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How Bunting Shaped GOP Nomination

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By TOM JACKSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 14, 2008

Sixteen days later, and those analyzing the behavior of Republican voters in the Sunshine State primary still haven't nailed it.

For all the probing, scrutiny and dissection of the unexpectedly decisive GOP vote that launched the Arizona senator on a trajectory toward presumptive nominee, the stone that hides the pivotal key remained unturned.

Until now.

Virtually every poll taken over the final weekend before the Jan. 29 vote showed John McCain and Mitt Romney in a statistical dead heat. Turnout would decide.

Sure, Gov. Charlie Crist gave McCain his endorsement, as did Sen. Mel Martinez. So. What.

In a closed primary where the GOP conservative base was wary of RINOS (Republicans in Name Only), how much influence was available to a state executive who advocates government-run homeowners insurance and fears man-made climate change, and a U.S. senator who favors open borders?

Indeed, final surveys absorbed the effects of the Crist and Martinez endorsements, and they showed precisely what they had a week earlier: Flip a coin.

Yet, come election night, it was McCain in as close to a runaway as any had dared imagine.

What happened?

Bill Bunting, Pasco's foremost Second Amendment champion.

In The Inner Sanctum
Saturday night before the primary. In the ballroom where Pinellas County GOP Club members mingle before their annual Lincoln Day Dinner, McCain's firm grip found Bunting's elbow. "We have to talk," said the old airman. "Privately."

McCain guided Bunting through a nearby door to the kitchen, then to a small office, trailed by McCain's entourage. His hand on the knob, McCain shot the mob a withering "what don't you understand about-'privately'?" glare.

"Now," McCain said, "what do you want to know?"

Bunting leapt in. Suppose Congress sent President McCain a bill authorizing a national right to bear arms, superseding all state and local laws.

McCain, unhesitant: "I'd sign it in a heartbeat."

It's The Math, Stupid
Mike Huckabee echoed that sentiment at a rally earlier in the week, but Bunting doubted the former Arkansas governor's viability in the general election. Rudy Giuliani and, to Bunting's surprise, Romney, demurred, saying, in so many words, that it's a state issue.

But here was the eminently viable McCain, embracing what Bunting regards as mere (but overdue) codification of the Second Amendment's plain language.

Sunday night, blessed by Orlando resident Victor Bean, Florida's gun-show king, Bunting triggered a blast e-mail to nearly 90,000 politically attuned Florida firearms fanciers.

McCain's the one, it said, while carefully noting Huckabee's similar views. Forty-eight hours later, the raw vote told the story: McCain over Romney by just under 97,000 votes.

If only two-thirds of the recipients were Republicans (59,400), maybe 80 percent (47,500) found it persuasive, and those impassioned gun owners influenced a modest extended household of 2.5 voters (spouses, adult children, friends), the edge, and then some, shifting a dead heat to a McCain near-rout.

Numbers don't lie. The endorsement that flew under the radar put McCain where he is today. And Bill Bunting remains a political force of nature.

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