At least they brought Mitt down to earth a bit and kept Fred in the race

I don’t think you got what you think.

The person that benefitted the most by bringing Romney down was McCain by far.

Romney would have likely trailed Guiliani and Thompson in most states to come. By Romney being knocked down, the number 3 position opens up for McCain to move up.

If either Guiliani or Thompson bow out, it will then become McCain and the remaining of those two. This gives McCain a real chance, perhaps not the better chace, but still a real one of getting the nomination.

If people that attacked Romney liked McCain over Romney, well played. If they didn’t, they were well played.

I think it’s a change on the part of people who think in strategic terms, in response to Obama’s Iowa victory. If you figure that any Republican has a decent chance to beat Hillary, but that you need the strongest possible candidate in the general if you’re going to beat Obama, then McCain makes some sense. I don’t vote on that basis, but there’s a certain logic to it.

McCain made it pretty clear to me, and told me to tell my “blogging friends” which is you guys, that if we disagreed with him on the gang of 14, immigration and “torture” of jihadis (that was the three I mentioned, there are more) that we shouldn’t vote for him.

I appreciated his frankness. He didn’t try and run away from his positions, though he has changed on immigration.

Still, I profoundly disagree with him on those issues and more so cannot consider voting for him in the primary.

We’ll see!