Conservative Punditry "Beside Themselves" About Potential McCain Nomination

Certain conservative opinion makers are not pleased.

Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, much of the roster at the National Review and many (but certainly not all) of their more conservative talk radio and blogger colleagues are beside themselves at the prospect that one of the Republican contenders they deemed to be "not conservative" might be nominated. As Mike Huckabee won Iowa, John McCain took South Carolina and Fred Thompson bestirred himself to draft a note withdrawing from the race, the fretting has intensified. How could the voters reject their advice?

There are a few explanations the dismayed conservative punditocracy might use to explain their apparent disconnect with Republican voters.

One is that the electorate has not rejected their advice about what constitutes an unacceptable candidate. Voters are simply rejecting the flawed candidates who were poor standard-bearers for conservatism. This scenario seems eminently reasonable given that the pundits' favored contenders were in fact so terribly hobbled by their own shortcomings.

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