Quote:
Originally Posted by ISiddiqui
Far more moderate than their chief competitors - McCain in 2000, Huckabee in 2012.
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Huckabee, you're thinking of 2008, but he also didn't really come to any kind of prominence until McCain had the nomination all but sewn up. It was a base revolt at a time when it didn't really do much good.
I also have never gotten the sense that, before 2008, McCain tried to present as a conservative. The brand he brought to 2000 was "trying to get big money out of politics" and "i'm a maverick i piss off both sides with aplomb"
See, I don't think it's (usually) that primary voters have a yen for moderates so much as that the more moderate candidates tend to be more establishment candidates, which gives them access to better fundraising. Better fundraising covereth a multitude of political sins.
That was the case with Romney in 2012 and Bush in 2000. McCain 2008 was just weird. By all rights he should have been dead in the water when his campaign ran out of money before Iowa and I'm really not sure how he recovered.