Much Ado About Tom

I'm a conservative. No bones about it. In a perfect world, Tom McClintock would be the lone Republican in the California recall race right now. Would he be winning? Ex Post Facto polls taken in the context of an electoral circus aside, we don't know. We do know that the moderate, sometimes ill-informed, socially-relatively-liberal but apparently-solidly-Friedmanesque Schwartzenegger has put "electable", "California Republican" and "Fiscal Responsibility" into the same sentence in time for a meaningful election.

Here's a bit of advice from Minnesota; even assuming McClintock doesn't pull out and hand his voters over to Schwartzenegger, I don't think it'll matter.

Two months before the 2002 Minnesota gubernatorial race, the polls showed a three-way dead heat between DFLer Roger Moe, Independence Party nominee (and Ventura heir-apparent) Tim Penny, and eventual winner Tim Pawlenty (all had numbers in the low thirties, with the difference less than the statistical margin of error), with Green candidate Ken Pentel pulling over 5%.

Between that poll and election day, the numbers shook out to their eventual tally (figures rounded to nearest full percent):

• Pawlenty: 44%
• Moe: 36%
• Penny: 16%
• Pentel: 2%

The lesson? Talk is cheap.

Before the election, it's easy to speak in favor of a quixotic candidate, especially to a stranger on the phone. But it's human nature to want to side with a winner, and I suspect it's American nature to want to make your vote count (unless you're a Green). While McClintock seems to be polling in the 16-18% range these days, I'll bet anyone this: assuming he doesn't pull out (and I bet he will, but work with me here), I doubt McClintock will get 9% in the final election.

I suspect as we get down to the wire, the idealistic conservatives (that phrase alone should give most left-bloggers an aneurism) who are answering "McClintock" in the surveys today will quietly vote for Arnold. They may even deny it later - but the numbers will show it.

Hewitt gives the top five reasons McClintock's fans should change their ways in WorldNetDaily today, including this ultimate one:

"Finally, a vote for Tom is a vote for Terry McAuliffe. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee first promised there would be no big name Democrat running on question 2. Now he's promising that a Democrat will be governor on Oct. 8. McAuliffe is counting on Tom voters to pull this out for the Democrats and, crucially, for his own reputation. Already held in low esteem by most of his party colleagues, if McAuliffe loses California after losing Florida and then New York City, it doesn't take much imagination to see a revolt forcing this Clinton Kool-Aid drinker to step aside."

All true. Read the whole thing.

And see what happens.

Posted by Mitch at October 1, 2003 11:08 AM