The Candidates
Speaking of straw poll results, there’s this from the Hotline:
[It] seems that Sen. John McCain has won five South Carolina straw polls: Spartanburg, Dillon, Florence, Clarendon and Greenwood. [links are mine]
McCain had planned to hold a series of townhall meetings at American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) posts around the state yesterday, but canceled his travel itinerary due to Monday’s horrible events at Virginia Tech. I’m sure they’ll reschedule as soon as possible. Later today, he’ll attend a $2,300/person fundraiser in Charleston, SC. He also plans to stop in South Carolina on April 26th as part of his official 4-day campaign kickoff.
State Rep. Thad Viers of Myrtle Beach was one of 40 Statehouse Republicans who earlier this year endorsed McCain. But Saturday, Viers was at the Horry County GOP convention wondering where McCain was and listening to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
“He gave a great Reaganesque speech. I liked him so much I voted for him in the straw poll,” Viers said.
HeavyM and Rep. Viers wondered where he was on Saturday? Why, he was in Des Moines, Iowa giving a speech at the Lincoln Day Dinner. Kavon even provided photographic proof. Now, you don’t have to convince me that John McCain is an amazing human being, but even he is incapable of being in two places at once. I tend to think that that qualifies as a scheduling conflict. Let’s be fair and not forget Mitt’s own “scheduling conflict” last month either.
The notion that he is deliberately avoiding conservative conventions is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Just last week McCain attended the Ottawa County, Michigan Convention and South Carolina is at the center of the entire McCain campaign for the Presidency. If he doesn’t win the state, he doesn’t win the nomination. It’s really that simple.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:18 am
Touche, LJ.
April 18th, 2007 at 1:44 am
It still begs the question, though - when other candidates are actually going to most or at least some of these conventions and working the delegates, why is McCain simply sending substitutes and citing scheduling conflicts? There are conventions throughout the week on almost every day… it seems like McCain should be able to make at least one or two of them, doesn’t it?
It just seems important to the delegates, as well as his supporters, that he be there, but he is choosing not to be. It’s strange.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:28 am
LJ, I hope that it went ok for McCain there, of course I’m an FDT guy, but I do like and respect McCain alot. He got shut out in the statewide press coverage by Edwards, who came to Tennessee on the same day. I didn’t even know McCain was in the state until I saw it in the paper the next morning. The statewide media really treated it as a homecoming for Edwards, and it was kind of ridiculous, since you didn’t even really know about McCains rally til the day after. I live five hours from Memphis, so probably wouldn’t of been able to go, but it would’ve been nice if I had known about it and had the chance. But we also had that shooting right across the state border at VA Tech, so that got a lot of coverage down here to, and with FDT all over the place, it’s been real tough to hear everything that’s going on.
April 18th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Here’s a new one for everyone to chew on; it seems Mr. Hagel has been raising some cash.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/04/18/155667.aspx
April 18th, 2007 at 11:58 am
And wait a second… Romney was at the Lincoln Day dinner, too, and still managed to make it down to the county conventions!
Maybe McCain is just too old and lacks the stamina to do two events in one day?
By the time McCain makes it down to SC on April 26th, he will have missed 20 more county conventions and straw polls.
I would like to take back my touche from comment 1, because this rebuttal falls apart upon closer inspection.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I’d like to take issue with the title, as well LJ (sorry - don’t mean to pick on you, just all in friendly fun!!).
Dominant? Out of 12 straw polls taken thus far (not counting the Spartanburg poll because that was a month or more ago and had nothing to do with these county conventions), Romney has outright won 7 of them and placed 2nd in four more, and third in one.
McCain? He’s got 4 wins, 3 second places, 1 third, 1 fourth, 2 fifth, and one last place.
If McCain is “dominant” I’d like to know what adjective you use for Romney’s performance thus far!
April 18th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
In the end , I found the 3-way tie for third place as very interesting. It shows Republican delegates in S Carolina are open to more candidates coming into the race in the next months before January 2008.
McCain 28%
Gingrich 21%
Rice 14.28%
Romney 14.28%
Thompson 14.28%
Giuliani 7.14 %
Brownback 0%
Tancredo 0%
Huckabee 0%
Isn’t it interesting that three of the top six people have not
announced that they are running ?
April 19th, 2007 at 1:21 am
[...] much as LJ would like to deny it, McCain’s choice to skip the county conventions in South Carolina are really starting to hurt [...]
April 19th, 2007 at 1:24 am
[...] much as LJ would like to deny it, McCain’s choice to skip the county conventions in South Carolina are really starting to hurt [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:08 am
[...] McCain has, of course, won a number of these polls in the past, and normal polling shows McCain competing for the top spot in the [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Where did Ron Paul place? My eyes must be getting bad. I can’t seem to find him, although I see people who have not announced for the race. I have to assume he was doing too well to suit the kingmakers.