Apoplectic Republican Conservatives Deserve John McCain

With John McCain now the odds-on favorite for the GOP nomination, conservative pundits are going into apoplexy. The Rush Limbaughs and other blow-hard commentators are burning up the airwaves with doom and gloom over the prospect of a Straight Talking Republican, having failed to foist one of several sure-fire losers on the party.

Don't you bet these folks all lament the moment former Senator George Allen macaca'd himself to death two years ago?

In any event, it's quite clear that there are more moderate, and even liberal, Republicans than some people thought, and they are clearly enjoying being the ones propelling McCain to victory.

What happened to the once all-powerful conservative wing of the GOP? The answer is pretty easy to see: George W. Bush. With "W's" election in 2000, and especially after his re-election in 2004, conservatives were in complete control of the government. And they blew it, big time.

They wasted a generous budget surplus faster than a redneck lottery winner. They went on an earmark spending spree. They borrowed over a trillion dollars, in part to give themselves a tax break and in part to pay for an unnecessary war. They mismanaged the economy to where it is today. They engaged in scandal.

Along came 2006 and Republicans got drubbed at the polls. But who paid the price in the GOP? The conservatives? No, it was moderates, left twisting in the wind, unprotected, by their party purity brethren.

So now the moderate wing of the Party is getting it's revenge, voting for McCain while the conservatives fight amongst themselves over the remaining candidates: Huckabee is a "liberal" says the Club for Growth; Romney is a Mormon--is that even Christian?--say the evangelicals; Thompson is lazy say the voters; none of them is Reagan (or at least, their ideation of Reagan).

Don't believe the Limbaughs, the Weakly Standard's, the Coulters who say McCain will "destroy" the party. They are the ones who destroyed it. McCain might just manage to put it back together again.

And the claim that conservatives will simply "stay home" in November if McCain is nominated? We could only wish that were so. They're not going anywhere. They'll complain, but they'll come out and vote in November, especially if Hillary is the opponent. (Or maybe not--they haven't been voting in large numbers in the primaries.)

When it's all over, John McCain should thank the conservatives for making his nomination possible!