Conservative Punditry "Beside Themselves" About Potential McCain Nomination

New York Observer:

Certain conservative opinion makers are not pleased.

Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, much of the roster at the National Review and many (but certainly not all) of their more conservative talk radio and blogger colleagues are beside themselves at the prospect that one of the Republican contenders they deemed to be "not conservative" might be nominated. As Mike Huckabee won Iowa, John McCain took South Carolina and Fred Thompson bestirred himself to draft a note withdrawing from the race, the fretting has intensified. How could the voters reject their advice?

There are a few explanations the dismayed conservative punditocracy might use to explain their apparent disconnect with Republican voters.

One is that the electorate has not rejected their advice about what constitutes an unacceptable candidate. Voters are simply rejecting the flawed candidates who were poor standard-bearers for conservatism. This scenario seems eminently reasonable given that the pundits' favored contenders were in fact so terribly hobbled by their own shortcomings.

Read the whole story: New York Observer

Comments

[johnhummel]

I mostly agree with Wolfgang - the Linbaughs and Hannitys of the world will fall into place behind McCain, they'll say something like "Oh, we follow the voice of the people" and such.

Only because a McCain administration would be marginally nicer to them than an Obama/Clinton presidency would.

At the same time, McCain doesn't have a lot of love for the corporate lobbyist types either. He's not a saint - but compared to the other republicans, he's done a lot to try to reduce the influence of money upon the campaign, which is probably the #1 reason why the other Republicans can't stand him. Without their ability to buy the biggest microphone, the rest of their message doesn't go to far.

[Wolfgang]

They will do whatever their corporate bosses tell them to do. If McCain gets the nomination, they will all fall lockstep in line and support him. They all want to keep their nice fat paychecks. Money not ideology is their god.