To this day, I still haven’t spoken to a single Republican who actually wanted McCain as the Republican nominee to run for President that year. It left me with the suspicion that the Democrats crossed over in sufficient numbers in the primaries to make it happen. That might explain how Hillary lost the primaries to Obama that year. Too many of Hillary’s supporters wasted their vote crossing over for McCain, and they simply left her vulnerable.
I think McLame benefited from weak opposition in the primaries (Huckabee and Romney). So it’s not like there was a real exciting candidate to vote for.
Limbaugh was asking people to vote for Hillary as part of Operation Chaos, but McLame pretty much had things locked by then (he clinched on March 4).