It’s time for Republicans to rally around the official nominee: John McCain. He won every primary yesterday, and his last remaining opponent, Mike Huckabee, has dropped out. Now pundits and bloggers forecast the coming months for McCain. At the WEEKLY STANDARD Online, Fred Barnes describes “three things McCain must do that won’t be easy”: “The most important is to bring Barack Obama down to earth from his pedestal in the heavens…organize a turnout effort to match President Bush’s in 2004–or exceed what Bush put together…And he must gear his campaign to attract independents while not antagonizing conservatives, who constitute the Republican base.” The Wall Street Journal‘s Laura Meckler adds that he “now faces a daunting challenge: how to transform his tight-knit, shoestring primary into a machine able to win the presidency.” But things nonetheless look good for McCain. At Townhall, Carol Platt Liebau says that McCain is the strongest on the war on terror, and Americans know it: “Anyone who has insisted that there are real differences between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the war on terror — and who believes it’s vital not only to our security but to the future of the free world that we win — has no choice but to join McCain’s cause.”And at Contentions, WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor John Podhoretz notes that Republicans luckily nominated “the only Republican candidate who could possibly win in November, given his potential to pull independent voters back into the GOP camp — and given the stark contrast he offers to the likely Democratic nominee.” Power Line’s John Hinderaker explains: “Lots of pundits crossed McCain off the list of contenders before the first votes were recorded. Once people actually started voting, we were reminded why McCain had been the frontrunner for the nomination to begin with.” And bloggers think the continued Democratic fight will only help McCain. Swampland’s Michael Scherer says, “McCain got the greatest gift of all: An increasingly nasty Democratic nomination fight that will last at least through April.”
