AFTER FLORIDA, ON THE EVE OF SUPER TUESDAY

This is an endless a campaign of "what ifs." 

That is, a campaign prepares a strategy that presupposes a scenario which apparently will occur with 100 percent probability.  Then, when things don't quite go as planned, the campaign strategists have an alibi. Somehow, externalities undercut a supposedly thoughtful and well conceived plan.

The only problem with all this self-serving Monday morning quarter-backing?  Events with a reasonable probability were assigned zero probability, because the strategy was ineptly created. It often assumed an optimum or best case scenario. Or it sharply or entirely discounted reasonably foreseeable events.

So we have a candidate like Rudy Giuliani who had very impressive national poll numbers.  But his campaign acted as if these soft numbers were hard.  How much they spent is unclear, but it's probably in the $30-$40 million range.  What happened in this campaign is probably the reason why no insurance company offers malpractice insurance for campaign consultants.

And while Rudy will accept full responsibility – and he has shown grace and class – the reality is that his most senior strategists failed him.  Then they act like grown-up children  who blame their problems later in life on bad parenting.  In contrast, when McCain's team (that McCain picked!) last year drove his campaign into the ground and pretty well bankrupted it, McCain took responsibility and hung in there.

We have Mike Huckabee, who is the most personable and charming of the Republican candidates.  Apart from faith in God, he has a great deal of faith in himself and  Iowa proved a terrific state for him to pull an upset.  He faced an overconfident Romney, who had waited far too long to bring closure to the Mormon factor. 

By the time Romney gave his religion speech, it was too little, too late.  It's true that Huckabee is a good candidate, an effective communicator. It's also true that Romney has not come across that well.  Maybe if Huckabee were a bumbler, and Romney had closed the sale, the religious issue would not have made the difference at the margin. 

"Maybe" is another way of saying "what if."  It means when a candidate loses, it's because things  happened – presumably beyond the campaign's control.  But, usually, the real explanation is a failure of campaign strategy.  A failure to foresee, to anticipate, to have a contingency plan.

Romney is an intelligent and very capable guy who has a lot to offer besides the ability to self-fund a campaign.  Yet he is one of those many wealthy candidates who want to spend as much of their fortune as necessary to win, but not a penny more.  The problem is – no one quite knows the magic amount. 

So, at one point, Romney had pulled out of media buys in South Carolina for Nevada, a state he pretty much had.  There have been media buy starts and stops.  At one point, he had cut back in Florida, then tried to make up for lost time with a heavier media buy.

Now at the last moment when it may be too late, he's launching a multimillion dollar ad barrage for Super Tuesday.

Yet who can blame Romney for having second thoughts? His advertising has helped, but overall perceptions of him have been perhaps more important than the size of his media buy.  Moreover, Romney and his team underestimated the momentum effect of voters who are influenced by primary outcomes. 

Of course, one person has underestimated momentum even more — Rudy Giuliani.

Rudy's endorsement of McCain is not important in the sense that he can "deliver" his voters en masse, although surely many will be influenced by Rudy.  But that endorsement, like Schwarzenegger's, promotes a feeling of, at the least, momentum; at best, it promotes inevitability. 

Thus, the Florida governor-senator endorsements of McCain that had happened on the eve of the Florida primary did not simply influence some voters attracted to the endorsers, they had a bandwagon effect.  And, one has to wonder, will Fred Thompson yet endorse McCain?

Spinning is the word that describes how partisans put the best light on political reality.  Spinning is an art and a science. But for Mike Huckabee, it also is an avocation.  So, with a perfectly straight face, he was ecstatic about his fourth place showing in Florida, because he almost beat third-place Giuliani, who had spent so much more time and money there.

All the liberal pundits keep reporting on how Huckabee is an impediment to Romney stopping McCain. I still can't figure this out.  They believe it's because Huckabee stands in the way of Romney winning a plurality in certain states, and getting those delegates. 

But I continue to believe that McCain has always done well as a "second choice" of voters, and that Romney has not fared nearly as well. Further, and finally, many Huckabee voters are self-described evangelicals.  And, as I've reiterated, Romney and his campaign failed, early-on, to bring closure to this rather deplorable matter of religious prejudice.  So, when and if Huckabee drops out, that does not necessarily help Romney in his much sought two way race.

I watched the Wednesday (1/30) debate at the Reagan Library. It was an awkward arrangement, with McCain and Romney seated so close, and opening with their difference on whether Romney did or did not favor timetables on withdrawing from Iraq. It was like hearing two witnesses to an auto accident who have different versions. 

Romney felt McCain tried to pull a fast one in the closing days of Florida, because Romney felt he, Romney, did oppose public timetables. McCain felt so passionate about what he, McCain, saw as Romney hedging on the surge, then playing both sides of the timetable issue. 

This really was not a political issue to McCain, but a matter of leadership: McCain said Romney should have answered the timetable question with a one-word answer – "no."  Days earlier, Romney said McCain was lying about his position and demanded an apology, and many reporters agree with Romney.

Right wing talk radio cheerleading for Romney grows, and Sean Hannity weighed in, early and often, on the timetables controversy.   Dennis Prager, scholarly and gentlemanly, was enthused about Rudy and very skeptical of McCain but not a McCain basher.  Hugh Hewitt, who authored a book on Romney, has been more for Romney than against McCain.  Meanwhile, Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin remain among those most intently negative on McCain.  And Rush Limbaugh has made stopping McCain a crusade..

And oddly, what hurts McCain in the short run helps him in the long run, because no one – not even thoughtful conservatives – wants a president who kisses the ring of talk radio hosts.

Romney did well in the debate, particularly in rebuttal, although he was weak on questioning McCain's conservative credentials.  But McCain was not sufficiently attuned to the Republican audience, and some of his comments could only rankle Republicans. 

Although the past Clinton-Obama exchanges reinforced the need for a positive tone in the Reagan Library debate,  McCain seemed too negative, especially when he questioned Romney's business success.  McCain inexplicably failed to be on the high road that a frontrunner should take.  But the evening was hardly a disaster for McCain, whose attack on banks loaning money to people who they knew could not repay it  resonated.

Still, Romney continued to show the central problem of his campaign – a delivery that is too fast, too sales oriented. It sounded like a series of sound bites.  Romney scored some debating points in his specific rebuttals. But he suffers mainly because his campaign team did not help him last year to develop a more thoughtful and sincere style of speaking. 

For example, I am in no position to question that Romney changed his position on abortion.  But when he talks about it, his explanation sounds rehearsed, mechanical. He speaks about an emotional issue without emotion. He talks quickly, when he ought to talk slowly. He talks dispassionately, when he ought to talk passionately.

Of course, not everyone can be like Ronald Reagan, who said the same lines over and over again while sounding like he just thought of the words. 

Romney is prone to oversell, as when he boasted in the debate that, as Massachusetts governor, he was commander-in-chief of the state's national guard.  And even Huckabee was too cutesy, when he was asked about seemingly concentrating his economic stimulus plan for Highway 95, running down the East Coast from North to South.  He outsmarted himself:  "I said that when I was in Florida."

I still wonder what Huckabee's end game is.  He can't win enough delegates to win on Super Tuesday. I wish I knew the momentum effect of McCain's front-runner status on Southern and other states where Huckabee has potential.  McCain's ascendancy could actually discourage Huckabee voters, enabling them to vote for McCain, rather than Huckabee, unless they feel that Romney is assuredly more reliable than McCain on social issues.

As for Ron Paul, why should he quit? Even at the Reagan Library debate, he gets a free pass, as no reporter asks him about his prior anti-Reagan remarks.  He obsesses about the market and free trade, but no one asks him how we could have free trade without the military to assure it. 

This debate in Simi Valley reminds me of the trial of the police officers accused of undue force against Rodney King.  That's because when you hear Ron Paul describe the world in simple terms, and his suggestion that the complexities of foreign affairs and national defense can be reduced to U.S. adherence to its Constitution, I hear Rodney King saying once again, "Can we just all get along?"

Still, except for Ron Paul (who is the libertarian version of Ross Perot's "Can't we just look under the hood?"), I still feel comfortable with my prediction awhile back that the multi-candidate Republican primary could unify around McCain. 

As for the Democrats, if it's Obama, the party will be relatively united. If it's Hillary, the African-American turnout will be reduced, unless Obama is the VP nominee.  I once saw that happening. I no longer do, not since Bill Clinton made Obama's race the focal point.

I remain fascinated by what is happening among Democrats. Here in California, we know that independent voters – meaning those who state no party preference – are allowed to vote in the Democrat primary. (Republicans would not let them vote in the Republican primary.)  That should help Barack Obama.

Then, there is the matter of the Clinton machine in California. It is loaded with all sorts of elected officials and party hacks, especially those who profited from the disproportionate White House patronage in California during the Clinton White House years. 

And there is the most egregious of demagogues who preside over the political Balkanization of California. I refer to Congresswoman Maxine Waters. 

I first met her years ago when she was an assembly member.  I was in Sacramento in an elevator with some Republican legislators.  Assemblywoman Waters entered the elevator, looked at the large no smoking sign, then, as the elevator doors closed, took a puff from her cigarette, and blew smoke in my direction.

Congresswoman Waters remains a booster of Hillary Clinton.  She probably has some relatives working in the Clinton campaign.  And, also in Los Angeles, Clinton has the support of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who – with assorted Latino politicians – will try to deliver that growing Latino constituency. The Clinton campaign actually publicly acknowledged its strategic interest in pitting Latino voters against African-American voters.

One last question.  Will drop-out John Edwards endorse Clinton or Obama?  Or perhaps he will become spokesman for a new men's hairspray.

ADDENDUM:
I've known people professionally involved in just about every Republican campaign for President in this cycle.  From time to time, these friends have called me for help and advice.  I certainly would have approached these campaigns — in particular, the four most viable: Rudy, McCain, Thompson, Romney — quite differently.   Properly done, just about any of these four candidates could have emerged as the nominee. 

Among them, the McCain campaign has done the best job of recovering from self-inflicted wounds, and my prediction has been, and my expectation continues to be,  that he will be the nominee.  In terms of the general election, I have said all along that I felt comfortable with just about any Republican candidate except Ron Paul, who I believe is incapable of being commander in chief.  

The major threat  to freedom today is what McCain calls radical Islam, and he is right, and I have confidence in the other candidates, and in McCain, on this issue.

I respect those conservatives and libertarians who oppose McCain for various reasons.  But in the current issue of To the Point (Feb. 01, 2008), there is an article that goes beyond viewpoint and includes serious and unproven attacks on McCain that involve his service as a POW.  I wish to disassociate myself from these attacks, this article, and To the Point in this matter.

Arnold Steinberg is a political strategist, analyst, and expert on American politics.  For media interviews, he can be contacted at [email protected].  No personal communications please.