Big Tent: January 2008 Archives

...of a bad situation. There used to be a song by that name which described someone in terrible circumstances and making something good come of it. I still hold out hope that Republicans will come to their senses and Romney will end up with the nomination. I dislike McCain for the same reasons Jim so articulately enumerates. But...I stop short of saying I will not vote for him.

I have little doubt that Hillary Clinton will be the Democrats' nominee. As bad as McCain is on some issues, he is strong on two of the most important -- national security and life. I'm sure he would appoint more conservative judges than the Beast. I KNOW he would be much better on foreign policy. Yeah, he sucks on immigration and McCain-Feingold was a disaster, but he does have some strong points and the bottom line is...he's better than Hillary. One of them will be president if he wins the nomination, like it or not. In my opinion, there is no comparison between the two overall.

I won't be an enthusiastic supporter like I was for Bush, but I will vote for him if it comes to that. To me, not voting would be the same as not voting in 2006, and look what that got us.

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...?

....Well, y'see, the outcome of the Florida Republican Primary could be influenced by a few Mcmis-steps over the past couple of days.

In addition to John McCain's evidently successful smear of Mitt Romney as an anti-war agitator on Saturday, there's another indiscrete red flag about the judicial nomination thinking of a President McCain:

More recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because "he wore his conservatism on his sleeve."

First of all, that's a distinction without a difference.  I don't recall any marked differences in the expressed judicial philosophy of Chief Justice Roberts or Justice Alito at their respective confirmation hearings.  Indeed, I've never heard or read of any such distinction between the two ever being mentioned, so I have little or no idea what McCain was talking about.

Second, what on Earth would be wrong with one's own nominee "wearing on his/her sleeve" their judicial philosophy, even if Justice Alito had gone out of his way to do so?  Is that something they should be ashamed of?  Is McCain ashamed of it?  Doesn't that suggest that he wouldn't be inclined to select constitutionalists to the federal bench, even if he was inclined to disturb inter-Branch "comity" with his "good friends" across the aisle?

Asked to clarify his Alito comment, McCain told Byron York the following:

I asked about the "wore his conservatism on his sleeve" line. "I'm proud of people who wear their conservatism on their sleeves, because they have to have a clear record of strict adherence to the Constitution," McCain told me. "Remember, in all my remarks, I've said, look, we're not going to take somebody's word for it. You have to have a clear record of adherence to the Constitution, a strict interpretation of the Constitution. I have said that time after time after time."

"And maybe as an aside, why would I say anything derogatory about somebody like that? What would be the point, after working so hard to get not only those two confirmed, but the Gang of 14 ­ which I know is controversial ­ but our record of getting those judges confirmed that the president nominated, I'm still proud of."

The Admiral thinks the first paragraph is "a better explanation" even if it doesn't really explain anything.  I consider it to be pure obfuscation.  What astounds me is the second graf, where "Sailor" makes the unfathomable blunder of bringing up the Gang of 14/memo of understanding debacle unsolicited.

Upon further review, though, perhaps that second graf is explanatory of McCain's earlier remark about Justice Alito, in a "freudian slip" sense.  For me it confirms what I already believe: that a McCain White House would populate Olympus and lower courts with David Souter clones and outright judicial imperialists, and take immense pleasure in the spluttering outrage of conservatives this serial shivving would trigger.  No Samuel Alitos (or John Roberts', either, really) need apply.

Concurrently, at a Florida campaign event on Sunday, Lord Queeg was asked point-blank about Juan Hernandez, his "Hispanic Outreach Director" as well as a George Soros-connected former Mexican cabinet officer and probable designate for Homeland Security Secretary in a McCain administration.

Lest this be mere heresay, here's Hernandez's border erasure extremism in his own words:

Now here is McCain's answer to Joan, the Florida woman who asked him about Mr. Hernandez:

Sounds like more of the same obfuscatory "trust me" BS.  That was also Joan's impression in an email to Double-M:

John McCain answered that he supported Juan Hernandez because he holds the same views as he (McCain) on other issues. He says that he determines his positions and Hernandez agrees with him, not the other way around. He appeared to be unaware of the specific positions of Hernandez that I related.

I would say I got a non-answer.

Because McCain didn't want to answer, because this particular bit of "straight talk" would have been politically lethal with his Florida GOP-only audience.

So.  On two issues of purportedly critical importance to Republican voters - reconstitutionalizing the courts and border security - John McCain is, to prissify it, "out of step" with his own party.  By several parsecs.  So he's got no chance today, and Mitt Romney will win going away, right?

Um, no.  Here is my final polling composite, based on a one-week look-back:

McCain 30.1%, Romney 29.4%, Giuliani 14.7%, Huckabee 13.1%

Annnnd a one-day look-back:

McCain 32.5%, Romney 31.5%, Giuliani 13.5%, Huckabee 12.8%

No matter which way you slice it, a Republican electorate that opposes bankrupting the country over global warming hysteria, favors tax cuts, wants the borders controlled, the courts de-imperialized, and free speech restored is, in Florida, about to narrowly award all its delegates to a man who gleefully disagrees with them on all of it.

Admiral Morrissey is picking Romney by three.  I can only hope that he sees a trend I'm missing, and not just engaging in Hewittesque wishful thinking.

UPDATE: McCain's margin of victory....?

UPDATE II: Been monitoring the Admiral's live blog of the Florida results.  Unfortunately, the numbers I cited above are not lying.

And thus, conservatives' last firewall - that McCain had never won a closed primary - is now officially breached.  With Florida's fifty-seven delegates, Sailor takes the overall delegate lead over Romney 97-74.  Combined with Rudy Giuliani's imminent endorsement of the Sith Master, the latter has all the momentum going into Super-Duper Tuesday. 

John McCain is the undeniable front-runner, and almost certainly the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. 

The Republican Party as we have known it for a generation - the party of Reagan, the party of Gingrich, the party that, for a few bright, shining years was the ruling majority party in the United States of America - has, in the space of fifteen catastrophic months, returned to its pre-Goldwater rump entity irrelevance.  Because a McCain nomination will lead to an unparalleled disaster in November, as conservatives, mark my words, WILL stay home in droves.  And for the first time in my lifetime, I have been functionally disenfranchised before Groundhog's Day.

Nelson Rockefeller has finally gotten his revenge.

{sigh}

Well, there'll be plenty of time to mourn my party's unfathomable folly over the next nine months.  At least I can analyze the McCain-Rodham "race" free of the handicaps of a rooting interest (unless they can somehow BOTH lose) - if I can muster the will to give a damn, and suspend my disbelief that either outcome will be better than the other.

Or maybe I'll convert this site to a quilting blog or something....

Case in point: John McCain's laughably exaggerated charge on Saturday that Mitt Romney is an anti-war zealot:

John McCain accused Mitt Romney of wanting to withdraw troops from Iraq, drawing immediate protest from his Republican presidential rival who said: "That's simply wrong and it's dishonest, and he should apologize."

I say "exaggerated" rather than "false" because the Romney statement from last April to which "Sailor" refers wasn't exactly a rousing endorsement of the Surge.  More of a preliminary bet-hedging gesture in case the Petraeus strategy didn't work.  But never did the Mittster ever call for withdrawal from Iraq, then, since, or now.

The blogospheric and media backlash against McCain's skittish attempt to change the subject from the economy (where he is at a significant, lead-eroding disadvantage leading into tomorrows pivotal Florida Primary) has been prompt and immense.

The pro-McCain Brother Meringoff:

John McCain has accused Mitt Romney of having "wanted to set a date for withdrawal [from Iraq] that would have meant disaster." McCain apparently is referring to a statement Romney made last April in which he assumed President Bush and the head of the Iraqi government might discuss timetables and troop levels in Iraq. I don't think Romney's statement fairly can be construed as advocating setting a date for our withdrawal.

The pro-McCain Bill Bennett:

Bennett's been a McCain defender, certainly more than other conservative radio-talk-show hosts. On CNN, he just called today's Iraq hit on Romney "below the belt" and said "honor has been McCain's watchword" — he should admit that was wrong to do.

Evidently Double-B hasn't still figured out the real McCain yet - though it looks like he's beginning to.

The pro-McCain New York Times:

"The charge appears to be misleading."

NRO Editor Rich Lowry:

As I've said before, McCain deserves a large part of the credit for the surge—he pushed to have it implemented both in his public advocacy and his behind-the-scenes lobbying of the Bush administration, and he has been its foremost defender. Romney wasn't as enthusiastic about it and in his body language, if nothing else seemed ready to distance himself from it if it failed. This is a perfectly legitimate issue for McCain to raise, and he has, by saying things like Romney was "looking at his shoes" while he was putting it all on the line for the surge.

But that doesn't justify the rank dishonesty of his attack on Romney over the weekend. It's so shamelessly unfair, it's the kind of thing you'd expect of Bill Clinton attacking Barack Obama. Clearly, McCain wants to change the topic from the economy. And since he's suffering from his "straight-talk" about his relative lack of knowledge of and interest in the economy, he's trying to compensate with the opposite of straight talk—blatant distortions—about Romney's record.

As Ramesh notes (citing Paul Mirengoff), McCain may feel entitled to this cheap shot given his own courage on the surge. He also might think that his press coverage is so adoring that he can get away with anything, and Romney is so firmly branded as a "flip-flopper" that any charge will stick. But I think something else is going on. McCain has always given the impression of reserving his true scorn for his enemies within his own party. I have a hard time imagining McCain making this kind of dishonest accusation against a Democrat—it would be uncivil and dishonorable. But making it against a fellow Republican running to his right? No problem. On top of this, there's the personal animosity McCain feels toward Romney. Indeed, in one of those debates in New Hampshire, McCain spoke warmly of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at the same time he was giving off waves of hatred toward Romney.

How will this play? If there's one thing we know about late-breaking events in this primary season, it's that it's impossible to know how they'll play. But I wouldn't be surprised if it back-fires on McCain. The attack succeeded in the sense that it tipped the conversation back toward Iraq, but at a potential cost to McCain. His most important political asset is his political character, his reputation for truth-telling and honorable politics. This dishonest low-blow—if it continues to get attention in the closing hours—could chip away at that asset.

CNN's Jeff Toobin:

Suffice it to say, if there were still a few days to a week left until the Florida vote, Darth Queeg would be in serious trouble.

However, that's not the case.  That election is tomorrow, and from the weekend polling trend, it appears that "the old McCain of 2000" re-emerging had just the effect the Arizona "maverick" was looking for:

1/26/08: Romney 27.0%, McCain 26.9%, Giuliani 17.3%, Huckabee 15.0%

1/27/08: McCain 28.8%, Romney 27.9%, Giuliani 15.8%, Huckabee 13.6%

That trend is also reflected in the Rasmussen poll that Praetor Hewitt cites:

1/26/08: Romney 33%, McCain 27%.

1/27/08: McCain 31%, Romney 31%

Bottom line is, McCain smeared Romney as a defeatist, and overnight he surged six points in the most accurate poll and a point in the overall composite, the Sunday and Monday newscycles are focused on this and not the economy, and despite his best efforts, Romney will have virtually no time to recover from it.

Everybody knows the term "swiftboated" from the truth about John Kerry's real Vietnam service record coming out during the 2004 general campaign.  But there really should be a term for a sucker-punch on the eve of an election; how about "DUI'd"?  Remember when the thirty-year-old DUI story came out about George W. Bush five days before the 2000 election, and his mid-single-digit lead collapsed into that infamous photo-finish - centered, appropriately enough, on Florida?  That "gotcha" caused undecideds to break three to one for Al Gore.

In close elections, it doesn't take much to swing the results one way or the other.  If John McCain pulls out the Florida Primary tomorrow and seizes the mantle of GOP front-runner, he'll have his near-perfectly timed DUI-ing of Mitt Romney to thank for it.

Will it hurt him on Super Tuesday?  C'mon, by that time the Enemy Media will have either buried McCain's smear so deep the worms won't find it, or they'll be playing it up and flogging Romney as traitor right alongside him, while playing down the economy by crediting "Hillary Clinton's stimulus idea" (that President Bush me-too'd, of course) with having saved us from a recession.

Or perhaps it will backfire and Romney will win.  I was about ready to count on it.

Sadly (and you have no idea how much, but will with a certainty find out), not anymore.

Just as John McCain is frantically trying to repackage himself as a faux conservative for the Florida Republican-only electorate whose votes he has to have to qualify as bona fide GOP frontrunner, the New York Times spits out this endorsement like a brick:

Senator John McCain of Arizona is the only Republican who promises to end the George Bush style of governing from and on behalf of a small, angry fringe. With a record of working across the aisle to develop sound bipartisan legislation, he would offer a choice to a broader range of Americans than the rest of the Republican field.

We have shuddered at Mr. McCain’s occasional, tactical pander to the right because he has demonstrated that he has the character to stand on principle. He was an early advocate for battling global warming and risked his presidential bid to uphold fundamental American values in the immigration debate.

So in the eyes of the "paper of toilet," Republicans are a "small, angry fringe" (but the anti-war left is the epitome of comportment and civility), and John McCain will continue to shaft them on behalf of his "friends across the aisle" to advance the Democrat agenda.  He has the "character" to stand on left-wing principles like using the global warming hoax to collectivize and crash the economy and "uphold the fundamental American value" of inviting Mexico to colonize the continental United States.

On these grounds, Republicans in Florida and across the country - that "small, angry fringe" - should, according to the New York Times, nominate John McCain to be the Republican nominee for president in 2008.

And I'm to understand the "Grey Hag" wants McCain to win?

If the idea wasn't preposterous, I could almost wonder if they're on Mitt Romney's payroll.

UPDATE: Double-H and J-Ger are just as incredulous.

UPDATE II: Wow, do you think Darth Queeg is prouder of his "conservative record" or the New York Times endorsement?

UPDATE III: Latest Florida polling composite: McCain 25.3%, Romney 25.2%, Giuliani 18.2%, Huckles 15.0%

That was before the NYT endorsement and Romney's clear victory in last night's debate.

Point to ponder: If this trend continues through next Tuesay, will Darth Queeg's head explode?

UPDATE IV: Romney wastes no time, and dispenses with subtlety:

Have you ever JIP'd (joined in progress) a debate group live-blog you didn't know was scheduled as the first question was about to be asked?  Welcome to my evening.

Here's my assessment, posted at Heading Right.

~  ~  ~

Romney was smooth as cream, in command, and yes, likeable.  Even if the emphasis hadn’t been on the economy, which greatly favored him, I’d have narrowly given him the “gold”.  As it was, Mitt took the night by a comfortable margin.

McCain was sedate, but it was clear that he was laboring to try and get around that little detail of having kicked the Republican base in their happy places at every opportunity for the past seven years.  Note to Lord Queeg: Cramming every answer with several insistances of having a “conservative” record and how “proud” you are of it doesn’t make it so.  The expression, “Methink thou dost protest too much” comes to mind.  Next time try losing your temper.  At least it’d be a better diversion.

Rudy had some good moments, but my lasting impression of his performance tonight didn’t leave any lasting impression.  He seemed to be following along in Romney’s wake on the economic questions.  Given the level he had to be at tonight to reverse his Florida slide over the past month, I don’t think he got it done.  On the other hand, he might have the inside track at being Romney’s attorney-general.

Huckles?  “Dandy Don” Merideth said it best: “Turn out the lights, the party’s over….”

And what was Ron Paul doing on that stage?

Steven Stark, actually.  As pipedreams go, his fantastical scenario of Senator Thompson emerging as the consensus nominee at a brokered GOP convention this summer is not implausible, provided all its numerous pre-conditions were to fall into place.  But any Fredhead who'd actually count on such a lark is so loosely grounded in reality that they probably were never a "Thompson enthusiast" in the first place.

And, of course, FDT would have to be amenable to the deal as well.  If this rumor about him running for governor of Tennessee in 2010 is valid, it tells me that he's already planning his 2012 presidential run and wouldn't want to be offered up as a sacrificial goat on Hillary's alter.

Yes, that would be highly reminiscent of Reagan running in 1980 after losing the GOP nomination in 1976.  Something tells me if Her Nib's first term unfolds as I expect it to, and she hasn't abolished the Constitution and canceled elections indefinitely by then, Fred '12 could have a very similar result.

Michelle Malkin sure as heck doesn't:

After spearheading a disastrous, security-undermining, illegal-alien amnesty bill last year with Teddy Kennedy, “straight-talking” GOP Senator John McCain claims he has seen the light. In TV appearances, he vows to put immigration enforcement first. On the campaign trail, he offers a perfunctory promise to strengthen border security and emphasizes the need to restore Americans’ trust in their government’s ability to defend the homeland.

“I got the message,” he told voters in South Carolina. “We will secure the borders first.”

But how can McCain cure citizens’ distrust when his own credibility on the issue remains fatally damaged? He doesn’t believe his own election-year spin. And he knows we know it. This is cynicism on steroids with a speedball chaser.

Not all of us have forgotten how the short-fused Arizona senator cursed good-faith opponents in his own party (“Fuck you!” and “chickenshit” were the choice words he had for Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn during a spat over enforcement provisions). Not all of us have forgotten that he voted against barring felons from receiving amnesty benefits under his plan. Not all of us have forgotten the underhanded, debate-sabotaging manner in which McCain, Kennedy, Lindsey Graham, and Harry Reid conspired to ram their package down voters’ throats.

His admission of the shamnesty failure is grudging and bitter. While he now tells conservative voters what they want to hear about the need to build the southern border fence, he takes a contemptuous tone toward physical barriers when talking to businessmen. “By the way, I think the fence is least effective,” he told executives in Milwaukee, according to a recent Vanity Fair profile. “But I’ll build the Goddamned fence if they want it.” Straight talk? Try hate talk.

If that's how he really feels about building a border fence - and it is - how are we supposed to take seriously his cynical, patently insincere gestures at mending fences with the conservatives whose votes he needs to win GOP-only Florida next Tuesday?

Remember as well that "Sailor" has never, in 2000 or thus far in 2008, been the top Republican vote-getter in ANY caucus or primary.  He took New Hampshire and Michigan eight years ago, and New Hampshire and South Carolina this time, on the strength of non-Republican votes in "open" contests.  Can he really hoodwink Florida 'Pubbies into believing that he's already the front-runner and cutting him a pass?

Looks like it's gonna be a photo finish.  The latest Florida polling composite has Mitt Romney passing Rudy Giuliani to come within two points of the Sith master: McCain 24.3%, Romney 22.1%, Giuliani 19.1%, Huckles 15.4%.  If you figure that Romney should pick up most Fredheads, and appears to be doing just that, you begin to see why the Intrade betting money is shifting towards the Mittster.

Five days doesn't seem like much.  But for Darth Queeg, the next such time bloc will be practically an eternity, in which, if all goes well, he watches helplessly as the GOP nomination, so tantalizingly close, slips inexorably out of his grasp once again.

One of those periodic moments when I get plucked from my dichotomous obscurity has happened again - and, in a way, I actually have John McCain to thank for it.

And, of course, Ed Morrissey, whose - what's the right word? - gentle analysis of the Supreme Chancellor's candidacy and chances at hornswaggling conservatives into getting behind it inspired a counterpoint from moi that earned the accolade of being mentioned in the same "fine bloggers" breath with Powerline's Brother Meringoff.  Guess all that brownnosing on Hard Starboard Radio wasn't a complete waste of time after all.

Today the Admiral posts his rebuttal in the context of illustrating the daunting task Darth Queeg faces in trying to smooch the right-wing faces in which he's been whizzing constantly for the past seven years:

Obviously, I disagree with JASmius, but he does have a point. McCain has created much of the bad blood with conservative pundits and activists, and he hasn't tried hard to soothe the ruffled feathers over the years.

He hasn't tried at all, until now, when he needs something from us.

I don't consider McCain "weaselly" at all, and in fact, it's his allergy to pandering that has caused most of his problems. Conservatives seem to love that when it comes to his positions on the Iraq war and foreign policy - especially his hard-line rhetoric about Iran - but certainly don't appreciate it when he scornfully disagrees with conservatives rather than liberals.

I suppose that we need to tie down a definition of "pandering".  Since the topic isn't Bill Clinton, we can eliminate the prostitution references.  That leaves this one:

To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses.

To whom is Senator McCain pandering?  Conservatives.  What weakness is he seeking to exploit?  Our horror at a Hillary Clinton presidency.  What is his selling point?  His purported "electability".  Where does the suggestion of his purported electability come from?  Hypothetical Rodham-McCain polling.  Who comes up with those numbers?  The liberal media.

Sounds like the proverbial bill 'o goods to me.

Indeed, it is with the press, and his "good friends" on the other side of the aisle that "Sailor" has cavorted for years, all the while scorning and shafting his fellow Republicans on issue after issue.  He didn't need anything from them, so one can only conclude that that was the company he desired to keep. (I think McCain would have taken up John Kerry on his running mate offer in 2004 had he not retained presidential ambitions of his own.)  Conservatives cannot be faulted for associating McCain with that company, and balking at demands that, in response to his supposed Damacus-Road-Reaganism, they become supinely "credulous" now that he seeks to do in Florida what he has never done in either of his presidential runs: win a "closed" (i.e. Republican-only) primary. 

The Arizona "maverick" is desperately trying to tell Florida Republicans what they want to hear so that he can use them to grab the "inevitability" mantle and coast through Super-Duper-Tuesday and onto the nomination.  Once he has that mantle in hand, the cultivating of the Right will end, and the McCain of McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Lieberman, and the Gang of 14 will return, cackling all the way to Minneapolis.

It's too late for that.  Rudy's social liberalism has been no secret for years, but he never went out of his way to rub evangelicals' faces in it, either.  That made it relatively simple for him to "agree to disagree" on social issues like abortion and gay rights and still remain a viable candidate with the base (other than with the Huckabeeans).  McCain, by gaping contrast, has made a second career out of being the self-proclaimed spoiler of most, if not every, high-priority conservative agenda plank, then going on the Sunday shows to grinningly collect all the coifed talking heads' slobbering accollades for it.  To call him a "conservative" after the past seven years is like calling Ted Kennedy a Catholic: maybe he was long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, but he's been practicing a vastly different "faith" ever since.

There's an old saying: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."  Eight years ago, John McCain tried to fool us, and we didn't bite; ever since then he's inflicted one betrayal after another upon us for our perspicacity.  And now we're going "take the blue pill" and believe whatever he wants us to believe?

I'll believe that only when I see it.

But I will never accept it.

It's official - the true conservative in the 2008 Republican presidential race is out:

Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people.

If the party had wanted to benefit from Fred's candidacy, it would have nominated him.  That it looks to be turning to the Dark Side dismayingly suggests that it hasn't learned a thing from his efforts, and that if it ultimately does, the lesson will be a lot longer and hellish than anybody apparently realizes.

So be it.  Fred got in too late, but the truth is his campaign was the contemporary equivalent of somewhere between Ronald Reagan's 1968 and 1976 bids.  He was the right man, but he chose about the worse election cycle imaginable to run, in which everything he brought to the table - Reaganesque conservatism (and style), serious leadership, and more genuine "straight talk" than John McCain ever dreamed of - was the antithesis of what even Republican voters appear to want.

A GOP that was energized and motivated to go out this year and win, regardless of the odds, would not be flailing around between various shades of decades-obsolete Rockefeller liberalism.  It would know what it stood for, what it wanted to accomplish, where it came from and how it got where it is, where it wanted to go,and who could best take it there.  Maybe - probably - it still wouldn't win, but there'd have been the solace of having left everything "out on the field".  We'd lose, but we'd have no regrets - and no excuses.

The GOP that is is divided, demoralized, dazed, and dizzy.  Its "brand" is in the septic tank, and it stands on the brink of nominating its own Benedict Arnold and in so doing unraveling every last smidgen of the hard-won progress it has made from irrelevant rump entity to governing majority in my lifetime.  It is about to go from unified control of the federal government all the way back to irrelevant rump entity in the space of two years.

Could nominating Fred Thompson have averted that?  Again, probably not.  But we would at least not be forgetting, and willfully abandoning, who we are and what we stand for for the electoral equivalent of three magic beans.  And the foundation would still have been there for a near-term, 1994-like comeback.  After this campaign, though?  Fughedaboudit.

Our prayers are with Fred, Jeri, and their family, and for the recovery of his ill mother, as well as our gratitude for carrying the discarded Reagan mantle as best he could in a time when it was, and is, so short-sightedly unappreciated.  FDT and the GOP deserved so much better.

How much better will become excruciatingly apparent (barring a Romney triumph) over the course of the next few months and years.

UPDATE: Count me in, Dr. Shackleford.  With Fred's departure, where else but to Mitt's banner are we going to go?

UPDATE II: If Pat Ruffini's poll of Fredheads' second choices is accurate, FDT's withdrawal would transform the current Florida polling composite to: Romney 25.6%, McCain 23.9%, Giuliani 21.8%, Huckabee 17.1%.

The term "taking one for the team" comes to mind.

Believe it or not, I think E.J. Dionne has a point.  John McCain's biggest weakness is the huge reservoir of enmity and mistrust he's built up over the past seven years in the GOP base whose votes he is going to need to capture the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.  He's wasted no opportunity to shaft his own party on its most valued conservative causes in no small part as retribution for being rejected eight years ago in favor of George W. Bush.  For a man of McCain's titanic (even for a U.S. senator) ego, that was an unforgiveable afront.  It was his turn, bleep it, and it was those blankety-blank right-wingers who denied it to him and handed it to that smirking, malapropositic frat boy instead.  Don't think for a moment that he's forgotten, much less forgiven, any of it.

From "Sailor's" two primary wins so far, it seems that there is a significant plurality of Republican voters who have - foolishly - forgotten and/or forgiven him.  But still not enough to relieve his dependency upon non-Republicans, who cannot ultimately skew him over the top in the preponderance of "closed" contests upcoming.  He's going to need to bamboozle more 'Pubbies to fully seize frontrunner status, and just as he needs to lurch right-ward in order to capture Florida, here comes Rudy Giuliani out of the nowhere in which he's been residing for the past two months ready to pounce on both the social issues ground McCain would be vacating (implicitly) to head off Huckabee and the economic policy ground toward which McCain is trying (explicitly) to tack.

That is a more formidable task, I think, than the Admiral thinks it is:

The major differences between McCain and the conservative base isn’t policy as much as it is tone....McCain has to make amends with the base on two policy issues, McCain-Feingold and McCain Kennedy.

Anybody paying attention to John McCain's gleeful policy heresies of the past seven years knows that policy and tone are, for him, two sides of the same coin.  And it isn't just on campaign finance reform and immigration amnesty that the "Arizona maverick" has burned down the reservation.  There's his classist opposition to the Bush tax cuts, his championing of environmental extremism while still Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, his "anti-torture" crusade that seeks to accord full constitutional rights to captured enemy combatants and kneecap efforts to gather critical intelligence needed to prevent terrorist attacks.  And dare any of us forget arguably McCain's biggest back-stab of all, the "Gang of 14" deal that nullified any attempt to terminate Senate Democrats' extra-constitutional filibusters of appellate court nominations.  In that one piece of spiteful backroom manuevering John McCain signed the death warrant for his party's Senate majority and displayed his faithlessness to the Constitution he wants to be sworn in to uphold.

And now that he needs the votes of that self-same Republican base that he has scorned for all these years, "Mr. Straight Talk" is pandering to them with all his weasely might.

Speaking for myself, it isn't so much that I don't like John McCain - though I do not have any affinity for pompous asses with volcanic tempers - as that I don't trust him.

Case in point:

Saturday night, the senator gave an uplifting and patriotic speech that highlighted America-first security and freedom against the jihadist enemy abroad and heavyhanded government at home. Focusing on conservative values and pro-growth economics, McCain defended the free market, low taxes, and small government.

In an interview McCain said he would make the Bush tax cuts permanent, cut the corporate tax, and restrain spending. On the so-called stimulus package, he said he would not support a larded up pork-barrel package. This is a well-balanced tax-and-spending-cut message. 

Nice words.  Wish I could believe them.  Wish I could believe that he has "recanted" on the McCain-Kennedy "shamnesty" that he's pushed with a zealot's fervor in consecutive congresses (the last such iconoclastic lib cause he championed so stubbornly?  McCain-Feingold).  But sorry, gentlebeings, I'm not buying it.  Seven (more than that, really) years of treacherous deeds are not outweighed by a reassuring speech and interview.  To me it is prima facie evidence of the utter, sizzling contempt in which he holds the Right that he thinks all he has to do is belch Reaganistic bromides in our direction the one time when he needs us and we'll swoon right onto his bandwagon.

We had better hope that there are still enough conservatives who haven't forgotten John McCain's chronic, deliberate, burr-up-the-saddle-ness to ensure that "Sailor"'s betrayals won't be rewarded with the prize he was rightly denied nearly a decade ago.  Otherwise we're headed for the biggest swindle of all - a general election heel (i.e. left) turn that will functionally disenfranchise the Right and delight his media pals - and one that, frankly, we'll deserve if we demonstrate, by nominating John McCain, that his contempt for us was thoroughly well-earned.

First and foremost, let's remember that there are two other state nominating contests before next Tuesday's Florida Primary: the Louisiana and Hawaii Caucuses.  Just off the top of my head (I can't find any polling data for either one online), I'm picking Mike Huckabee to win the former and Mitt Romney to win the latter.  Assuming winner-takes-all in both, that would update the delegate count to: Romney 92, Huckles 76, McCain 38, Thompson 8, Giuliani 2.

Now, then, to my current Florida polling composite: McCain 23.3%, Giuliani 20.5%, Romney 19.2%, Huckles 16.7%, Thompson 8.7%.  So, currently, depending upon the size of the margin of error, it's either "Sailor" and Rudy, or "Sailor," Rudy, and Mitt, with the "maverick" holding the slight advantage.

RomneyIsGod's post-South Carolina spin is that Governor Romney is slightly ahead overall in the cumulative primary/caucus vote total and the Florida Republican electorate is an amalgam of all the primary/caucus states so far, so Romney should have the edge.  Plus there's one poll that bolsters this theory.  Preator Hewitt also highlights Mayor Giuliani's economic policy broadside at Senator McCain today.  And, lastly, he reminds us of what should be McCain's intractable weakness in "closed" contests with Republican-only electorates. 

I don't frequent Giuliani Central Hub much anymore, ironically in more or less direct proportion to Rudy's slow fade from the GOP presidential race up to now.  One of their number, The Dreaded Quinn Hillyer, actually threw a bone to us "Fredheads":

[H]ere is what I would do, politically, if I were Thompson: I would just lay low. Just wait. See what happens in Louisiana's caucuses tomorrow. See what happens in Florida next week. See who drops out of the race at some point. And then consider reviving my campaign, full force, once the field is narrower. The likelihood is that Thompson would win in a one-on-one contest vs. ANY of the remaining candidates, and he might even win pluralities in a three-way race. Even after Super Tuesday, there will still be nearly half of the delegates to be awarded. And, depending on what happens in Florida, the chances of a brokered convention look increasingly realistic (not yet LIKELY, but definitely more and more possible). If he enters the convention on a roll, having won several of the later contests, he could still emerge as a consensus choice.

Yeah, sure.  And if the New York Giants' charter flight crashed on the way to Arizona, my Seattle Seahawks might still get to represent the NFC in Super Bowl XLII as a "second alternate."  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the sentiment.  But this scenario depends not just on a brokered convention, but one in which the McCainiacs and Huckabeeans haven't the delegates to strong-arm the sort of corrupt, back\-stabbing backroom deal that Darth Queeg is famous for.  More on that a little later.

And, from a quarter that has yet to pick a horse, the Admiral is tentatively picking Rudy to pull out Florida, an outcome that would leave the GOP race muddled but with Romney having a leg up delegate-wise going into the Super-Duper Tuesday "delegate hunt".

Given that I took today off, I had the time to work on my primary campaign spreadsheet and flesh out the "2008 GOP State-By-State Polls" tab with as much polling data as I could find online, and still plug ample data-less holes with educated guesses.  I also used a blanket winner-take-all assumption even though some states will have proportional delegate allocation, and kept the "Big Five" in the race for the duration.  This is a general, rule-of-thumb estimate, not a firm prediction.  Heck, I don't make those until the night before an election, and I'm not even going to be daft enough to try and call Florida before next Monday night/Tuesday morning.

Yet I still find it both intriguing and potentially very instructive in the difference the results in Florida could have on a brokered convention.

Here are the delegate totals I come up with if McCain wins Florida: McCain 658, Giuliani 555, Huckles 544, Romney 398, Thompson 211.

And if Rudy takes Florida: Giuliani 612, McCain 601, Huckles 544, Romney 398, Thompson 211.

What is the difference, you ask?  The combined McCain-Huckabee delegate total vis-a-vie the number needed to clinch the Republican presidential nomination.  Recall the possible cahootsedness between Darth Queeg and Darth Scudder.  If McCain doesn't catch fire as the "inevitable" frontrunner and his weakness in "closed" (i.e. GOP-only) primaries remains, and particularly if the twenty-two February 5th contests don't clarify anything, the likelihood of a brokered convention in Minneapolis this summer becomes an increasing certainty.  In that case, none of the candidates would have the minimum 1,191 delegates needed to claim victory.  But if McCain were to win Florida, he would not only have the biggest delegate plurality, but if Hucker threw him his support - say, in exchange for the #2 spot on McCain's ticket - "Sailor" would "soar" to 1,202.  Game, set, match.  Whereas without Florida, the two Lords of the Sith would be forty-six delegates short. 

Of course, the whole thing may be moot, since McCain is up double-digits in California and has a seven point lead over Rudy in New York.  If Giuliani's voluntary sit-out of the early contests and resulting fade becomes terminal - which you would have to figure it would be if he can't win Florida - then a lot of what had been Rudy's support would probably drift to McCain, in which case he might not need the Rev'rund's support after all, and the indebtedness to those crazy snake-handlers that'd come with it.  Which would suit a Christophobe like "Sailor" just fine.

Once again, it's about perceptions.  Rudy wins Florida, and the perception is there is no front-runner; Romney or McCain win, and one or the other is the front-runner.

Or Fred could sit around even longer and then swoop in and clean up.  And while he's at it, come up with a diet that lets me eat more, exercise less, and shed pounds like my cat sheds fur.

Thanks, Quin.

UPDATE: As regards McCain's announced opposition to "national catastrophe insurance," and the supposed backfire it's expected to cause amongst Florida GOPers, might I point out that, unlike his similar rhetoric regarding automotive industry jobs in Michigan, the electorate in Florida, unlike Michigan, is Republican-only.  And fiscal responsibility is something that the GOP grassroots has been demanding, so myopically that they helped cashier their own congressional majority fourteen months ago.

Frugality "straight talk" didn't help "Sailor" in Michigan with Dems and "Independents" (pardon the redundancy), but one would logically expect it to be what Pachyderms, in Florida and elsewhere, want to hear.  Certainly it's what McCain wants Florida Republicans to hear given Rudy's "the rest of the McCain story" disclosures.

UPDATE II: Here's some sage advice for 'Pubbies consumed with an obsessive over-focus on "electability":

So, conservatives, embrace the political reality of 2008: Either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is likely to be your next president....political history , Bush’s unpopularity, and economic wobbliness all stack the odds against the Republicans.

To those tempted by these facts to endorse a GOP candidate who dislikes and alienates key elements of the conservative coalition, remember that there are worse things than losing an election. Given the odds, such a desperate gambit will probably still result in a November loss, but with lasting collateral damage to political alliances, institutional credibility, and personal integrity.

I disagree with John Hood when he says that "we can survive a third Clinton administration".  The first two didn't have responsibility for fighting and winning a global war against WMD-wielding Islamic fanatics; indeed, their deriliction of that responsibility got us into this war, and handing it back to them would probably get us crippled or destroyed.

But with a non-fragmented Right, that window of harrowing vulnerability could be limited to four years; a party/coalition-shattering McCain usurpation would extend it for a generation.

UPDATE: Mark Levin tries again, doggedly, to get through to Republican voters what an unmitigated disaster a McCain nomination would be for the GOP and the country.  Please, read the whole thing, take it to heart, and vote accordingly.

Hey, if Nevada is involved, the word "skin" has to be in there someplace.

But the sun rises first on the frigid (no pun intended) Bible belt, specifically South Carolina, where balloting is now already underway.  Here is how the races look on each side in the Palmetto state:

GOP:  McCain 27.0%, Huckabee 25.4%, Romney 14.3%, Thompson 13.9%, Giuliani 3.6%

McCain was surging here since his New Hampshire win, but has slid back within the margin of error in my composite.  Of the nine polls taken over the past four days, only two show "Sailor" with a statistically significant lead, and one has him (back) down to Huck by seven points.

This has to be primarily the fruits of Fred Thompson's recently discovered vigor in going after both Huckles and the Arizona "maverick."  God bless Fred for it, but I just wish he'd opened fire on McCain first.

The Admiral is picking Huck, Pat Ruffini is urging S.C. Romneylans and Fredheads to vote for "the GOP's Al Sharpton" in a last-ditch effort to slay the McCainiac beast once and for all, but I can only go with the numbers in front of me and pray the Cloverfield isn't a sneak preview of the Minneapolis convention.

Meanwhile, things have taken a turn for the better in Nevada - in the anti-Queeg sense, that is....

GOP:  Romney 25.7%, McCain 20.7%, Huckabee 12.3%, Giuliani 11.7%, Thompson 10.7%

The Brothel state's community of Mormon expatriots from neighboring Utah are said to be a significant source of strength for Romney's surge here over the past week.  This, of course, isn't terribly encouraging if you're a Romneylan as it suggests more of the same self-limiting identity politics that has kept Huckles from advancing beyond his myopic evangelical base.  But if it shafts McCain in the end, I shan't be complaining.

In the bigger picture, winning Nevada is, for the Mittster, an offset for bypassing South Carolina, at least in terms of the delegate count.  As there is no set method of allocating Nevada Republican delegates, there's no way to predict how many Romney may win if the above numbers hold (or he exceeds them), but there are thirty-four to choose from versus twenty-four in winner-take-all South Carolina, so Romney doesn't figure to lose delegate ground to either Darth Queeg or Darth Scudder.

But in the perception contest, a McCain win in South Carolina would not be a good thing.  The aforelinked Ruffini piece goes on at considerable length about the momentum it would give the "Republican Scoop Jackson".  (Pardon me for a moment while I look out my window and watch the squadron of winged pigs fly by).  Whereas, in the opinion of Jay Cost, Romney, even with his Michigan victory, needs McCain to lose today in South Carolina to even have a shot at eking out a win in Florida to truly regain any chance at national viability.

Speaking of which....

GOP: McCain 23.2%, Giuliani 20.3%, Romney 18.0%, Huckabee 17.3%, Thompson 8.5%

There's still ten days to go in the Sunshine state, and Rudy insists he's going to win there.  This would turn a triple-threat match at the top into a fatal four-way, and reel the oft-discussed scenario of a brokered convention considerably closer to becoming a realistic possibility.

On the other hand, with the February 5th "Super-Duper Tuesday" swath looming, and "retail" politics switching to the "wholesale" variety (i.e. candidates can't be in multiple states at the same time), mass media becomes a much larger factor.  And while Romney would have the resource advantage nationally (since, if all else fails, he can self-finance his campaign), guess who will have the incalculable, 527-esque advantage of a friendly Enemy Media establishment to lavish him with oodles of free, favorable publicity?  And that will do so in at least direct proportion to the savagery with which they'll bombard the other 'Pubbies, but especially Romney?

Yes, that's a rhetorical question.

The "big f'ing lizard" is coming.  Please, South Carolinians, kill it today.  Think of the barbeques you can have.

UPDATE: Oh, yes, the Donks are caucusing in Nevada today, too.  The pick:

Rodham 37.8%, Obama 33.8%, Edwards 18.0%

Ed says Obama by five, and I don't dispute that the polls haven't been all that accurate in the contests thus far, but even the Nevada composite has the Empress ahead (just) outside the margin of error, and all three polls are showing pretty close to the same result.

As I keep saying, remember the Clinton Corallary: the conventional rules of politics do not apply to them.  If any other candidate had used one of his party's big constituencies (Big Labor) to try and suppress the vote of another (African-Americans) in order to sabotage his principal rival (also an African-American), there wouldn't even be a grease spot on the floor to mark his remains.  If any other candidate's ex-presidential spouse had publicly lost his mind not once, but twice, said candidate would be a laughing stock even via reflected ignominy.

But it looks as if despite stepping on the aforementioned public relations rakes, Mrs. Clinton is going to win Nevada anyway.

And if not?  Then Obama solidifies his claim to the #2 spot on Hillary's ticket.

That's my job, ladies and gentleman: deflating the electoral suspense the rest of the blogosphere manufactures

Hey, it beats hiding under the bed in a fetal position dreading the unvoteable November horror of Medusa vs. Darth Queeg.

UPDATE II: Governor Romney and Senator Clinton have been declared the winners in Nevada.

"Toldjah" she'd get away with trying to disenfranchise Las Vegas minority Obama caucusers.  And how are the Arkansas Bonnie & Clyde celebrating Her Nib's Nevada triumph?  By accusing the very same Culinary Union workers whose votes they (by proxy) tried to suppress of vote suppression!

Gotta love that chutzpah.

Like she'll give us any choice....

UPDATE III: The anti-Hillary/pro-Obama spin has already emerged:

According to the demographics, over 70% of the caucusers are 45 years of age or older, and 59% of them are women. That looks like the caucusers have played directly into the demographic wheelhouse of Hillary Clinton....but she's only got a 6-point lead over Barack, 51%-45%. Given the strong demographics in her favor, this isn't exactly an impressive showing.

No, it isn't.  But many, including the Admiral, were predicting an Obama victory in Nevada, too.  Ditto New Hampshire, come to think of it.  So while B.O. enjoys a ten point lead over the Empress in South Carolina, don't be surprised if that gap doesn't "miraculously" shrink or disappear altogether by next Saturday.

UPDATE IV: McCain wins South Carolina.  Dammit, what the devil is wrong with South Carolinians, anyway?  Isn't anybody voting strategically instead of parochially this cycle?  The veterans vote for Lord Queeg (aided and abetted by the libs who in any other circumstances scorn them, and vice versa), evangelicals for Huckaburger, and the rest of the - there appears to be no other word for it - former Reagan coalition scatter to the four winds?  According to exit polls, illegal immigration and the economy are the top issues for Republican voters - illegal immigration!!!  McCain-Kennedy wasn't even a full year ago!  Can so many elephants have possibly forgotten that?

{sigh} I guess it wasn't like I didn't call it back on Tuesday.  Delegate-wise, Romney may well be further ahead tonight than he was this morning.  But in the primaries, as I've been saying, perception matters more than reality.  The perception will be that the first GOP candidate to get a second "major" victory is Darth Queeg.  And that'll make him the front-runner.

Dammit.  I don't know what the bigger disaster will be - losing the country to Hillary or losing the country AND my own party to the real-life "Manchurian candidate".

I wonder how Praetor Hewitt will try and spin this one.

Let's hope Rush and Dr. Richard Land are right. I really hate the thought of McCain or Huckabee winning South Carolina, although that certainly won't be the end of the line for either Thompson or Romney. I'm just surprised at the support these two non-conservatives have. We don't need to be more like the Democrats, moderate, go to the middle, any of that junk...if anything, we need to delineate the differences more sharply, just as Thompson does every time he opens his mouth. No wonder he's not getting much coverage, I'm sure he scares the socialist media to death.

JASmius: I dunno, Jen.  When the book drawing the biggest raves in conservative circles is one that advocates "dropping Reagan," and by inescapable implication at least most of the conservatism Reagan stood for, perhaps a burgeoning Rockefelleroid revival is inevitable.  Certainly John McCain's resurrection from well-deserved political death seems to suggest it.

That's what Rush Limbaugh suspects, according to Newsmax Insider Report:

Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh suspects that John McCain may have cut a deal with GOP presidential rival Mike Huckabee to have Huckabee siphon off votes from Mitt Romney.

Rush said that on the day after McCain’s victory in the New Hampshire primary, McCain told reporters that Christian conservatives should back him, saying: “A very large portion of the evangelical community is becoming more and more concerned about climate change because of our biblical obligation to be good stewards of our planet. That clearly is an issue that I’m in complete sync with the evangelical community on.”

Noting that Huckabee was thought to control the evangelical vote, Rush told listeners: “Governor Huckabee, at this stage, in my opinion, is in the race to take Romney out of the way for McCain…

McCain also reminded reporters that he has voted the anti-abortion line during his entire career.

Said Limbaugh: “In that way he’s going to take out Rudy [Giuliani, who has expressed support for abortion rights],” Rush said.

“So he’s going to try to get the Huckabee vote with the global warming route and try to get the evangelicals. He’s going to try to take Rudy out with his consistent abortion stand, which he is not fabricating.”

Judging by the results in Michigan on Tuesday, this deal didn't work out quite as intended, as Mitt Romney won the evangelical vote there by five points over Huckles and eleven points over McCain.  It probably wasn't the brightest idea to push environmentalist paganism in a state that is already in a long-term recession and would be economically decimated by "Sailor's" mythical "global warming" nonsense.  Nor was it evincing of Christian charity for the Arizona senator to tell Michiganders distressed at the decline of the US automotive industry, in essence, "Sorry, guess it sucks to be you, go apply at McDonalds," a most illiberal stand for a left-leaning Rockefeller Republican to take, and one that Governor Romney wasted no time in (shamelessly) exploiting.

I guess the Sith Master really does consider evangelicals to be sheep if he thought that the greenstremist apostasies of a few "mainline" CINO (Christians In Name Only) leaders would drag the rest of us along with them.  Leave it to an Australian Catholic Cardinal to lay down the facts that Lord Queeg (among infamous others) doesn't want to hear:

A cardinal in the Catholic Church says the hysteria over man-made climate change is akin to a “new religion” and a symptom of “pagan emptiness.”

Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia, has been the target of criticism in his country for expressing doubts about the validity of man-made global warming.

In an interview that appeared in the Catholic World Report, he said: “Right now, the mass media, politicians, many church figures, and the public generally seem to have embraced even the wilder claims about man-made climate change as if they constituted a new religion.

“These days, for any public figure to question the basis of what amounts to green fundamentalist faith is tantamount to heresy.”...

He said some of the more “hysterical and extreme” claims about impending climate change “appear symptomatic of a pagan emptiness, of a Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature…

“It’s almost as though people without religion, who don’t belong to any of the great religious traditions, have got to be frightened of something. Perhaps they’re looking for a cause that is almost a substitute for religion.”

Well, now, that would suit "Maverick" John McCain just fine, wouldn't it?  Maybe followers of Jesus Christ are not the "evangelicals" he's courting after all.  Unfortunately for him, the breed he seeks tends to inhabit the other party, and while Democrats may someday dictate the Republican presidential nomination, that day is not today.

As to the genuine article, if Michigan is any indication, they're beginning to drift away from his Sith apprentice, Darth Scudder, as well.

Looks like Darth Queeg has a ways to go before mastering the Dark Side of the Force after all.

Thank God.