mitt Romney's robotic, pandering candidacy.
2. Giuliani's late start in iconoclastic New Hampshire (he's just going up with television ads there) is simply too little, too late, permitting McCain, who of course did amazingly well there in 2000, to surge there in a way that Huckabee the southern preacher cannot in such a Catholic (38 percent) state. Rudy or Romney finishes second behind McCain, with Huckabee falling to third or fourth, taking the steam out of his Iowa win.
3. The long wait until February 5 -- three weeks in primary world is like an Ice Age now -- gives the "McCain comeback" story time to germinate. Suddenly, Giuliani's all-in, Florida-dependent, early February strategy looks like the blunder it is.
4. Meanwhile, in South Carolina, all the to-the-rescue work and fence-mending that McCain and his deputy, John Weaver, completed in 2004 with President Bush and Karl Rove finally pays off in South Carolina, where the Warren Tompkins establishment wing of the GOP, realizing that Romney can't win, alligns with the McCain-favoring Lindsey Graham wing to deliver the Palmetto State for McCain.
5. By February 5, McCain-Huckabee, or perhaps McCain-Romney if that is the price paid for South Carolina, has gained the momentum … and Rudy starts trying on new dresses for his Tuesday night speech in Minneapolis next summer.
I realize there's a lot of "if's" in there, but this GOP race is so exciting and wide open right now, is it really that unbelievable a scenario? After all, McCain was about as "dead" by November 2007 as Kerry was in November 2003.
--Tom Schaller
