“McCain can’t win without us, and he knows it. However, if we abandon the party, and he wins ANYWAY by some miracle, he’ll know exactly what he has to do for the next 4 years, and that is appease his base.”
I can see your rationale, but don’t agree with it. If by some miracle the conservative base supports him and he wins, he (and everyone else) will know that the conservatives will vote for _____(R) no matter what. Conservatives will have no teeth and their concerns will forever be irrelevant. Nobody will ever fear alienating the pro-gun crowd, anti-amnesty crowd, pro-life crowd, pro-constitution crowd, small government crowd, etc. It would effectively end the conservative movement.
It depends how much he reaches out to us.
I don’t believe there is a group that is watching to see how much conservatives will “put up with”, and picking our nominees accordingly.
The idea that McCain was the RNC-chosen nominee doesn’t seem very evident to me. I think Rudy was that choice. McCain was simply the guy who ran 8 years ago and became a household name.
And he’s the guy that apparently has done enough the past 8 years to convince a plurality of the voters in the election to pick him.