Limbaugh vs. McCain

I agree with Ezra that Rush Limbaugh announcing a war against not only Huckabee but McCain seems significant — barring some miracle like Fred Thompson being discovered alive the GOP establishment is going to rally around Romney, although McCain’s background is substantially more conservative on balance. (McCain, apparently, can’t be forgiven his momentary dalliance with fiscal sanity and his offenses against the Bush cult.) While Romney should be favored for the nomination, I don’t think this settles the question: McCain would have no more chance against a credible establishment-approved orthodox conservative than he did in 2000, but remains alive because there’s isn’t one in the race.

All of this looks promising for the Democrats, even though I think that the negative effects of a long primary per se are overstated. If the establishment candidate wins, this is good because either Clinton or Obama should beat him easily, and if it comes to that he seems like the least bad president of the awful GOP field. If he doesn’t, McCain is a more viable nominee in theory, but he would win with many powerful elements of his party bitter about his victory; that seems like a pretty promising worst-case scenario for the Democrats.