No doubt the GOP candidates are tripping over themselves trying to curry favor with John McCain, a.k.a. The Guy Who Helped Make ‘President Obama’ a Stark Reality.
The nation waits with bated breath: Who will snag his coveted kiss of death endorsement?
Arizona Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential nominee in 2008, is moving toward endorsing a candidate for 2012.
Republican sources familiar with his thinking say he will probably endorse his onetime political enemy, Mitt Romney.
There is virtually no chance, sources say, that he will pick former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who has surged into the lead in polls, stoking consternation among his ex-colleagues on Capitol Hill.
Asked Tuesday if he might back a candidate in the GOP primary, McCain told The Hill, “Yeah, I think it would be several months later on.”
This is a change from the senator’s stance earlier this year, when said he would not endorse during the primary.
His statements come as angst among Republicans in Washington is intensifying. Publicly and privately, GOP kingmakers have said they are dreading the possibility that Gingrich will capture the Republican nomination.
McCain would not say which candidate he is likely to support; later in the day, however, he qualified his statement to say he had not made a final decision about whether to endorse a candidate.
And how’s this for irony: McCain is concerned about Newt’s electability.
McCain said, “I don’t know if he’s electable. You have to see how candidates evolve.”
So how can Romney be seen as electable, but Newt isn’t? Does McCain not realize that the eventual GOP nominee will be running against Obama and his miserable, unequivocal disaster of a record? Every GOP candidate in the field (except Ron Paul, as I see it) is electable vs. a monumental failure like that.
Does anyone really care what McCain thinks?
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