Super Tuesday’s vote for chaos

By Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
Counterpunch
February 6, 2008

“It’s becoming clear that as the economy tilts into recession prominent conservatives are coming to the conclusion that it might be no bad thing to have a Democrat win the White House this year, get stuck with recession and the mess in Iraq for four years, until the Republicans recapture the Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012.”

Super Tuesday was planned by both parties as the coronation of a candidate, followed by six months furious fund raising to finance the fall race for the presidency. Such hopes were deliciously dashed on Tuesday as chaos descended on both parties.

John McCain won his Republican primary contests largely in states which will probably vote Democratic in the fall ­ New York, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey and California. In the “red states” likely to vote Republican in the fall, he had to split the vote with both Romney and Huckabee and even when winning rarely rose above 40 per cent. Huckabee won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia. Romney won Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Utah.

Across the last two weeks conservatives have paraded incredulity and disappointment that their party should have selected a traitor like McCain. At the end of last week, Ann Coulter, the Saxon Klaxon, announced if McCain gets the nomination she would not only “vote for” Hillary, she would “campaign for her if it’s McCain” because Clinton “is more conservative than he is”.

Rush Limbaugh has been frothing at the mouth about McCain for months. A few days ago the dirigible of drivel screamed to his vast audience that Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina was “so close to McCain he’s likely to die of anal poisoning.” On Monday Richard Viguerie, one of the creators of the modern conservative movement said McCain has only a short time to reach out to conservatives–to “stop the bleeding before it’s too late.”

The same day saw the most ominous message from all, from the mouth the Rev James Dobson, now the single most influential voice among evangelical Christians. He damned McCain conclusively: “I am deeply disappointed the Republican Party seems poised to select a nominee who did not support a Constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage, voted for embryonic stem-cell research to kill nascent human beings, opposed tax cuts that ended the marriage penalty, has little regard for freedom of speech, organized the Gang of 14 to preserve filibusters in judicial hearings, and has a legendary temper and often uses foul and obscene language.”

Although the main newspaper in John McCain’s home state, the Arizona Republic, endorsed him earlier this month, the paper’s editorial verdict on McCain the last time he sought the nomination, in 2000, was being tossed around the internet:

“But there are other aspects of McCain’s character, less flattering, also worthy of voter attention and consideration … . Many Arizonans active in policymaking have been the victim of McCain’s volcanic temper…McCain often insults people and flies off the handle….If McCain is truly a serious contender for the presidency, it is time the rest of the nation learned about the John McCain we know in Arizona There is reason to seriously question whether McCain has the temperament, and the political approach and skills, we want in the next president of the United States.”

The conservative movement, which has dominated the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan, has been destroyed by the neocons and their war in Iraq, and by George Bush with his Clintonesque “No child left behind” education bill, his multi-billion expansion of Medicare and his relatively enlightened position on immigration. Amidst this immolation McCain’s candidacy has flourished but at the probable expense of the Republicans taking the White House.

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