McCain became the presumptive nominee with just 31% of the total primary vote, i.e., just before the so-called Potomac primaries [MD, VA, and DC]. Winner take all and open primaries helped McCain game the system, And he benefitted from the compressed primary schedule. We would be much better off with a proportional system with a threshold.
We're stuck with him because conservatives couldn't rally around one acceptable candidate until it was too late to stop McCain.
This was the plan all along by the party's hierarchy, which has tried to squeeze conservatives out. The primary system structure is what helped McCain, along with the MSM, which wanted a McCain-Hillary match up knowing that the difference between the two parties is really tweedledee and tweedledum.
At CPAC this year, many of the attendees were sickened to hear John Bolton, Newt, George Will, and others telling us to support McCain because he was the lesser of two evils. Many of us booed. The system is becoming more and more corrupt. It needs to be shaken up.
The immigration issue could have been the spark to change the political landscape. It cuts across party lines. It is the elephant in the room that just gets larger and larger affecting and/or driving all of the challenges facing this country whether it is health care, education, energy usage, taxes, crime, wages, entitlement programs, etc. McCain and others think they can make it go away by making the illegal legal. It will only exacerbate the problem placing even greater burdens on the taxpayer. What is going on today is unprecedented.
Well, FReepers seemed to enjoy it a lot, too...slamming other candidates without providing good answers for their own, calling names, marginalizing good men, etc.