As Kurtz notes, the negative coattails of sitting out the General will be as detrimental – if not moreso – as a Dem President.

The last true mandate for RWR. We are still feeling the effects of that mandate today. Give the Dem President 58%-60% with both houses and the ramifications will be huge and last for a generation or more.

Let the fight for a GOP Congress begin in earnest … today!

The trend is your friend…

I would bet that a large number of McNuggets’ shills are just Democrats working to get the weakest opponent they can.

I know the Country Clubbers, the RINOs, and the “Moderate” Liberal GOPs want to ru(i)n the party.

Ya know, I am sitting here listening to some of the sound bites that Rush has, and I am getting abit perturbed. I am listening to all of these “moderates” and “independants” tell me that I shouldn’t be so unhappy about McCain. Well aren’t these the same people that abandoned us in the 2006 elections?? – Lorica

Lorica,

This is the same thing I see, and yet the paradox here is that many of the folks that are telling me I need to support Juan McCain are on this board and claim to be Conservatives!

This is why I see many McCain supports as just being shills for the Republcian party. If you have McCain in the general election, then all I see the choice for voting between two socialist. There is no Conservative choice once he wins.

I have noted the enthusiasm among the Obama supporters (and their relative youth). However, history supports that when the general election rolls around, these crowds tend to vote in much smaller numbers than other constituencies.

I think history is about to be broken here. Do you honestly believe that the opportunity to elect either the first woman or the first black as POTUS is going to be overlooked? The Democrats will receive record turnout in November – bank on it.

The Democrats have the super stars. They are energized in ways we could only imagine. How can we expect Republican conservative voters to be as excited about the prospect for voting for John McCain. I don’t see it.

I say go for broke at the convention because we are headed for a massive defeat in November with McCain at the top of the ticket.

*On that same note, while the delegate count might be split right now between Hillary and Obama, it’s unquestionable that the Democratic party is an energized party hungry for a WH victory after 2006’s rout of the Republican majority. Whichever candidate wins the nomination on the Dem side will likely get the enthusiastic support of most of the supporters of the second place candidate. While McCain may wind up getting support from most of the people who dislike him now on the Republican side, that support will not be enthusiastic nor do I forsee large amounts of campaign cash coming McCain’s way from those reluctant supporters.

Exactly right, Sisteroo! And I’d note too that your point is opposite to the mediots, who of course want to play up race and gender differences in America, so that they can wring their hands and tell us how awful we are. I’m glad you don’t do the same.

My mind’s a blur after last night, but I remember at one point on CNN, after Bill Schneider put up his exit poll figures on the number of white men who’d voted for Obama in one of the southern primaries, one of the panelists expressed astonishment while (was it maybe Bill Bennett?) gently chided that person and said “you seem not to have spent much time in the South lately.”

If the reluctant supporters who refuse to fund McCain continue to be reluctant, he’ll have no incentive to mollify them. No candidate wins a general election by going to the extremes; they drift toward the center. And that will be especially true in McCain’s case, because that’s where his support lies. And McCain being McCain, he’s more likely to tell the Limbaughs and the Coulters to stick it where the sun don’t shine than try to appease them. McCain’s built his political career for the most part on not going on bended knee to anyone (and when he tried it briefly his campaign tanked), so I don’t think he’s going to do so now.

Huck can’t win. Romney can’t win in the South (why?) and McCain can’t win because of his sticking the finger in the eyes of conservatives on too many issues.

Personally, I’d vote for any of the 3 over Obama or Clinton. But ST is right. There is too much enthusiasm on the Democrat side.

I can imagine if I was a young voter my enthusiasm would have me voting for Obama as I remember my liberal thought days pre 1991. I was excited for Paul Tsongas.