And I mean mortem. Big time mortem. Anyway, there was no celebrating in the Geoff B household last night. I continue to be perplexed as to why a Republican would support McCain over Romney, but it appears very likely the Arizona senator will win big in a week also. Mitt will take Colorado, Utah and Massachusetts and has an outside chance at California. McCain will probably take the rest on Super Tuesday.
The math indicates McCain will sew up the nomination sometime this spring.
I tend to be an optimist, so here’s some optimism today, even in a post entitled “post mortem.”
There is still a small chance Mitt may pull things out. His campaign is not really done until after Super Tuesday, and he may pull out a few surprises there and keep on chugging.
But the conventional wisdom seems to be we will have to deal with McCain representing Republicans until November. So, I’ll try to mention a few positives I get from his candidacy:
–McCain has moved to the right on some issues, such as tax reform and spending restraint. He now seems to accept the idea that tax cuts are a good thing.
–McCain has been good on the war in Iraq and the general war against terror. People forget that even though he loved to stick it to President Bush every time he could, he was nevertheless in favor of the surge and very eloquent on this issue even when it wasn’t popular.
–McCain is generally pro-life.
–McCain is correct on immigration (sorry, fellow conservatives, but I am an open border conservative — the position of Ronald Reagan, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and an ever-diminishing group of pro-business Republicans and Libertarians). On the whole issue of immigration, it is worth mentioning that Romney (the immigration restrictionist) got less than 15 percent of the Hispanic vote in Florida compared to McCain getting nearly 50 percent. Rudy got most of the rest. Republicans will never build a long-lasting majority without the support of Hispanics, who are only gravitating to the Democrats because they see the anti-immigration movement, sponsored by Republicans, as being anti-Hispanic. This has got to change.
The only other thing I can dig up to be optimistic about on this particular morning is that while the returns were coming in, and it was not looking good for Mitt, my wife turned to me and said her heart was burning from the Spirit. She and I still don’t know why, but the Spirit was telling her not to worry, that all will be well. I’ve come to trust my wife’s experiences with the Spirit, so I feel something good will come from all of this. That’s what faith is all about.