The reason McWhacked won those early primaries, was because of crossover Demonkat and so-called Independent voters in the states that allow that, trying to pick the best candidate for us to lose in the general election. In Florida, it was the senior vote that gave McWhacked the edge over Romney.
Why do you think the left-wing media wants the GOP to nominate McCain?? It is certainly not because they want him to, or think he can win. They want us to nominate him because they know he is a sure loser to either Democrat. None of the Left-wing media will support McWhacked in the general election, in fact, they will tear him to pieces as soon as the primaries are over.
Go ahead and drink the McWhacked kool-aid, and vote for him if you like. I am indifferent. But you will NOT convince myself and others on this forum who have made up our minds otherwise, to vote for a Democrat with an R after his name. I live in Arizona, and I have never ever voted for McCain, and I never will, because he is a Liberal, and belongs in the Democrat party.
You can't seem to grok the idea of objective analysis. You aren't alone, but it is surely a sign that you also aren't engaged in it.
It is very likely that the Dems will win the presidency in the fall regardless of who we choose to put up.
If McCain loses, as is quite possible, if will not mean "no one can win without the conservative base". Omaba isn't going to have the conservative base, is he? Hillary isn't going to have the conservative base, is he?
The country might be better off if no one could win the presidency without the conservative base. But men can and have won the presidency without the conservative base. They have also won the presidency with votes from conservatives without actually delivery full fledged conservatism in office.
In fact, the only pol in my lifetime to even offer real conservatism as a presidential nominee of either party, was Ronald Reagan. (I was born right after Goldwater offered it, but of course without success).
Bush pere ran on continuation promises but had been the liberal republican standard bearer as long ago as 1980, and people should have known what they were getting. They got it. He did win anyway, with plenty of votes from conservatives. He was a hawk, but otherwise a typical liberal republican, readily swayed by the liberal press and a democratic congress.
Clinton didn't get a lot of conservative votes. He won twice.
Bush junior ran as an activist big government methodist do-gooder, and he has delivered typical Teddy - Wilsonian methodist do-gooder government. That has coincided with conservatism in a few matters - hawkish foreign policy, reasonably conservative judges e.g.
When there has been exactly one real conservative president since the 1920s, pretending no one can be elected without a by your leave from us is, well, pretending.
I am pretty sure seniors will also vote in the general election. I am pretty sure moderates in Ohio, and a handful of the more liberal upper midwest states, will decide who the next president will actually be. I am pretty sure the scale of turnout of true blue conservatives in Utah or Montana or Texas, will not matter a hill of beans.
As for Arizona, I'd lay dollar to donuts the Republican nominee can win it, whoever it is. And pretending that a state that has sent McCain back to the senate forever will swing the election by dropping him, is delusional.
I'd rather it were true that all republicans were Reaganite conservatives, but in fact only about half of them are. I'd rather it were true that three fourths of all voters were convinced republicans, but in fact we can barely get half in a good year with a centrist squish.
You don't have to like this for it to be true. I don't like it, but it is true. And I for one consider is decidedly conservative to live in the real world and face facts, and decidedly hysterical and silly and childish, to instead live in a fantasy of pretended special indispensibleness.