Is the Party Over?

AS FLORIDA GOES, so goes the nation? Not quite, but what happened yesterday in the Sunshine State was pretty significant. Contrary to popular wisdom, that's not because McCain will receive a bounce out of Florida that will spring him to all kinds of victories next Tuesday. Primary victories don't provide bounces anymore. In the days before he won the South Carolina primary that would supposedly springboard him to success in Florida, McCain led polls of Florida conducted by reputable outfits such as Survey USA, Strategic Vision, and Research 2000 by seven, ten, and ten points respectively. His actual margin of victory was five.

So once again, a politician's success (or lack thereof) can't be attributed to a slingshot effect. It's fair to ask, if McCain won't bounce out of Florida, why do last night's results much matter beyond the senator's significant delegate haul?

Last night mattered because it featured the fully mature Romney campaign taking on the fully mature McCain campaign. After a year of struggling, Romney has found a message that resonates and that flows from him naturally. The week leading up to Florida saw Romney's best campaigning. And he still didn't pull it off.

McCain, of course, has been McCain all along. He's a less than electrifying stump speaker and brings nothing new philosophically to the table. He also has the most admirable personal history of any presidential candidate of the past fifty years.

The task that the Romney campaign now faces is a huge one. He's losing in the polls in most of the Super Tuesday states. It's not like McCain needs a bounce out of Florida to score in a big way next week. McCain just has to hold on to his leads. The one who needs a dynamic-changing event is Romney, and given the vast landscape confronting the candidates, he needs something big.

Romney's best hope is that the party decides that it can't tolerate the thought of McCain as its nominee. Maybe McCain will make a mistake that will help nudge them to that conclusion. Certainly a lot of talkers in radio-land have expressed their disdain for McCain without a surfeit of subtlety. It's possible the party will turn on McCain, but it's not entirely likely.

In a provocative and contrarian blog post, Josh Trevino has outlined the parameters of "Romney's Florida win." Trevino points out that according to CNN's exit poll numbers:

• Romney won pro-lifers.

• Romney won the mainstream religious. (Huckabee won the very religious--less than one-fifth of the pool.)

• Romney won the Protestants.

• Romney tied Huckabee with Evangelicals.

• Romney won the pro-GWB voters.

• Romney is the primary second choice of Giuliani voters, Thompson voters . . . and McCain voters.

• Romney won the immigration hard-liners.

• Romney won the upper-middle class, earning between $100,000 and $200,000 annually.

• Romney won the terrorism-oriented voters.

• Romney won the self-identified conservatives and the self-identified very conservative.

• Romney won the values-oriented voters.

• Romney won the white voters.

• Romney won the tax-cutting voters.

The problem with Trevino's analysis is that it neglects the dimensions of the Republican "big tent." At least since the days of Reagan, Republican strategists have tried to cobble together a big tent of stable Republican voters who would be numerous enough to ensure decades of Republican dominance. But with a growing tent comes a dilution of ideological purity. It's impressive that Romney carried all those little sub-populations in the tent last night. But even more noteworthy is that carrying all those little populations wasn't enough to win.

Combining Trevino's observations with the final fact that Romney lost, one can only conclude that doing well with the core of the party just isn't enough. This also explains the seeming disconnect between hard-line Republicans like the talk-radio audience and John McCain's success. The Republican party is much bigger and much more numerous than its ideological core. A solid chunk of the party either isn't aware of McCain's antics that annoyed the party regulars the past seven years or, as is much more likely the case, is aware of everything McCain did but simply doesn't care very much.