I’m not going to lie to you, the reason I’m writing this post so late in the morning is because I had a late night of celebrating. And there was a lot of it to do.
If you haven’t come out from under your rock in the last 24 hours, then you may not know that Sen. John McCain completed his impossible comeback and all but won the Republican nomination last night. McCain won nine of the 21 states that held primaries or caucuses last night, and picked up an almost insurmountable delegate lead. While all of those states were important, it was a huge win in hotly-contested California that likely sealed the deal.
Although the delegate totals vary slightly depending on the source, the AP shows McCain leading rival Mitt Romney 613 to 269 with Mike Huckabee a close third with 190 (1,191 needed to win nomination). As someone who has proudly supported McCain for a while now, Super Tuesday became quite the fête.
But I wasn’t just celebrating for McCain, I was celebrating for the people of South Carolina.
While California had the good fortune of crowning McCain and Florida certainly pushed him toward that destiny, it was South Carolina that once again set everything in motion. The presidential primary mantra has long been “no Republican can win the nomination without winning South Carolina.” After last night’s results, we can continue to lay claim to that title.
We made history and we set the path for McCain. And no matter what anybody says, South Carolina is still the GOP Kingmaker.
Sphere: Related ContentThis entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 11:48 am and is filed under Primary Season, Republicans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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McCain won 9 of 21 contests yesterday meaning he lost 12. He’s lucky the GOP has a lot of winner takes all contests or he’d be mired in a 3 way slog to the finish.
I fully expect the far right to eventually rally around McCain, but look at the turnout in Republican and Democratic contests. There are a lot more people voting on the Democratic side this time around.
Even if Hillary is the Democratic nominee in November, those numbers do not bode well for McCain in the GE.
We won’t find out until November if “South Carolina is still the GOP Kingmaker.” It very well could be one step closer to the electoral graveyard.
-George H.W. Bush, 1992
-Bob Dole, 1996
-John McCain, 2008?
Sandlapper101 - SC is the GOP kingmaker, not the general election kingmaker. If you want to win the Republican presidential nomination, you have to go through this state.
Adam, thanks for the history lesson. If John McCain wins the nomination but gets crushed in November, then your terminology (”coronation,” “kingmaker”) will appear rather presumptuous. That’s all.