This is separate from the specific arguments that can be made in many instances where the cost of providing drugs (or extending the payment for immunosuppressants for transplant recipients beyond the current max of three years for people who otherwise don't qualify for Medicare), or other treatment, may cost more up front, but in the long term are less costly than status quo practices.

“President Bush's new budget plan calls for $2.3 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, chiefly by renewing his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. …

Such a renewal, however, is dead on arrival in a Congress controlled by Democrats…”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120213798729240...

“The Bush administration would cut roughly $560 billion from Medicare over the next decade but would leave intact program subsidies to insurers worth an estimated $150 billion over the same period.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120213824163840...

http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/6fcd0c45-3467-42...

Meanwhile, evil, penurious Bush wants to spend like a Democrat more than ever:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120213421088140...

His stands on immigration haven't helped him, altho he seems to get more blame for this than George Bush, who, after all, made all of those speeches about a “comprehensive” immigration plan last year.

Conservatives hate him because he sponsored McCain-Feingold and because he worked with Teddy Kennedy on the immigration bill. That is selling out to them. Thompson may have the same voting record, but he doesn't have pictures of himself with Kennedy or Feingold-his style is much more low-key.
But that really is what makes McCain a leader. He's willing to do what it takes to get his agenda through, and is able to break the deadlock in Congress. If 25% of the time he discards conservative ideology or works with a liberal- well its nothing that GW himself hasn't done. I haven't seen him castrated for it to the degree that McCain was. Bush was reelected in 2004 after pushing NCLB and the Medicare drug program- both big government programs.

Its a mix of personality and policy differences, but I have no doubt that these same conservatives who are squawking about McCain now, will mysteriously “reevaluate” him by November, especially if Hillary Clinton is the Democrats' nominee, despite Ann Coulter's ridiculous comments.

I never was any good at calculus, which might explain why I have trouble understanding why conservatives are so horrified at a McCain candidacy and stranger still is that a goodly number of them are fleeing into Mitt Romney’s wet but welcoming grasp.

While I won't deny that McCain isn't a perfect candidate from the standpoint of some Republicans, particularly those with libertarian leanings (who are disproportionately represented in the blogosphere), I think that a good proportion of the reaction against is because they've been sold a bill of goods.

I haven't done the research so I may well be wrong but I don't remember these charges, i.e. that McCain “isn't a real conservative” or is a RINO, before he ran against GWB, the anointed candidate of the party establishment, in 2000. If that's true there are really only three likely explanations, that they're reacting to things he's done since 2000, that the party has changed since 2000, or that my speculation is correct and they're buying a load of propaganda.

Support for the latter is that McCain's voting record post-2000 is virtually identical to Fred Thompson's and we're not hearing these same charges made against Thompson.

It also may be personal. McCain can be cantankerous and that may have made some enemies within his own party.

However, as I've been saying for some time, the future of the White House may depend on Republicans' survival instinct. If national Republicans have the same lemming-like urge to self-destruction that Illinois Republican patently have, they'll nominate Mitt Romney, who'll be handily defeated by either Clinton or Obama.