McCain is simply too old

With John McCain looking set for victory in the New Hampshire primary tomorrow night there’s been a big move towards him in the betting and he is now the solid favourite for the Republican nomination. I like McCain, I think he has acquitted himself well, but I can’t but believe that his age, 72 in August, is going to be a big issue which will be magnified if he’s facing Obama who is still in his mid-40s.

Romney now looks doomed which leaves the former favourite, Rudy Giuliani and the Iowa victor, Mike Huckabee. It is on these two where my money is going.

The humanity, the humour and the appeal of the ex-Mayor of New York came over well in the New Hampshire debate and he is going to take a lot of beating.

That leaves Mike Huckabee – the preacherman from Bill Clinton’s home town in Arkansas who pulled off the big victory in Iowa. The following was from Andrew Sullivan in the Sunday Times:-

In the wreckage of the post-Bush Republican party, Huckabee is the most talented natural politician. And he has taken Bushism to its logical conclusion…And, unlike Bush, Huckabee has combined a belief in the paternalist state with a hostility to Wall Street. He is a potential builder of a future Republicanism that is as socially conservative as it is economically populist: extremely hostile to illegal immigrants, gay couples and abortion, but just as angry at big corporations, free trade and the globalised gilded elites. In making the case against Mitt Romney � a multi-millionaire former business consultant � Huckabee argued that it was a choice between the bloke you work with and the man who sacks you..The simmering class resentment, which is just beneath the surface, clearly motivates his supporters. When they were attacked by Washington Republicans as know-nothings, they responded by surging to the polls. They can smell the condescension. And it angers them.

Huckabee can live with a fourth or fifth place in New Hampshire. He has his eyes firmly set on South Carolina next week. A win there could really set him up.

Mike Smithson