How We Got Here, And Where We're Going

Or, in other words, how in the blue hell can the Benedict Arnold of the Republican Party possibly be its presumptive presidential nominee?

Call it the "perfect storm".  Let's review, shall we?

1) Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are annointed by the Enemy Media as the GOP front-runners a year ago.

2) McCain commits (apparent) political suicide with the "shamnesty" debacle and drops off the presidential radar screen.

3) Giuiliani extends his "Let's agree to disagree" social issues olive branch to evangelical voters last spring, restating his support for abortion on demand and homosexual special rights but agreeing not to make a point of contention out of it in favor of emphasizing areas of agreement like the economy and the "War on Terror".

4) By late summer/early fall evangelicals still refuse to be reconciled to Giuliani and make loud noises of bolting the GOP if Rudy is the nominee.

5) Those noises finally subside, only to metamorphize into the sudden ascension of the heretofore moribund candidacy of one ex-Arkansas Governor "Rev'rund" Mike Huckabee, whom we soon learn is the "anti-Rudy" - strongly conservative on social issues, left of center on just about everything else.

6) The Iowa Caucuses come first, and they just happen to be the perfect soil for Huck's brand of "populist" flapdoodle.  Huckles wins at the direct expense of the man who all but lived in Iowa for months and one of the two men around whom conservative support could have unified: Mitt Romney.

7) Having been upset in Iowa, the media meme of Romney's campaign being "in trouble" is born.  Which makes the "maverick" nature of the next contest - the New Hampshire Primary - the worst possible for Romney, who centered his entire stategy around winning the first two "bellweather" states.  With Huckles blocking for him in Iowa, the resurrected Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Queeg, upsets Romney in New Hampshire, giving the former Massachusetts governor an "oh-fer"

8) New Hampshire gives McCain instant credibility, and the Enemy Media's love for him guarantees that there'll be no effort to bulldoze him to the sidelines.  The meme is now that Romney "has" to win Michigan or he's "finished".

9) Romney wins Michigan, thus keeping the press sharks temporarily at bay.  But the next campaign stop (South Carolina) plays right back into Huckabee's wheelhouse, sucking away support that might have gone to Romney and once again clears the way for McCain to triumph and regain the perception advantage.

10) Florida thus became Mitt Romney's "second Michigan".  A contest in which, with Fred Thompson out of the race and Giuliani finally getting into the game to challenge McCain for Rockefelleroid "moderates," Romney should have had the upper hand.  Instead, the self-inflicted debility of Rudy's inactivity over the past month crippled him too much in his designated "firewall" state, and McCain steamrolled right over him.  That made Huck's equally unimpressive total just enough to deny Romney the "game"-tying score he needed to survive.

The net result?  To this point in the Republican primary campaign the usually dominant conservative vote has been split between Romney/Thompson and Huckabee, while the minority Rockefelleroid "moderate" vote has unified around McCain.  And now that Giuliani is effectively out of the race, there's nobody left to compete with "Sailor" for those country club blue blood votes.  Yet Huckles, despite being in the exact same circumstance as Rudy, is giving no indication that he's exiting.  Which means that as long as that remains the case, the Reagan Coalition will remain split, and McCain will have a smooth, straight, unimpeded path to the GOP nomination.

That's not to say that in a three-man race McCain could go over the top in the delegate count on his own.  By my latest estimate, the Supreme Chancellor would fall thirty delegates short of the 1,191 needed to clinch. But that's where Huckles comes in.  If he stays in the race until the combined number of his and McCain's delegates surpasses that magic number, he can then quit, endorse "Sailor," and the race is over.  In exchange, say, for the veep slot on McCain's ticket.

It'd be the ultimate backroom deal.  And it could end this race in as little as the next two weeks.

How does that grab you, my fellow conservatives?  The two biggest pariahs in the GOP field, the two-headed destroyer of the Goldwater/Reagan/Bush legacy, as your 2008 Republican presidential ticket.

Not that it'll make any difference, but I'll offer, once again, this piece of well-intentioned advice to my wayward evangelical brethren: Pull your heads out of your asses, drop Huckles like leprosy, and get behind Mitt Romney before it's too late.  Trust me, you'd rather have a Mormon in the White House than a man who hates us with a passion worthy of...well, Hillary Clinton.  To say nothing of bearing the stigmatic irony of letting the worldly temptation of identity politics inflict two bane of evangelicals on us for the price of one.  Talk about a "blue plate special" from hell.

"Too late" is next Tuesday.  Beyond that there's no getting back the immensity that is about to be lost for years and years to come.

UPDATE: My, but the McCainiacs are such gracious winners, dontcha think...?