How Real Is This McCain Surge?

We at 2008 Central have long predicted that the McCain campaign was not dead, even as others said otherwise. We wrote the following amidst the McCain purge:

Nelson and Weaver’s departure offer an opportunity for optimism within the campaign and amongst McCain’s supporters. If Davis can heal the wounds of division within the campaign and reconstitute McCain’s ground operation, the new energy in the campaign could generate political momentum for McCain. Indeed, there are a lot of “ifs” in that scenario. From my perspective, I can’t understand why folks are so eager to now say that McCain’s campaign is over (other than the fact that it’s sensational and draws readers) when his campaign actually does something positive by ridding itself of people that have been messing up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not predicting a massive McCain resurgence, but it’s certainly more likely now than it was under the previous situation.

Not all of the blame is on Nelson and Weaver, of course. John McCain has not been a very effective candidate thus far; this is something that made Nelson’s job tougher and is something that Davis will have to contend with as well. It’s somewhat ironic and telling that on the day of these resignations, McCain delivered a speech on the floor of the Senate, where he stated that the current surge in Iraq was working and that withdrawal of troops would lead to failure [video]. Davis will not only need to manage a fledgling campaign operation, but he’ll also need to get McCain on board with some changes, if he has any hope of salvaging this campaign.

I realize that John McCain has an uphill battle. Outside of his campaign issues, he has serious problems as a candidate and with his policies/positions on a few critical issues. However, at this point, I urge caution. What’s the point of saying that McCain’s campaign is over, when his campaign is just in beginning stages of what could be a new and effective strategy?

We also discussed this in this podcast.

Let me emphasize this: Novice pundits who saw McCain bunkering down in New Hampshire were relatively optimistic about this sort of scenario; People that actually get paid to do this were completely negative.

Now that people 6 months later have finally caught up … we have to say, they’re still wrong.

McCain certainly could take the nomination if a long series of events goes his way, and Romney implodes and Giuliani loses points for liberal social positions, with Fred Thompson going nowhere. But while McCain piles up endorsement after endorsement, he still faces a significant amount of anger from the Republican base over immigration and campaign finance reform. He was the poster boy for both of those changes that were reviled by the base.

The recent pro-McCain talk included a long discussion (still ongoing, likely) on The Corner, about what if McCain were president instead of Bush the past 8 years. Most of the foreign policy talk was pro-McCain in that regard, otherwise less so. More of the base has similar comments for McCain. Until he somehow convinces them that electability or being genuine is more important than being completely doctrinal, McCain is doomed to lose.