Bitter Pill: McCain Wins Florida

Michael Graham, sounding a tad bitter over at the Corner, expresses how many conservatives are feeling, tonight:

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.

And the worst part for the Right is that McCain will have won the nomination while ignoring, insulting and, as of this weekend, shamelessly lying about conservatives and conservatism.

You think he supported amnesty six months ago? You think he was squishy on tax cuts and judicial nominees before? Wait until he has the power to anger every conservative in America, and feel good about it.

Every day, he dreams of a world filled with happy Democrats and insulted Republicans. And he is, thanks to Florida, the presidential nominee of the Republican party.

And on that note, I’m off to climb into a bottle of Bushmill’s. It’s going to be a LONG nine months.

It seems McCain’s a foregone conclusion at this point, no matter what Hugh says.  Or this guy, holding out hope for a Romney upset on Super Tuesday:

“Look,” I said to my young friends, “starting Wednesday at noon, Rush Limbaugh is going to pull out all the stops. He’s going to hammer McCain with everything he’s got. He’s going to come at him from every angle, for three solid hours, and then he’s going to do it for another three hours on Thursday, then Friday, then Monday, then Tuesday. You can count on 15 hours of Rush doing all he can to persuade conservatives not to vote for McCain, and that’s got to have some effect. Romney made it close, and a week is forever in politics. ….”

Wishful thinking. Rush has already pulled out all the stops against McCain. Take a look at his website, for crying out loud. He may as well rename it, “I Hate John McCain.com”.

Hell, he apparently even voted twice against him. Rush is a good soldier, but in the end, it wasn’t enough…for Florida, at least, and now Mitt has an increasingly difficult uphill battle ahead of him.

CBS News Analysis:

Still, it doesn’t seem likely that McCain will be able to land a knockout punch on Super Tuesday. Romney has what it takes to stay in the ring – deep pockets. And they are his own deep pockets to dip into.

The fact that these two men despise each other doesn’t bode well for the Republican party. One of them is going to emerge, battered and bruised as the party’s nominee, and then we have to expect him to beat the Democratic nominee whose rabid constituents are out numbering us at every contest, even the ones where there are no delegates at play.

The conventional wisdom has been that McCain is the only one who can beat Hillary, or Obama in November. Well, that may be true but what a bitter pill to have to swallow.

At least if his opponent is Hillary, we can look forward to “the most civilized election in American history”.

I guess congratulations are in order.