GWB barely squeaked by Gore, and only beat Kerry by a couple of percent...
Point is, the conservative vote was there for Bush.
Why wasn't it there for McCain? Because McCain wasn't a conservative...or anything close to it.
I voted for McCain...but without any enthusiasm. And, if 7 million conservatives chose to stay home, I can understand why.
If one is trying to win an election, it's not a good idea to start off by insulting your own voters.
McCain was just a symptom of the fracturing of the conservative coalition.
There were just too many one issue voters....no one more conservative than McCain could muster the votes. Hunter got the immigration activists, Romney got the business people, Thompson got people like me, Huckabee got the evangelicals. McCain got the nomination by default as far as I’m concerned, mostly from party hacks and the uninformed (some Dem crossovers, but not many-they were too busy swooning over Obama).
FWIW, the only thing good about this loss is that it was McCain that lost. I can’t stand him and hope he disappears.