[KevinB]

A better primary process ...

Agreed. No crossover voting should be allowed. That's the only way the putz got the nomination. The Dems were pretty smart - by voting for McCain in the primary they could make sure we were going to wind up with a lib as president.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Well, back during the primaries, I seem to remember that there were a fair number of folks on this board who embraced McCain as the only candidate who was "electable," usually in the context of putting down Duncan Hunter and his candidacy.

Where are those people now?

[xzins]

In Ohio there’s no registration of party. Whichever ballot you choose is your identified party. I agree about crossover voting. My point, though, is that some states aren’t set up that way.

If the party assigns delegates by county, and candidates only get the counties they win, then that would lessen the impact of crossover voting in any state. It would also mean that a candidate has to appeal to all conservative voters across the country before they lock the nomination down.

A third change I’d like is that the new conservative caucus agree on no more than 2 names to promote for the campaign with the less successful candidate pledged to drop out and assign delegates to the more successful conservative candidate at some point in the nominating process.

[TomGuy]

No crossover voting should be allowed. That's the only way the putz got the nomination.

Actually, that was only part of the problem.

The other part was too many conservative candidates splintering the other primary delegate counts. Thus, none of the right-of-liberal-McCain candidates appeared to have the edge. McCain was getting the moderate (big business, country club globalist) Republican votes and the cross-over Independents and Dems.

Early on, the conservatives should have united behind one standard-bearer. They didn't. And McCain used that to his advantage -- with a little help from his Dem, Independent, globalist and media "friends".