McCain Now the Frontrunner in Two-Man GOP Race

Like it or not conservatives, but John McCain's 5 point victory over Mitt Romney in Florida makes him the GOP front-runner going into Super-Duper Tuesday. Rudy Giuliani's strategy backfired badly, and had him coming in at a weak third, followed closely behind by Mike Huckabee.

Giuliani, out of money, will drop out of the race and endorse McCain later today. Huckabee's going to stay in the race for as long as he can, but he's out of money as well, and his campaign now seems designed to get him a seat on McCain's ticket as his Vice-President nominee. Ron Paul - well, I don't know what Ron Paul is going to do. Every time I think he's going to drop out, he surprises me and raises another million bucks. He's not a viable Vice-Presidential option, so he'll probably position himself to get a few of his pet issues into the GOP convention platform. Seeing as he won't have any delegates to trade, that possibility is slim as well.

So it's now a two-man race between the conservative Mitt Romney and the pseudo-conservative John McCain. To be more precise, Mitt's a bit "pseudo" as well, with much of Romney's conservatism (especially on social issues, where McCain is strong) developing over the past few years. That leaves, for conservatives, a GOP race where we choose the lesser of two evils.

Romney has the money to fight all the way to the convention. McCain didn't yesterday morning, but last night's victory should refill his coffers pretty quick. Polls had the two of them tied in Florida as late as yesterday morning. McCain, contrary to his sainted media image, played dirty the last few days. He blatantly lied about Romney on Meet the Press last Sunday and ran a despicable push poll against Mitt yesterday - until he was forced to stop it late in the day. Unfortunately, those tactics seem to have pushed him over the top, so McCain, who complained so bitterly that the Bush campaign was lying and conducting push polls against him in 2000, will continue to do the same thing this year to Romney.

The first debate of the new two-candidate GOP primary race is this evening in at the Ronald Reagan Ranch in California. Should be interesting...