To have a shot in November, the Republican frontrunner needs to look to the center, not the right.

With all the excitement being generated by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s delegate fight, the growing conventional wisdom is that 2008 is shaping up to be the year of the Democrats.

Why not pop the champagne corks now? Because Sen. John McCain might spoil the party; the soon-to-be-anointed Republican nominee has a real chance to become the 44th president of the U.S.

McCain may be the ideal Republican candidate, seemingly tailor-made for his party. He is a genuine American war hero; a self-made man who is clearly comfortable in his own skin; and a politician who knows Washington, but has remained outside its old boys’ club.

The polls show that he is widely seen as experienced, strong, honest and decisive. In an era when American mistrust of politicians is at record levels, an amazing 61 percent of respondents recently told AP/Yahoo! that McCain was likely to keep his promises if elected.

McCain is that rare Republican who believes that government can be a force for good, especially at a time when the memory of the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina remains fresh.

As a long-serving senator, he fought against pork barrel spending and for campaign reform, despite the opposition of his Party’s leadership.

He is personally conservative on issues like abortion and gay rights, as is roughly half of the electorate. But unlike some right-wingers, he has avoided the kind of in-your-face insistence on mixing religion and politics that scares the centrist voters McCain would need to compete with either Obama or Clinton.

For McCain to win in November, he would need to unify and motivate the Republican Party without compromising his core appeal. He would also need to reach out to independents.

The bad news for McCain among Republicans is that some very prominent evangelical and far right conservative leaders viscerally dislike him. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, has recently said that he would never vote for McCain. Rush Limbaugh has gone further, insisting that he would vote for Clinton, whom he has described as a “Femi-Nazi,” before he would vote for McCain. Other leaders are echoing this sentiment.

The good news for McCain, though, is that rank-and-file evangelicals and conservatives might not be listening. McCain has steadily improved his performance in the primaries among evangelicals, even with Mike Huckabee—the real deal when it comes to born-agains—still technically in the race. According to a recent Pew poll, McCain has a 59 percent favorable rating among white, born-again Christians, as well as growing support among self-described conservatives.

In a competition with either a black man or a white woman who are both liberal and pro-choice, evangelicals and conservatives will only have two practical choices: stay home or vote for McCain. Odds are good that McCain will be able to entice many of them into casting their votes.

However, no Republican can win with just the right-wingers. This is where McCain’s real chances lie: His John Wayne-like persona and message seem to resonate with many different kinds of voters. The same Pew poll gave McCain a 53 percent favorable rating among independents. Among the candidates who have seriously competed this year, only Obama—at 62 percent—rated higher.

 

Where are the voters? Our interactive graphic places all sorts of voting blocs and demographics—from the Facebook generation to Latte liberals—on a grid, ranking them from McCainiac to McCainophobe.

 

Seeking the Center

Leveraging independents’ warm and fuzzy feelings into votes will require ignoring (or overcoming) the red state/blue state conventional wisdom of the last decade. However, voters in 2006 seemed to start moving back toward the center: Think Joe Lieberman’s victory over Democrat Ned Lamont or Rick Santorum’s loss.

To win, McCain will need to close the deal with voters who are worried about the weakening economy, convinced that the country is headed in the wrong direction, worried about terrorism and regretting the decline in America’s global image.

 

Campaining as a war hero: watch FLYP’s video of McCain on the campaign trail, pushing a nationalistic image.

 

This would mean scoring big with activist seniors; Catholics who are moderate on social issues, conservative on national security, and concerned about inequality; and NASCAR-loving, middle-class voters who are being battered by growing economic insecurity in the form of foreclosures and rising debt. Many of these were Reagan voters, and some supported George W. Bush.

But lots of them deserted the Republican Party in the 2006 mid-term elections.

For McCain to win them back, he will have to convince those voters that his brand of western conservatism—like Reagan’s before him—can move the country in a new, more optimistic direction.

Exit polls during the last eight weeks established that McCain was the favorite Republican candidate among centrists skeptical of the conflict in Iraq. The war is slipping out of focus, and McCain’s position on Iraq might fade for voters who are increasingly more concerned about the economy.

Could McCain actually beat either Clinton or Obama? Head-to-head polls tell a curious story: against Clinton, McCain typically wins in the early polling, while against Obama he wins roughly half of the time.

When pitted against Clinton and her politics-as-usual approach, McCain appears to be the outsider in a year when Americans seem to want change. However, McCain’s irreverent autonomy is less of a contrast with Obama, and it would be difficult for McCain to lay claim to being the more genuine agent of change.

In many ways, McCain versus Obama would be the more interesting race. Age versus youth. Experience versus freshness. Win at all costs in Iraq versus withdraw and focus on other security challenges. Straight talk versus inspired speeches.

One bit of political conventional wisdom certainly favors McCain: The earlier a candidate secures his nomination, the better his chances of victory in the general election. This could be particularly true this year if disgruntled supporters of the eventual Democratic loser decide to sit out the fall fundraising, activism and voting.

For McCain, it might come down to his selection of a running mate. After eight years of Dick Cheney—and, before him, eight years of Al Gore—the vice presidency has been transformed in perceived stature and importance.

Moreover, McCain’s age will inevitably lead voters to insist that his running mate has the capacity and preparation to be president. An inspired vice president selection could become a key to McCain’s candidacy.

After having been left for dead in the early going, McCain’s primary campaign victory has already proven that this is not a typical election year. But Democrats should start worrying that his winning ways might have only begun. It might be too soon to celebrate.

 

Andres Martinez, a political blogger in D.C., provides six points that McCain needs to hit to win. Watch the video.

 

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