Now what?

So Huckabee took the evangelical south as a spoiler, with a little help from McCain. Romney comes across as the outsider.

Michael Savage says he knows why Romney isn’t getting any traction among the king-makers. They look at his family with well-adjusted sons and grandchildren. Then they look at their own circle, filled with abortion, gays, and divorce…and they loathe the man for what he represents. Others say Romney is “too perfect.”

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that immigration will never be a popular issue for politicians. You just can’t spin it into a positive. Any way you look at it there are quotas, fines, fees, maybe even deportations. And the premise of winking at law-breakers just doesn’t feel right.

Immigration will need to be constantly driven from outside the party structures. With McCain in the lead it is even more important. He won’t bring it up. The media won’t bring it up. The people will need to make noise about it.

Romney isn’t dead yet, but he is badly wounded. He needs some serious wins to be a credible candidate.

The way out of the darkness in American politics is a long shot indeed, and it won't happen before November. I’ve noticed people switching parties or even going Independent to win. The old party platforms are so soft now (centrist) that no one cares about the party regulars. They assume you will vote the party.

Swing voters matter and every candidate wants to appear moderate and carefully pick at the special interests.

We’ve seen Lieberman shift his affiliation to win, then go back to his seat on the left after the election. Locally, Noverini, a solid Republican, has gone over to the Dems to win his race. Both were able to pull off their objectives.

So, party doesn’t mean much. And with approval ratings low, the wise congressmen (if there are any left) just might caucus around some other standard. If that works for them, it could become a party. Illinois is paralyzed right now at the state level. They had an awful year in 2007. This year doesn’t look any better.

We can only hope that some new alliances will come from the animosity and lack of public approval. The long shot is a new political party.

On the other hand, the machines can build in roadblocks to make such an alliance impossible. There are no Independent office holders in Illinois because the system is designed to keep them out.

Right now, it looks like any of the front-runners for president will pretty much follow Bush when it comes to immigration.