Flashback: Romney Courts the Media; Plus, Campaign Round-Up

Talk radio, of course, continues to pound McCain. As blurbed on Drudge, Limbaugh says he's not ready to make nice yet.

The article doesn't have a lot of surprises in it, except for this. This surprised me.

[Hugh] Hewitt also told the Associated Press yesterday that "Senator McCain is a great American, a lousy senator and a terrible Republican. He has a legislative record that is not conservative. In fact, it is anti-conservative." He said he would support Mr. Romney "if I was voting today."

Really?

It's probably time to retire that joke, at least for me. I can't keep knocking Hewitt for being a bit overly enthusiastic about being, ultimately, right. If some of us had seen the lay of the land as well as Hewitt and supported Romney as the best realistic consensus conservative candidate, we might not be in the position we're in now.

And on that, of course, Dan Riehl makes his own endorsement of Romney.

For what it's worth, I endorse Romney as well. As Protein Wisdom does, at least indirectly, in attacking McCain for CFR.

SpeechNow.org wants to criticize politicians who support restrictions on political speech. But first it has to get permission from the government.

Disgusting.

It's true that McCain performs better in polls against Hillary and Obama. It's also true that McCain's momentum may be almost impossible to stop at this point; McCain will have all the free media fawning, while Romney, despised by the media, will face nothing but hostility and will of course have to buy all of his positive media from his own account -- and that account is not limitless.

And McCain is likely to have 700 to 900 delegates locked up after Mega Tuesday. Just over 1100 are needed to win the nomination.

I suppose that, should McCain win, I will indeed fall in line and support him, weakly, unenthusiastically. But I'm not ready to make nice yet myself, not when the contest is still live and there is a chance to elect someone who, while hardly a consistent, consistent conservative, at least does not despise conservatives and see them chiefly as whipping boys to boost his own personal political power.

And McCain has yet to win among actual Republicans in any primary:

Has this ever happened before? This is kind of amazing. I'm looking at CNN exit polls at the numbers for self-identified Republicans. McCain lost self-identified Republicans by a point in New Hampshire (oddly, he won registered Republicans); he lost self-identified Republicans by 14 points in Michigan; and he tied among self-identified Republicans in South Carolina and Florida. In other words, McCain is close to the presumptive nominee GOP nominee without having won self-identified Republican voters anywhere. What an extraordinary—and utterly unlikely—path to the nomination.

At some point, on Mega Tuesday, we may finally have our say. Whether that will be enough, I don't know.

Related: Illegal immigrants may get stimulus rebates. Substitute "will" for "may" at your discretion.

McCain Will Be At CPAC... as will I, assuming I can still book a room.

Dan Riehl is ready to boo him. Michelle Malkin will probably want to ask him about Juan Hernandez. People at the Corner think it's a good opportunity to court conservatives.

Why bother? Giving us the finger and stabbing us in the back has worked pretty well for him so far.

posted by Ace at 03:04 PM

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