Live From The Reagan Library

SIMI VALLEY -- In a few moments, Rudy Giuliani will endorse John McCain in.. well, the spin room, but don't read too much into that.

Talk to a Romney adviser this morning and they're likely to acknowledge the unprecedented luck that their candidate will need to block McCain's path to the nomination.

Here in Los Angeles, a radio listener flipping back and forth between the city’s two top AM radio stations yesterday morning found two of the country’s largest conservative megaphones, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Reagan, all but urging their listeners to revolt against McCain. The litany of their complaints begins with his long-time advocacy of campaign finance reform, seen by some conservatives as both an affront to free speech and the source of their party’s current financial deficits, to immigration, to judges, to his unwillingness to court conservatives like Limbaugh.

This morning, Rush tried to maintain his resolve, giving what he called a "non-concession speech:

Here is the bottom line, ladies and gentlemen. I think this is it. There was a lot of anxiety among a lot of conservatives about Senator McCain. It's simply indisputable. But there was no figure in our roster of candidates who rose up to challenge him or galvanize conservative support. All the candidates on our side, for various reasons, are uninspiring or worse -- and so, just as I predicted, the base has fractured. Some going here, some going there. Senator McCain's been able to cobble together enough votes to win in a few states. Fine. He deserves credit for that. But to pretend that Senator McCain is the choice of conservatives when exit poll data from every primary state show just the opposite... He is not the choice of conservatives, as opposed to the choice of the Republican establishment -- and that distinction is key.

We'll see.

A McCain adviser said that "Once Rush recognizes that the race will be between John and Hillary Clinton, he'll come around."

There hasn't been any outreach...yet.. the first goal McCain has to unify the party, and he recognizes that Feb. 5 is only the first step.

Comments

Rush will come around to what? That McCain is a conservative? No way. McCain is NOT a conservative. That doesn't mean that he will not support voting for McCain over Hillary, but that would still not mean that he thinks McCain is conservative.

Posted by Joel | January 30, 2008 5:43 PM

Boy oh boy does it look beautiful there, from my vantage point in cold, gray Boston in January.

Posted by Jasper | January 30, 2008 6:00 PM

McCain's past actions represent much of what conservative Republicans detest about the Democrats. It's sad that only the thought of finally ending the Clintons' domination will motivate us to vote for McCain. In the end, McCain will accomplish much of what the Clintons wanted to get done in their third term anyway.

Posted by Brent | January 30, 2008 6:02 PM

There's one party in America, and that's the war party. Lieberman and McCain prove that.

Posted by Bjorn | January 30, 2008 6:06 PM

Enough with the unfounded rhetoric that McCain is not a conservative. Take a look at the record instead of the fabrication of self-interested pundits like Rush (who no doubt wants to see Hillary win -- the Clinton years were his best). Just because McCain crossed party lines on a few instances to get things done, does not mean his record is not conservative. For example, campaign finance reform. First, McCain-Fiengold was not signed into law. A substituted house version, Shays-Meehan, was passed by the House and the Senate. Oh, and guess who voted for it -- Fred Thompson. Clearly that disqualifies him from being a conservative. And who was the president that signed the legislation? Bush. Clearly, another liberal.

Posted by Robert Hornby | January 30, 2008 6:11 PM

Don't worry, they're all going to swallow hard, and squint a bit, and decide that Ol' Straight Talkin' John looks pretty good. That 75% rating from National Right to Life, that 100% from the Club for Growth, and a goose egg from NOW -- hey, deep down he's one of our guys!

To check interest group ratings, go to

http://www.vote-smart.org/issue_rating_category.php?can_id=53270

Posted by DHN | January 30, 2008 6:37 PM

A Neocon, if not a liberal.

Posted by Bjorn | January 30, 2008 7:11 PM

The once-upon-a-time values of conservatism have been shredded by Bush-Rove and the Republican congress -- now it appears to be a conservative you have to believe in big spending, big government, big deficits, going to war based on lies, torture, suspending the Constitution, tax breaks for the rich, and giving away the taxpayers hard-earned dollars to big oil, big corporate agribusiness, and bending the law to protect the Republican insiders.

The so-called conservative values I hear from the talk shows would fit better in a dictatorship. We once prosecuted war criminals. Now we praise them as being great leaders. Hogwash.

This kind of conservatism deserves to be dumped in the trash where it belongs.

Posted by Richard C Anderson | January 31, 2008 11:20 AM

The once-upon-a-time values of conservatism have been shredded by Bush-Rove and the Republican congress

Take this with a grain of salt as I do not consider myself a conservative, but whether or not McCain is a conservative seem a moot point. In my lifetime I have seen this idea of what conservatism is become so rigidly defined that it is impossible for anyone to be conservative. And likewise, liberalism has been so broadly defined that anything that doesn't fit conservatism's narrow definition is by default liberal. American politics has simply become schizophrenic. Bush-Rove are not the cause of this psychosis, but rather the result of years of obsession with ideological purity.

Posted by airmail | January 31, 2008 12:05 PM

Conservatism is easily defined these days - if you enthusiastically support torture, you're a conservative.

I have a great idea for deficit reduction I'd like to propose. Have Rush Limbaugh, Michael Reagan, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly strip down to loincloths and fight to the death in a steel cage and then crucify the "winner." Put it on pay-per-view. As a prelim you could have Coulter and Ingraham mudwrestle while trying to kill each other with knitting needles.

Hot wings and cold beer for everyone!

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | January 31, 2008 12:14 PM

The neocons (chickenhawks) and evangelicals (snake handlers) seem to be the victims of a moderate ("liberal") revolt within the GOP. There is a struggle for the base, and the heart and soul, of the GOP. The neocons must go as they are the albatross around the GOP's collective neck. The Worst President Ever is the origin of the need to throw the neocons (and evangelicals) overboard.

Posted by Lester | January 31, 2008 7:47 PM