He's a hawk on the war, yet independent-minded voters who are sick of Iraq are voting for him anyway.
McCain's doves
John McCain will likely go down in history as the first GOP presidential nominee who vaulted to the front of the pack despite failing to win a plurality among self-identified Republicans in any of the early state primaries.
According to Florida exit polls, the Arizona senator tied Mitt Romney among voters who described themselves as Republican but pulled away to victory with a nearly 2-1 advantage among independents. That formula -- battle to a draw for Republicans, stomp all comers among independents -- powered McCain's wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina and has made him the front-runner heading into Super Tuesday.
It's no mystery why independents gravitate toward McCain. He's a country-first, party-second kind of guy who speaks bluntly and delights in poking fellow Republicans in the eye on issues such as campaign finance reform and global warming.
But there's a bizarre disconnect in the warm embrace between McCain and the electorate's mavericks. They hate the Iraq war, while he's willing to fight it for another century. The most pro-war presidential candidate in a decade is winning the 2008 GOP nomination thanks to the antiwar vote.
A full 66% of independents think that the U.S. should completely withdraw from Iraq no later than 12 months from now, according to a Jan. 18-22 L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll. McCain, meanwhile, said last month that the U.S. might stay in Baghdad for another 100 years. He continually expresses bafflement at the idea that that might not be such a good thing. "It's not the point! It's not the point!" he snarled at reporters recently. "How long are we going to be in Korea?"
And yet he dominated the antiwar vote in New Hampshire, with 44% to Romney's 19%, according to CNN exit polls. Ron Paul, the only actual antiwar Republican running, drew just 16% of voters who said they were against the war. The three finished in the same order among antiwar voters in Michigan, even though Romney won the state overall.
The same pattern holds true in the case of voters who despise George W. Bush. In Florida, for example, McCain clobbered Romney 48% to 18% among those who described themselves as "angry" at the president, according to MSNBC exit polls.
