Pa. vote hints Republicans divided in support for McCain
While nearly all the attention focused on the hard-fought Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, didn't exactly have a walkover.
The Arizona senator won 73 percent of the nearly 805,000 votes cast Tuesday, but libertarian Representative Ron Paul of Texas drew 16 percent and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee had 11 percent.
McCain essentially clinched the nomination after Huckabee withdrew following losses in the March 4 primaries in Ohio and Texas. A week later in Mississippi, McCain won 79 percent to Huckabee's 13 percent and Paul's 4 percent.
The support for other candidates could be seen as a protest vote against McCain, who is trying to unite the Republican Party behind him.
But the lack of unanimity is not atypical.
In 2000, the last contested Republican presidential race, competitors were still winning sizable shares of the vote well after George W. Bush had secured the nomination and McCain withdrew in March of that year. The next month in Pennsylvania, Bush won 72 percent of the vote to McCain's 22 percent.
"It's not necessarily a sign of trouble for McCain," Donald Kettl, director of the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, said of Tuesday's results.
He pointed out that the turnout was low and that many McCain supporters stayed home while Paul's loyal followers showed up. He also said that some Republicans who might have voted for McCain had switched their registration so they could vote in the Democratic primary.
The key for McCain winning Pennsylvania in November, Kettl said yesterday, is to draw those voters back to the Republican fold. "The issue ultimately is whether McCain can galvanize the Republican base," Kettl said. "The results in Pennsylvania did not make that problem go away."
While most of McCain's competitors this election are campaigning for him or laying low, Paul plans to go to the Republican national convention in early September to further his message of limited government and opposition to the Iraq war. His campaign bragged yesterday that 128,000 Pennsylvanians had voted for "freedom," and announced a rally tomorrow in Idaho, where Republicans go to the polls May 27.
As McCain campaigned yesterday in rural Kentucky on the third day of a tour highlighting "forgotten" places in America, he was squabbling with elements of his own party. He implored North Carolina Republicans "in the strongest terms" not to air a TV ad attacking Democrat Barack Obama over his association with his controversial former pastor.
The North Carolina Republican Party plans to air the ad, which features a clip of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. calling God's wrath upon America. The spot targets the two Democratic candidates for governor, who share the May 6 ballot with Obama and Hillary Clinton, for endorsing Obama.
"They should know better," the announcer says in the ad. "He's just too extreme for North Carolina."
In a letter to state GOP chairwoman Linda Daves, McCain wrote, "From the beginning of this election, I have been committed to running a respectful campaign based upon an honest debate about the great issues confronting America today. I expect all state parties to do so as well. The television advertisement you are planning to air degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats."
Jerry Meek, chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said McCain should do more to get Tar Heel Republicans to cease and desist. "These Republican attacks are just a sign of an old day of politics," he said on MSNBC.
But GOP officials in North Carolina said they plan to air the ad starting Monday, and emphasized that it is aimed at the Democrats running for governor.
"This is a state party issue," Daves said on MSNBC. She denied the party was playing the "race card," saying it was legitimate to question candidates who are supporting another candidate who she said has not distanced himself enough from a troubling figure.
"It is my responsibility to point out the weaknesses of the Democratic candidates for president," she said. 