The key quote:

As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say “That’s a terrible statement!” … I grew up in a very segregated South. And I think that you have to cut some slack — and I’m gonna be probably the only conservative in America who’s gonna say something like this, but I’m just tellin’ you — we’ve gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names; being told you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie; you have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant; you can’t sit out there with everyone else, there’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office; here’s where you sit on the bus. … And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder, and resentment, and you have to just say, “I probably would, too. I probably would, too.” And in fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

Oh, right.

Unlike Rudy Giuliani, who endorsed John McCain the day he left the race, Mitt Romney waits until McCain’s delegate lead goes from insurmountable to a 100% mathematical certainty before finally endorsing the Senator yesterday.  Just one more example of Romney’s inability to shed political calculation and take a principled, slightly risky stand on anything– not even football.

Black superdelegates Rep. David Scott and Rep. John Lewis wait until after Hillary Clinton is on the ropes and after their districts give Barack Obama 70-80% of their vote to begin changing their minds on their previous endorsements of Clinton.  Not that this move is politically convient for them in any way.  But it will probably make it whole lot easier for these black representatives to get reelected in their largely black districts when they’re not going against the overwhelming will of their mostly black constituents to stand in the way of potentially the first black president.

After months of telling us what a corporatized, special-interest driven, calculating, double-talking politician Hillary Clinton is, John Edwards decides that a potential cabinet position in a Clinton White House trumps all of that and mulls the prospect of endorsing her.  It would be just one more politically convenient flip-flop for the man who spent the majority of his campaign apologizing for everything he voted for during his one-term in the Senate.

And finally, Mike Huckabee, who refuses to admit that his lameduck campaign is literally and mathematically a lost cause at this point– famously telling Tim Russert on Sunday, “I didn’t major in math, I majored in miracles”– nevertheless leaves the campaign trail for two days to give a paid keynote address in the Cayman Islands.  I guess he only majored in the miracles of hopeless presidential campaigns, not the miracles of, you know, doing what’s right and trusting God to provide for you.  Defending his decision, Huckabee said, “I think people of America who understand that you’ve got to work for a living and pay your bills recognize that that’s exactly what I ought to be doing,” failing to mention that he makes up to $25,000 a speech (though remember, he didn’t major in math).  I’m sure the thousands of unpaid volunteers who are working night and day on Huckabee’s behalf, despite knowing logically that he can’t win, are thrilled about their boss’s latest fundraising effort.

• I understand that Hillary Clinton is banking on Ohio and Texas to stop whatever momentum Obama gathers this month, considering that he could possibly win the next six states in a row.  But I don’t think it’s a very good strategy to let your opponent suck up all the good media for four weeks and expect that your poll numbers will remain the same in so-called firewall states that are a month away.  Neither does Rudy Giuliani.
• If Obama does sweep every state this month and then goes on to win either Ohio or Texas, he’ll be the Democratic nominee.
• If you want to refer to John McCain’s showing in Washington state as a win, fine.  But finishing two points ahead of Mike Huckabee and four points behind “Other” is not a good showing for an inevitable Republican nominee.  Combine that with losing Louisiana and Kansas to Huckabee, and you’ve got the makings of downright embarrassment.
• There’s a chance– an outside chance, but a chance– that depending on how long he stays in the race, Mike Huckabee could win more states and more delegates than John McCain from February 5th on.  Mathematically, Huckabee can’t win the nomination unless he literally wins every state from here on out, but he could still potentially put a lot of egg on McCain’s face.  At some point, if we haven’t reached that point already, Huckabee will be under enormous pressure from his party to drop his campaign.  Though he may be trying to leverage his continued presence in the race into a spot on November’s ticket.  It could happen.

Some of McCain’s nomination was due to the dynamics of the race and sheer luck.  Giuliani gained no traction in Iowa and New Hampshire and ultimately pulled out of those places in the final weeks, thus allowing almost all the Independent, moderate Republican, and national security votes to go to McCain.  And Giuliani dropping out to endorse McCain after Florida skyrocketed McCain’s numbers in the huge winner-take-all states, New York and California.  Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee took an enormous chunk of the social conservative votes that otherwise would have gone to Romney in Iowa especially, but also New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida– probably costing Romney wins in all four of those closely contested states.  Even today, on Super Tuesday, Huckabee’s presence in the race will cost Romney what would have been big wins in Southern states like Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

But let’s not take anything away from John McCain.  He’s an American hero and a fantastic senator, who has shown an uncommon willingness to step outside his party’s ideology to get things done.  I think he’ll ultimately be handcuffed in the general election by his support for the Iraq War, but if the Democrats screw up their side of the nominating process and choose Hillary Clinton, McCain will make up for the anti-war votes he would lose with what will be a significant number of anti-Clinton, anti-dynasty votes from both parties.  In other words, he has a real shot at being our next president.  None of the other Republican candidates ever did.

Mike Huckabee – Scored points for honesty by being the only candidate to note that Americans are worse off now than they were eight years ago (though he blamed it on Congress, not Bush).”

But Mike points out correctly that Ron Paul also gave us some straight talk:

Uhm, excuse me? Mike Huckabee was not the only candidate to say that. Ron Paul was aligned with Huckabee on this, with one further nugget of wisdom.

Straight from the CNN transcript (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0801/30/se.01.html):

COOPER: Congressman Paul, 61 percent of Americans think there is a recession already — 61 percent of Americans say there’s already a recession. Are we better off than we were eight years ago?

PAUL: No, no, we’re not better off. We’re worse off, but it’s partially this administration’s fault and it’s the Congress. But it also involves an economic system that we’ve had for a long time and a monetary system that we’ve had and a foreign policy that’s coming to an end and we have to admit this.

Good catch, Mike.

KEY MOMENT:
McCain continued the line of attack he began in Florida by using an obviously out-of-context quote to accuse Romney of supporting a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq.  Romney defended himself well, at one point asking McCain why he considered himself an expert on his (Romney’s) record.  Even Anderson Cooper got in on the action by reading the full quote and defending Romney on the point.  The moment badly undermined John McCain’s reputation as a straight talker, and whatever traction he gained from that line of attack in Florida, it has the very real potential of backfiring nationally.

RANKINGS
1. Mitt Romney – The recent economic downturn was the best thing that could have happened to Romney’s campaign because he no longer feels pressed to try to be someone he’s not.  He was never convincing as the newly-converted social conservative, and as long as the topics were abortion, gay rights, and stem cell research, the size of the holes in his record were matched only by the physical discomfort he showed while answering questions on those subjects.  Last night, the topic was the economy and Romney was clearly in his element.  He made the mistake early of bringing up the subject of endorsements and John McCain hit him hard, noting that Romney’s hometown Boston papers all endorsed McCain in the New Hampshire primary.  But Romney recovered later with a strong defense against McCain’s timetable attack, and a strong case for why his time in the private sector displayed leadership not, as McCain asserts, management skills.

2. Mike Huckabee – Scored points for honesty by being the only candidate to note that Americans are worse off now than they were eight years ago (though he blamed it on Congress, not Bush).  He wisely pulled the discussion of conservatism away from the economy and back to his strong suit, social issues.  He also gave a good defense of federalism on the question of whether he sided with Governor Schwarzenegger or George Bush on California’s climate change policy, and he convincingly echoed Mitt Romney on why governors make better presidents than senators.  Unfortunately though, he did little to reassure voters about his foreign policy experience, as he stumbled through questions on Vladimir Putin and the military.  Also spent too much time complaining about the lack of attention he was getting from the moderators.

3. Ron Paul – Ron Paul supporters are notorious for crying foul, but tonight the moderators did seem to be, whether consciously or not, marginalizing his presence.  At one point, Paul attempted to use his time to answer an earlier question he didn’t get a shot at, and Anderson Cooper quickly jumped in to cut him off.  Nevertheless, Paul gave a typically strong debate performance, railing against government spending and American military overreach.  Perhaps overstepped his rhetoric when he seemed to absolve the president (not just Bush, but the office itself) of any responsibility for the economy.

4. John McCain – Unlike Mitt Romney, the recent economic downturn was the worst thing that could have happened to McCain’s campaign.  He fumbled the first question of the debate, looking every bit as uncomfortable on economic issues as Romney claims he is.  At one point, McCain said the words “sub-prime” but stumbled as though he couldn’t remember what came next, until finally abandoning the phrase altogether.  And on the question of why he’d be a better economic president than Romney, he made an awkward pivot to national security that didn’t work.  On the plus side, McCain came prepared with good oppo research and hit Romney hard on his economic record in Massachussets.  He also gave Romney a great shot on the Boston newspaper endorsements, and though McCain lost the debate, that’s likely to be the clip that’s played on news broadcasts across the country.  His attempt to continue the timetable attack on Romney failed miserably, mostly because it’s so obviously false.  When Anderson Cooper calls your bluff on an attack, it’s time to back down.  McCain would be wise to abandon that strategy altogether.  Overall, it was a long night for John McCain, and as long as the economy is on the frontburner he’s going to struggle.

The fact is that neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney could have won the Republican Party nomination in either 2000 or 2004 (had there been no incumbent).  Regardless of which of them wins the party’s nod in 2008, Republicans will see their domestic platforms in the general election shift noticably towards the center.