Dividing The Conservative Movement

So John McCain got 33% of the vote in SC, which proves to the MSM that Conservatism is over apparently.

Baloney…..

As Mike wrote about here, so too does Michael Graham at NRO who writes a far more calm and reasoned view of McCain’s win in SC then our MSM pundits are giving:

In 2000, running against George W. Bush and the entire Carroll Campbell machine in South Carolina, John McCain got 42% of the vote, and 240,000 votes out of 573,000 or so cast.

Tonight, he got 33% of the vote in a field where his top challengers—Romney and Giuliani—aren’t even running, and 135,000 actual votes. If just the same people who voted for McCain in 2000 had voted for him today, he would have won 50+% of the South Carolina vote. That would have been truly impressive.

Instead, John McCain LOST the support of 100,000 people—and he’s the winner?

But listen to the MSM on the air and on paper its a sign that conservatism is dead. Now Republicans apparently support illegal immigrants and McCain-Feingold. We support McCain’s attacks against tax cuts and his class warfare crap.

Here he is in April of 2006:

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Some conservative.

Listen to Mark Levin today explain why this is ludicrous:

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The money quote at the end:

The reason why there aren’t enough votes coalescing around Fred Thompson is because McCain and Huckabee have been extremely successful in dividing the conservative movement which makes it difficult for a thoughtful conservative to get his message out through all the clutter. Of course they want the Reagan era to be dead because Reagan campaigned and governed like Thompson, not like Huckabee, not like McCain.

Rush today said he may not even vote for a Republican: (h/t Say Anything)

CALLER: Earlier you had mentioned that when the time comes, you’re going to announce or get behind somebody, and I’m just wondering, what’s your selection criteria for picking a candidate, and two, how do you decide when that time is that you’re going to announce? I’m more interested in how you pick a candidate. Because especially this year with—there’s really not a true conservative. How do you narrow it down?

RUSH: That’s an excellent point. I don’t have a time frame, just to address that first. I don’t have a time frame.

CALLER: All right.

RUSH: And I also, I can see possibly not supporting a Republican nominee.

CALLER: Hm-hm.

RUSH: And I never thought that I would say that in my life.

Which sounds to me like he is just complaining about the current field on top. I highly doubt he would sit it out because he knows how much is at stake. But its a sign of how poor the top candidates are in the Republican field to true conservatives.