We Democrats have lived with the split between the "Republican lite" DLCers and the liberals for some time. It still hasn't healed. If the Republican coalition is fracturing, I say it's about time. It hasn't delivered for the social conservatives, and the libertarians have been repeatedly rebuffed, but everything the Chamber of Commerce or the wealthy wanted was granted as soon as they asked.

I'm of a mind that McCain himself doesn't have a clue how much many conservatives dislike him.

I think he's figuring it out. The Nation has an article on a wake-up call he got in his home state:

Quote:
McCain Mutiny
Max Blumenthal

Just as the presidential nomination process begins in earnest, Senator John McCain has suffered a stinging defeat in his home state. For the Republican media darling declared recently by Chris Matthews to be the one candidate who "deserves the presidency," it was an unlikely loss, and so far it has gone unheralded by the national press corps that McCain once half-jokingly called "my base." This defeat was the handiwork of his presumed actual political base--a ragtag band of local conservative activists led by a 65-year-old retired IBM middle manager named Rob Haney.

Who is Rob Haney? He is the Republican state committeeman in Arizona's District 11, McCain's home district. In the past, Haney and his fellow committee members would meet from time to time to review their annual budget, vote on bylaws and pass resolutions. If anyone represents Arizona's Republican Party, advancing the causes of faith, family and freedom, it is the folks from District 11. Yet their importance, let alone their existence, seemed to matter little to their state's famous and ambitious senior senator.

All that changed when Haney organized a revolt that hardly needed encouragement. "People would be calling in to [state committee] headquarters every week, absolutely enraged, threatening to leave the party because of some comments McCain made," Haney told me. "The guy has no core, his only principle is winning the presidency. He likes to call his campaign the 'straight talk express.' Well, down here we call it the 'forked tongue express.'"


It goes on. You know, I don't understand the conservative disenchantment with McCain. He's way more conservative than Giuliani, for instance; just look at his voting record. (I posted on that previously on GZ.) But he's disliked by a whole lot of conservatives, despite his votes and his steadfast support of the Iraq war. I think he's also too old--he'd be the oldest President ever elected to a first term, two years older than Reagan, who mentally checked out sometime in his second term and was operating at half speed before that.

So, if McCain is disliked and Giuliani is too liberal and Romney is too Mormon (and a transparent phony) and Hunter is an unknown without a program, who's left? Ron Paul is fringe and has no chance. Tancredo is a one-issue candidate; ditto. Gilmore is a joke (he was my governor for four incompetent years). Gingrich has too many negatives. Brownback is an American Taliban. Pataki and Thompson are tired retreads who don't have anyone excited. Hagel won't be forgiven by Republicans for criticizing the Iraq war, and he's a Senator. Mike Huckabee may be the Republicans' only hope. He's the guy I least want to see at the top of your ticket, anyway.