Republican Hardliners Not Happy About McCain’s Florida Win

Here in Florida, Hillary and McCain carried the day. Giuliani apparently is planning to drop out of the race and give the nod to McCain. And some conservatives ain’t happy, to put it mildly. 

At The Corner, Michael Graham says, "Assuming there is no shocking revelation or health issue, the GOP nomination is over. Conservatives need to start practicing the phrase
"Nominee presumptive John McCa….." Sorry, I can’t say it. Not yet….. So it is over. Finished. In November, we’ll be sending out our most liberal, least trustworthy candidate vs. to take on Hillary Clinton—perhaps not more liberal than Barack Obama, but certainly far less trustworthy." Hey, cheer up, Michael Graham: Obama might still get the nomination!

Kathryn Jean Lopez, whose love for Romney is legendary, is keeping the faith alive. “I’ll shut up after this post, but Romney has been ON since Michigan. It may prove — it may have been proven tonight — to be too late. But this guy speaking right now, is hitting important issues, making you feel good about America, as you should. It’s a rallying speech. Maybe it’s the silly flip-flopping thing that has been too hard to shake. Maybe he took too long to rise above it.”

Maybe. Podhoretz pooh-poohs "the ridiculous early analysis." "Mitt Romney has no reason to back off, even though he will have lost four of the five real contests so far. He’s worked successfully now to establish himself as the McCain alternative, and there appears to be enough anger and suspicion of McCain among Republicans to make a Romney win plausible if McCain does something to injure himself." He does foresee "increasingly agitated conservative rage radiating toward him from the radio speakers and a browser near you." I expect McCain—-if his momentum continues, which I’d say is far from a foregone conclusion—will survive. He’s been the target of it so often.

I don’t expect these particular Republicans to take this in, but McCain’s success indicates that moderate Republicans and right-tilting independents might be as sick as Democrats over where their party’s hard right turn has taken them. Maybe a lot of people who consider themselves “conservative” would like a return to a more moderate sort of Republican party and a more moderate sort of Republican: a Gerald Ford sort of Republican, say—or a a George Romney sort. The reasoning sort of Republican we used to have, in other words, rather than the unreasoning sort that the politics of the last few years has tended to foster, the sort who puts the party (and political power) before principle and who allows reality to act as a check on policy.

I laugh out loud when people call McCain “liberal:; I firmly expect that a McCain presidency would in many respects represent a continuation of many of the policies now in place which I oppose. But there’s no doubt that McCain represents a type of Republican who will put principle before the party line—which is why conservatives regard him as untrustworthy. But—given the Bush Administration’s failures–you’d think they’d be looking for a new type of Republican to lead their party. Isn’t it meant to be a sign of insanity to keep on doing the same thing once you’ve seen it doesn’t work?