Clearly, Arizona Senator John McCain has a comfortable lead in the race for the 1,191 delegates needed to secure the GOP presidential nomination – receiving a nice lift from the balloting on Super Tuesday. The latest count: McCain – 613; Romney – 269; and Huckabee – 190.
   What McCain needs to carefully consider as he writes the critically important speech he will deliver tomorrow at the CPAC in Washington, D.C. is that he is not the choice of a majority of Republican voters. He has failed to make any significant inroads in the ranks of conservatives but instead is reaping the benefits of the fact that they are at this point divided between the philosophical Reaganites (favoring Romney) and the religious right (supporting Huckabee). McCain’s lead is the result of plurality victories. He has captured a majority of the GOP vote in only 3 states: Connecticut (52%), New Jersey (55%), and New York (51%). In contrast, Romney has scored majority victories in 6 contests: Colorado (59%), Massachusetts (51%), Utah (90%), Maine (52%), Nevada (51%), and Wyoming (67%).
   When pitted against “Rockabee” (Romney/Huckabee), McCain’s showing has been quite unimpressive as the chart below reveals:

	STATE	McCAIN	ROMNEY  +	HUCKABEE  =	"ROCKABEE"
	Alabama	37%	18%	41%	59% *
	Alaska	16	44	22	66 *
	Arizona	47	34	9	43 *
	Arkansas	20	13	60	73 *
	California	42	34	11	45
	Colorado	19	59	13	72 *
	Connecticut	52	33	7	40
	Delaware	45	33	15	48
	Florida (Jan. 29)	36	31	13	44 *
	Georga	32	30	34	64 *
	Illinois	47	29	17	46
	Iowa (Jan. 3)	13	25	34	59 *
	Maine (Feb. 1)	21	52	6	58
	Massachusetts	41	51	4	55
	Michigan (Jan. 15)	30	39	16	55
	Minnesota	22	42	20	62
	Missouri	33	29	32	61 *
	Montana	22	38	15	53 *
	New Hampshire (Jan. 8)	37	32	11	43
	Nevada (Jan. 19)	13	51	8	59 *
	New Jersey	55	28	8	36
	New York	51	28	11	39
	North Dakota	23	36	20	56 *
	Oklahoma	37	25	33	58 *
	South Carolina (Jan. 19)	33	15	30	45 *
	Tennessee	31	24	34	58 *
	Utah	5	90	1	91 *
	West Virginia	1	47	52	99 *
	Wyoming (Jan. 5)	0	67	0	67 *

In 24 of the 29 states that have had primaries or caucuses to date, the combined Romney/Huckabee vote exceeded McCain’s vote (the “Rockabee” total is bold & underlined). In other words, what can be considered the anti-McCain Republicans outpolled the pro-McCain voters. In 19 of those states, that anti-McCain vote was greater than 50% meaning that over half of the Republicans opposed the Arizona senator.
Of particular importance is that 17 of those 19 states were so-called “Red States” in 2004 (marked with an asterisk *). Unquestionably, these are the heart and soul of the Republican Party and have been vital to its success in the last two presidential elections. If McCain cannot rally behind him the overwhelmingly conservative Republican base in these states, he will clearly lose many of them in November and Republican hopes of beating either Clinton or Obama are nil.
What has lured some conservatives into the McCain camp is the notion (forwarded by his endorsement in the New York Times and other liberal media) that he is the only Republican who can win the presidency. In truth, almost the opposite is the case. Keep in mind that no Republican in the last half century has been elected President by campaigning on a “moderate” platform. Nixon, Reagan, Bush #41, and Bush #43 were all successful because they advocated policies which reflected their party’s conservative majority. McCain is not likely to be the first to break that trend.
The dilemma facing McCain now is: does he apologize for his liberal past and assure conservatives that he’ll be a “good boy” in the future on issues like immigration, campaign financing, Supreme Court appointments, and tax cuts? If so, he had better make it very convincing because his credibility on these issues is in serious doubt. Furthermore, if he does make these necessary concessions and conversions, he is sure to be hit hard as a “flip-flopper” by the Democrats in the fall. On the other hand, if he does not make amends with the conservative majority of his party, his defeat in November is virtually assured.
“Rockabee” would be a sure winner!