Meaningless

13 March 2006



GOP Tennessee Meeting Picks Frist in Presidential Straw Poll

Meeting in Tennessee, the Republican Party spent four days trying to put a good face on a bad year. The media highlight of the conference was Saturday night’s straw poll for 2008 presidential candidates. Favorite Son Senator Bill Frist won with 37% of the vote, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was a surprise second at about 14%, and George W. Bush tied Virginian Senator George Allen for third at 10%. And Senator John McCain won the-craftiest-fellow-in-the-room award.

It’s called a “straw poll” because, like a straw in the wind, it shows which way the wind is blowing, nothing more. The party is not bound by this in the least. Politics is mainly about perception, and Senator Frist was perceived to be the home town favorite – it is considered bad form to go into someone’s home state for this kind of thing and vote against him in large numbers. Thus, his victory was a certainty.

Naturally, this would mean the media and political junkies would start parsing out what second, third and fourth places “mean” almost two years ahead of the next presidential election. The media love a story of the high being brought low and the low being raised up. No one ever sold a newspaper with the headline “Nothing Happened out of the Ordinary.” So, if a big name didn’t finish well, that would be news. After Senator Frist, the biggest name on the ballot was John McCain.

Senator McCain, who is a long-time rival of President Bush, is playing a very clever game, one that could see him hoist on his own petard. Rather than accept a second place finish, or worse, the Senator from Arizona urged everybody as a sign of support to vote for Mr. Bush, who constitutionally cannot serve another term. Thus, any poor finish by Senator McCain became irrelevant and at the same time, he appears as the fellow to back if one wishes for a third Bush term. The senator, of course, is showing party loyalty to a president who is at 37% in the polls. If Mr. Bush grows any more unpopular, it is difficult to see Mr. McCain’s chances of winning the nomination increasing with this strategy.

However, the other two top vote-winners, Messrs. Romney and Allen, got a boost from this exercise. Mr. Romney, a Republican governor in a pretty Democratic Massachusetts, is a Mormon, and therefore, his faith may influence the Bible Belt Republicans – how is unclear, but name recognition is the first requirement he has fulfilled. Mr. Allen, son of former Washington Redskins head coach George Allen, was in the same boat outside the Washington, DC region.

The final point in all of this, though, is that the Republicans are rapidly coming to grips with the fact that the end of the Dubya years is approaching, and they need to figure out what to do next. By doing so before the mid-term elections this November, they run the risk of making Mr. Bush a lame duck prematurely. However, failing to do so promptly may make them the opposition party before long. Timing is, indeed, everything.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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