Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Conservatives and McCain

The Nightly Build...

Will Republicans Really Nominate McCain?

Two committed conservatives address the once unthinkable -- that the Republican Party is about to annoint John McCain as its standard bearer. William Murchison, in Dallas Blog, damns with faint praise. Rather than endorse McCain, he asks simply, "Who you got that's better." He then proceeds to rip all the other candidates, even those who have already dropped out of the race. Murchison makes Mitt Romney look as liberal as Clinton or Obama. In his estimation, it "makes minimal sense" to consider Romney to be a "true-blue Reaganite." Murchison concludes that McCain, with all his flaws, is the best the Republicans can do.

Murchison bumper sticker: "He's the best of a bad lot. McCain in 2008."

Mark Davis, in a column in The Dallas Morning News, isn't willing to accept flawed goods without a last-minute plea to Republicans to reject McCain. Davis calls a McCain nomination tantamount to marking the "end of Reaganism." Mitt Romney isn't perfect, but he's all that's left. Republicans once cheered Huckabee when he wounded Romney in Iowa. Republicans once cheered McCain when he wounded Romney in New Hampshire. Now that McCain has run off wins in South Carolina and Florida, and Thompson and Giuliani and Huckabee himself are out of it or all but, conservative Republicans have suddenly turned to Romney as their savior from McCain. Davis doesn't bother to explain how Romney, who once told voters that he was an independent during Reagan's administration and had no intention of returning to the Reagan years, has now become the Reagan torchbearer. Rather, it's all a desperate pitch to keep the nomination away from John McCain.

Davis bumper sticker: "Conservatives have no one to blame but ourselves. McCain in 2008."

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