McCain Got Me In A Vendetta Kind of Mood, So Here's The Plan (UPDATED)
The speech is going on now as I write this. Nothing McCain is going to say is going to change what I'm about to write, so I'll go ahead.
Three weeks ago I wrote the following warning:
Once he gets the GOP nomination, McCain is done with the base. D-O-N-E. He's got us by the fleshy extremities, because he knows we're not going to defect to Hillary or Obama. He can concentrate on motivating the mushy middle.McCain right now is, as Ace notes, as conservative as McCain's ever going to be.
Or, as, Vincenzo Coccotti explained to Clifford Worley in True Romance, after punching him hard in the nose: "That ain't any kind of fun, but what I have to offer you? That's as good as it's gonna get."

He also says to Clifford, trying to break his will and get him to betray his principles: "You can also take comfort in the fact that you never had a choice."
We still have a choice. And here's what, for whatever it's worth, I think conservatives should do: Nothing.
Conservatives' one card left to play is whether we endorse McCain or not. Why should we show it now? If all conservatives declare unanimously against him, pledging undying hostility and staking our reputations on opposing the guy, well, he may decide (as we did with him when he and his partisans like Lindsey Graham and Juan Hernandez fumed about us) that we mean what we say.
Likewise, if we all fall into line, even grudgingly, well, we're taken for granted and ¡Juanito! can go all out smooching the mushy left and wrapping up the "Los Tigres del Norte" endorsement. Good ol' conservatives. Just like black people and feminists in the Democrat party, they've no place to go. We don't have to worry about them. Get Lieberman as our running mate. Or Lindsey Graham...or...hmm, Olympia Snowe's female...
But if we keep our cards close to our chest, McCain still has to work for our vote. He can't take us for granted and he dare not alienate us any more.
I criticized Rush and a lot of talk radio hosts and pundits for being too slow with their endorsements and not actually getting behind any candidates when it could do some good. Well, don't get in a hurry now. While it doesn't look like Rush is in any danger of jumping on the McCain bandwagon, let me caution any other conservative who happens to read this--play it slow. String him along, criticize him when he's wrong and praise him when he's right. No need to endorse now--certainly not at least until he picks a running mate if even then. See what promises we can squeeze out of him and see what sort of commitments he's willing to make to carrying them out.
So: will I vote for ¡McCain! in the general election? Maybe. We'll see.
P.S. I notice in Michelle's running account of the speech (first link above) that McCain has pinched Fred Thompson's best line. McCain says "Liberty is from our Creator, not created by governments." It's good to hear him say it, but it tastes like diet caffeine-free RC after you've had real Coke on a hot day. On a porch swing. At the Cracker Barrel.
UPDATE: Just to clarify, I'm not telling you whether to vote for him or not. I see the arguments on both sides. My point is that whether you wouldn't vote for McCain if he was the last Republican on earth, or if you'll probably just pinch your nose and pull the handle anyway, or whether you're genuinely undecided, it's in the interest of conservatives everywhere to act as if you could possibly be won over by credible and verifiable movement to the right on McCain's part. Here's a good item for him to start if he's serious. Oh, and when pollsters ask you who you're voting for, tell them you're undecided.
UPDATE 2: Doubleplusundead puts it succinctly:
I haven't decided what to do, but for those who are willing to eat the turd sandwich, why not try and at least score some condiments?Plus he calls me "Sun-Dub the Strategerist". Heh.
UPDATE 3: Discussion of this post by Michelle, by Rick Moran, and Karl at Protein Wisdom. Thanks all; I wish I'd taken the time to write it better if I'd known it was going to be read. A better, if less colorful, expansion of this idea is up in this new post.











