GOP...unitied?

After Mitt Romney dropped out the presidential race on Thursday, it became essentially inevitable that John McCain would be the Republican nominee. His nearest competitor, Mike Huckabee, would need to win more than 90 percent of all remaining delegates in order to be the GOP’s choice for president, and stories abound about how the once-fractured Republican party was coalescing around him (except, of course, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter). But even though winning for Huckabee is a near impossibility, he still insists on challenging McCain until the Arizona senator gets the 1,191 delegates required for the nomination. Normally at this point Huckabee would be looked upon as a fool. However, the events since Romney’s withdrawal have transformed Huckabee into a fierce reminder of the remaining riff within the Republican Party and puts into doubt McCain’s appeal as the electable candidate.

First, there was prominent evangelical Christian leader James Dobson’s endorsement of Huckabee. This was both a big deal and a bit of a surprise because Dobson had remained uncommitted to any candidate up until Thursday. Why, as a part of a united party, would he endorse Huckabee on the night McCain became the all-but-certain nominee?

Second, there were Saturday’s primaries and caucuses; Huckabee trounced McCain in Kansas, beat him in a close race in Louisiana and narrowly lost to him in Washington. If the party were so united, why would voters hand such convincing victories to Huckabee? At this point, they can really only be seen as symbolic victories, as a way for voters to express their discontent and to say that everything in their party is not as its leaders would have it seem.