I don't usually agree with the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne, but I think he's correct in what he wrote today concerning the Republican presidential race:
"With Mitt Romney's decision to leave the race today, John McCain's nomination is a near certainty. But he leads a party torn by ideology and has survived only because his conservative opponents have fractured their movement....Despite his impressive victories, McCain continued to fare poorly on Tuesday among the conservatives who have defined the Republican Party since the rise of Ronald Reagan. McCain won, as he has all year, because moderates and liberals, opponents of President Bush, and critics of the Iraq war continued to rally to him despite his stands on many of the issues that arouse their ire. And he prevailed because Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney continued to divide the right.....McCain, in other words, lost the core Republican states and instead piled up delegates in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and California. All are traditionally Democratic states unlikely to vote for him in November. Rudy Giuliani's strategy, which was premised on his strength in such places, actually worked -- but it worked for McCain. Huckabee's showing doomed Romney's chances of uniting conservatives behind his candidacy. This may only aggravate the frustration of McCain's critics on the right, who looked on powerlessly as a starched investment banker and a good-natured preacher split asunder their party's natural majority."
Conservatives right now are divided. They will unite again. But this unity will not occur until after this coming presidential election, after the impending defeat of John McCain. Mr. McCain will never be able to unite conservatives behind him. No candidate whose core principles quite obviously include government restriction of political speech through his so-called "campaign-finance reform", amnesty for most illegal immigrants (see his McCain-Kennedy immigration bill), and skepticism towards tax cuts will be able to fully gain conservatives' support.
But true conservatives know that there will be other elections in coming years.
UPDATE: Here's the text of Senator McCain's speech today to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
And indeed, it's a very conservative-sounding speech, and it may help him with some segments of the Right. BUT--examine this passage from it, concerning the immigration issue:
"On the issue of illegal immigration, a position which provoked the outspoken opposition of many conservatives, I stood my ground aware that my position would imperil my campaign. I respect your opposition for I know that the vast majority of critics to the bill based their opposition in a principled defense of the rule of law. And while I and other Republican supporters of the bill were genuine in our intention to restore control of our borders, we failed, for various and understandable reasons, to convince Americans that we were. I accept that, and have pledged that it would be among my highest priorities to secure our borders first, and only after we achieved widespread consensus that our borders are secure, would we address other aspects of the problem in a wa y that defends the rule of law and does not encourage another wave of illegal immigration."
But he doesn't say how he'll secure our borders, or how we'll know if they're secure, or what we would do after that. I mean, it's been Senator McCain's position before that, in his view, providing a path to citizenship for most illegals somehow won't inspire a new wave of illegal immigration. I have no confidence that this view of his has changed.
