McCain is the NOT choice of conservatives

E. J. Dionne Jr. – The McCain Divide? – washingtonpost.com

If John McCain secures the Republican presidential nomination, his victory would signal a revolution in American politics — a divorce, after a 28-year marriage, between the Republican and conservative establishments.

McCain would be the first Republican nominee since Gerald Ford in 1976 to win despite opposition from organized conservatism, and also the first whose base in Republican primaries rested on the party’s center and its dwindling left. McCain is winning despite conservatives, not because of them.

Those who built the American right, from Barry Goldwater in 1964 through the Reagan and Gingrich revolutions, are intensely aware of the dangers a McCain victory portends. Some on the right feel it would be less damaging to their cause to lose the 2008 election with the Republican-conservative alliance intact than to win with John McCain. …

Rush Limbaugh
has served as a spokesman for their cause. On his radio show Wednesday,
Limbaugh excoriated those who “pretend that Senator McCain is the
choice of conservatives when exit poll data from every primary state
show just the opposite.”

“He is not the choice of conservatives, as opposed to the choice of
the Republican establishment — and that distinction is key,” Limbaugh
declared. “The Republican establishment, which has long sought to rid
the party of conservative influence since Reagan
, is feeling a victory
today as well as our friends in the media.” …

But as one prominent conservative noted Wednesday night, Republican
elected officials are starting to fall into line behind McCain, despite
their reservations, simply because they think he will win. Their
capitulation signals the end of the Reagan-Bush era and the beginning
of something quite different.

Coulter wants Clinton over McCain
Posted: 11:25 AM ET

(CNN) — In the latest sign that a conservative backlash is starting to build against John McCain, conservative commentator Ann Coulter said Thursday she is prepared to vote for Hillary Clinton over the Arizona senator in a general election match up.

Speaking on Fox’s “Hannity and Colmes,” Coulter took aim at the GOP frontrunner, and suggested he was little more than a Republican in name only.

“If you are looking at substance rather than if there is an R or a D after his name, manifestly, if he’s our candidate, than Hillary is going to be our girl, because she’s more conservative than he is,” Coulter said. “I think she would be stronger on the war on terrorism.” …

“John McCain is not only bad for Republicanism, which he definitely is — he is bad for the country,” she said.

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