Is John McCain in Trouble with Republicans?

While Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battled in the recent Indiana and North Carolina primaries, there was a Republican primary featuring Senator John McCain. Interestingly 27% of Republicans in North Carolina and 23% in Indiana voted for someone else. These numbers were recently quoted on the Drudge Report.

A problem for McCain? National Review Online blogger Mark Levin thinks so. Indeed, many conservatives are still somewhat leery of McCain, noting his somewhat non-conservative views on issues ranging from campaign finance reform to drilling in ANWR. There is some anecdotal evidence, as suggested by certain callers to conservative radio talk shows, that there is a number of conservative voters that find McCain so obnoxious that they will not vote for him, even if by so doing an Obama or Hillary Clinton Presidency results.

Other analysts are not so sure. Eric Pfeiffer of CQ Politics points out that in 2000, long after then Governor George W. Bush had wrapped up the nomination, the Republican candidate had primary numbers comparable to McCain's in 2008, rarely passing the 80 % margin against candidates who were technically still on the ballot but had withdrawn from the race and, in most cases, had endorsed Bush. Bush went on to win the 2000 Presidential race.

So why do voters still cast their ballots for candidates who are no longer running against the presumptive nominee of their own party? Weekly Standard blogger John McCormack suggests that it is because some voters want to send the candidate a message that their votes should not be taken for granted, even if their do intend to go ahead and vote for him in the fall.

Also, for the current election year, there is the strange, continuing race of die hard candidate Congressman Ron Paul. Paul has actually never technically withdraw from the Presidential race, even though he is also running for reelection for his House seat. Paul is, in many ways, more of a maverick tan John McCain, more libertarian than conservative Republican. Paul in fact was the Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate in 1988.