John McCain's Road to the 2008 Republican Presidential Nomination and Why Mitt Romney Will Win it

Arizona's favorite Senator, John McCain, is once again running for President, this time, not as a maverick - no that didn't work for him last time - he is running as a good-old-boy style of Republican who's for a bigger war and Christian values, and who will run as far to the right as right can go.

Oh, poor John must just like to lose.

Sure, it seems like a decent strategy. After all, the Maverick thing didn't work out too well for McCain in 2000 and the good-ole-boy bit it worked real fine for his opponent, George W. Bush.

Also, the Republican neocon base are the ones who traditionally write the big checks. So, why won't appealing to that group work to McCain's advantage in 2008?

The tent has simply become too big. While appealing to the base may work for a candidate looking for enough electoral votes in a general election, the base simply is not large enough to carry a candidate in a primary across all fifty states, especially given McCain's competition.

Rudy Giuliani sure isn't going to win many southern states, if any at all. Former MA governor Mitt Romney may not win that many either, but both will do exceptionally well in the industrial mid-west, the Pacific west coast, and in the New England states.

McCain's recent far right media stunts, such as coming out and saying that Roe v. Wade should be overturned and advocating an unpopular troop swell in Iraq, have already lost him the very important states above.

That leaves the southern states and the Rocky Mountain States up for grabs. McCain needs a sweep in the South to win. He might actually be able to do it too... if only Romney and Giuliani were his only competition.

Shame. Enter the Huckabee factor. A conservative Republican governor from Arkansas. A true southerner, a true conservative, and a former governor. Mike Huckabee is one of the good-ole-boys in the South, unlike McCain, who will just be pretending.

Here's how it's going to play out: