Dear Editor,
You are absolutely right in the editorial ‘McCain’s inexhaustible luck’ (SN, May 29) that the never-ending campaign for the nomination in the Democratic Party in the US is benefiting John McCain, the nominee of the Republican Party.
McCain started out as the favourite in early 2007 to win the nomination. But when Mayor Rudy Giuliani entered the race, he overtook McCain in popularity and McCain slipped down a large pack of contestants for the nomination. McCain lost early contests but did sufficiently well (barely winning New Hampshire) to remain in a viable position. In February, however, his campaign nearly collapsed because he ran out of money. But being the fighter he is having survived five years in captivity as a POW in Vietnam, he remained in the race. I never wrote him off and concluded at the time that he would be the Republican nominee because of my analysis of the role of ethnicity, regionalism, religion and class in American politics. The other candidates were deficient in various qualities of electability. Giuliani, for example, is Italian and Catholic and neither quality is acceptable in the South. Mitt Romney is a Morman and a shifting conservative and unaccepted in most parts of the country. Mike Huckabee is considered as too religious. And while Fred Thompson has all the qualities of electability and is liked by the wealthy, he did not gain traction because he was too well connected with the traditional conservative Republicans at a time when voters were looking for something different from usual. People wanted a centrist whom they can trust. And so McCain slipped in, though despised by the conservatives.