Amidst all the drama in the Democratic race, both Indiana and North Carolina voted in the GOP primary as well.
While McCain won, some are sounding the alarm over results that show 23 percent of Indiana Republicans and 27 percent of N.C. Republicans voted for someone else.
But the important point isn’t that they voted for someone else — it’s that they voted. A handful of these folks might stay home in protest come November, but Republicans are ridiculously practiced at rolling out of bed on election day and pulling the lever. As long as there isn’t another option on the ballot in November, they’ll go with McCain.
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North Carolina was instructive for the GOP for other reasons. BJ Lawson, a Ron Paul Republican, won his primary by forty points. Walter Jones, another anti-war Republican, won by 20 percent, representing one of the biggest military districts in the country.
The point is that GOP voters are going out of their way in NC and other states to not just vote against McCain, but to object to McCainesque candidates for the House and other seats.
It is easy enough to say that the Rush’s of the world who objected to McCain early, but are now back on the plantation, will turn around and vote for McCain. On the other hand there is a shockingly large disconnect amongst many other traditional Republican voters, and there is little evidence that they will turnout and vote McCain. If Bob Barr should get the LP nomination, it is likely that he could peel off enough of those voters to hurt McCain in the general. Pretending otherwise is inconsistent with the history of modern electoral politics.