The McCain Mutiny

Now that he is the Republican front runner again (talk about Comeback Kids!), John McCain has a bull's eye on his back for all manner of Conservatives, and today's Washington Post recites the litany.

"For at least eight years," the Post reports, "official Republican Washington has been dominated by what McCain advocates have called President Bush's 'Death Star'--an array of advocacy groups and lobbyists that backed Bush in 2000 and have remained the city's conservative power brokers.

"Republican politicians with national ambitions genuflect to (David) Keene at his Conservative Political Action Conference. They sign (Grover) Norquist's pledge not to raise taxes and attend the weekly conservative conclaves over which he presides as the head of Americans for Tax Reform. And they curry favor with religious conservatives such as Ralph Reed, the former head of the Christian Coalition."

At one time or another, McCain has poked a finger in the eye of these king makers with his position on issues, as the executive director of Gun Owners of America points out. "I can tell you every single immigration activist and organization is terrified by the New Hampshire results," says the executive director of an "immigration reduction" group.

If Huckabee and Thompson fail to keep McCain from taking South Carolina, all these idealists will be put to a severe reality test. At the moment, Sen. Jim DeMint is backing Romney there, but John McCain's Baghdad traveling companion and likely running mate, Lindsey Graham, will be trying to tip the scales in his favor.

In 2000, Karl Rove bushwhacked McCain there, but that kind of ambush is not in the cards this time.

Limbaugh Bites Huckabee

In politics, they say, if you want a friend, get a dog. But El Rushbo, as he dubs himself, is showing remarkable loyalty to the folks who pay his salary, the former partners of Mitt Romney.

Not only has he been deifying their friend but Rush Limbaugh is now going the extra mile by getting into a hissing contest with Huckabee supporters over his attacks on the preacher who is now leading Romney in the polls.

"Huckabee forces are attacking me, ladies and gentlemen," Limbaugh told his listeners the other day. "Yes siree, Bob, the Hucksters are on the warpath!...

"If you missed it, somebody went out there and asked a Huckabee supporter in a Huckabee Universe, actually, why I don't like him. Frankly, I haven't attacked Huckabee. You know, I've raised some questions, but they're pretty sensitive out there about this."

Hinting that he might just endorse somebody, as he did George Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary, Limbaugh noted that "McCain was going so far off the conservative reservation, so far off of it, that it was necessary to step in. Huckabee is getting close, I'm going to have to tell you. Huckabee's getting close to the same stuff. Huckabee is using his devout Christianity to mask some other things that are distinctively not conservative. He is against free trade. He's really doesn't believe in free market."

Remembering what a dog did to his car, Mitt Romney may be grateful to have this kind of friend when it all hits the fan.