McCain-Lieberman third party in 2008
David Tenner
loses the Republican presidential nomination to someone (whether Romney or
another candidate) who attacks him from the Right. McCain and Lieberman
will say "We were both rejected by the extremists in our own parties, we
represent the center of American politics," etc. What makes this scenario
at least somewhat plausible is:
(1) Given McCain's age, 2008 is probably the last year he can hope for the
presidency. Furthermore, if all his efforts at reconciliation with
conservatives fail in 2008, it is not likely that they will succeed in the
future. So if he doesn't win the Republican nomination in 2008, a third-
party ticket that year may be his last hope for the White House.
(2) Lieberman has hired Marshall Wittman (whose past political experiences
have included the Young People's Socialist League, the Christian Coalition
and the Democratic Leadership Council...) as his communications director.
And Wittman has talked about such a ticket in the past.
Obvious problems with such a ticket;
(1) There are still considerable differences between McCain and Lieberman,
especially on domestic issues, where McCain is closer to being a
conventional conservative and Lieberman closer to being a conventional
liberal than their maverick reputations would suggest.
(2) Most important, the real common ground between McCain and Lieberman is
on Iraq, where both represent the position that not only should the US not
withdraw any time in the near future, but that it should send in more
troops. Whatever the merits of this position, it seems to me to be
unlikely to be popular in 2008.
Anyway, suppose such a ticket does emerge. I doubt that it can win, but
would it draw more votes away from the Democratic or Republican party?
Could it even get some electoral votes, which could lead to the election
going into the House (or to bargaining in the Electoral College to keep it
from going into the House)? I don't think it would come to this because
such a ticket would have the same problem Perot had in 1992: when a third
party's vote is scattered all over the country (instead of being
concentrated in one section, as Geroge Wallace's was in 1968) it becomes
very hard for that party to make a breakthrough into the Electoral
College, even if it gets a quite respectable share of the national popular
vote.
(A McCain-Lieberman *Republican* ticket is also theoretically possible,
but IMO would be hard for a Republican convention to swallow. It's one
thing for Republicans to back Lieberman in Connecticut, where their
party's candidate had no chance of winning the Senate race, but to put
someone like Lieberman on their own national ticket would be something
else, especially since many of the delegates would be unhappy with McCain
in the first place.)
--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net
Noel
David Tenner wrote:
> Anyway, suppose such a ticket does emerge. I doubt that it can win, but
> would it draw more votes away from the Democratic or Republican party?
---Considering Lieberman's reputation among the Democratic
base, and that continuing the second Gulf War is likely to be
less popular among Democrats than among Republicans, it
seems to me that the ticket would draw more votes from the
GOP than from the Democrats.
Best,
Noel