Why McCain Is Losing (Hint: It’s Not Iraq)

Listen up, mainstream media and Chris Matthews: John McCain isn’t doing poorly in the polls and being rejected by Republican voters because of his support for the Iraq war. It’s about taxes, and campaign finance reform and immigration. Period. How many times do you all have to be told this before it sinks in? It ain’t about Iraq.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) summed it up best last March during an interview on Hugh Hewitt’s conservative radio program: 
“On taxes, John [McCain] was never a vote that we could count on to reduce taxes, and I just fundamentally believe that that’s what Republicans are all about, and he was one of the few, less than a handful, that repeatedly voted against reducing taxes and keeping tax rates down. He’s, on an issue that I think is essential for a republic, which is campaign finance and the freedom of speech, I think he’s done great damage to our republic in the way campaigns are run and financed. And it’s this misguided notion that government should control speech, and that we should limit speech as a way of improving the discourse in this country, and I think it’s wrongheaded, and I think it’s dangerous, and he has been the outright leader. I think he’s wrong on immigration.”

Maybe some clever reporter should bother calling up Santorum, who knows a lot more about the GOP base than McCain, and ask him why McCain’s campaign is faring so poorly.