AZ Sen 2016: How will McCain fare if he runs for sixth term?

[eric82oslo]

He has a lot of Democratic and independent support, so either he will win the Republican primary outright, or he will run as an independent and then win easily. No far right candidate has any possibility to win a Senate race in Arizona as long as the Democratic party continues to field moderate, centrist high quality candidates in my opinion. Arizona is definitely not Texas. Ted Cruz for instance would have been pretty chanceless against a centrist Democrat in Arizona. Even their centrist Republicans just barely win Senate races there (and Democrats control a majority of Arizona's House delegation, despite a very low turnout from Hispanics).

[eric82oslo]

If, by some miracle he did win his primary, he'd just lose the general.

You mean just like Joe Lieberman lost the general? At least McCain has some general appeal and charisma, even to Democratic voters, in very sharp contrast to the totally and completely uncharismatic Lieberman.

[eric82oslo]

If, by some miracle he did win his primary, he'd just lose the general.

This. McCain is extremely unpopular with everyone, and I'd be surprised if he ran for another term.

Never underestimate a maverick. That's what everyone did during 2007 and 2008, which made the eventual results all the more shocking, when every single pundit throughout America had already pronounced him dead and in the grave (and his overall campaign in even worse state). I do agree though that he has lost some of his edge, and moved further to the right (including some surprising and unreasonable shots at Obama which we didn't see between 2009 and 2012, but which have emerged these past two years, making him look much more partisan and cynical). And making him seem more grumpy and unreliable than what we've been used to. Maybe it's just the Fox News syndrome? Or it might be his bad acquaintances in the Senate.

[eric82oslo]

In order of likelihood IMO:
5. Runs again, loses primary, runs as independent a la Murkowski and then all hell breaks loose.

I think this might be the most likely option actually. Don't know why you have it at 5th. McCain is certainly no Bob Dole, no Romney, no Lieberman, no Sarah Palin for sure and neither no Paul Ryan. Basically, McCain might very well have been the most sympathetic Republican candidate on a GOP ticket since the good old Eisenhower. Okey, so he wants the US engaged with the world, but that doesn't automatically make him a bad guy in my view. And right, he was damn wrong on Iraq, but so was Hillary and almost everyone else. Give him a break. At least he's not Reagan! Or Cheney! Or W! Or giving tax breaks away like crazy as Romney for sure would have! Better with a military semi-loon (although he really isn't and never has been, in my view he's actually if anything to the slight left of Hillary) than a tax break loon like freaking Romney for God's sake! Romney would have meant the end of the US as we know it - Romney would have meant that the US would simply have become an underaffiliate of China Incorporated. With all his rhetorical talk about hating China, what Romney really wanted was to give Halliburton and Dick Cheney even more power to become Chinese, or Russian for that matter.