Will Democrats and Independents Regret Pushing McCain to the Republican Nomination?

I've just been perusing the Drudge Report.  Four links seemed remarkable to me for the connections to be drawn between them.

First, there's Lynn Sweet blogging from Washington for the Chicago Sun-Times.  She has posted a memo from the Barack Obama campaign laying out their talking points on their candidate's expected loss to Hillary Clinton in the Indiana primary.  One of the points tells Obama supporters to say, "if I were the Clinton campaign, I don't think I'd be celebrating too hard tonight.  Winning a state on the strength of voters who want to see you defeated isn't exactly the kind of win you want."

But this is exactly what happened in the Republican primary back in New Hampshire.  John McCain was elected largely on the strength of Democrat cross-over voters and so-called independents backing him against his conservative rivals.  McCain won that state - and with the help of the liberal media hype-machine - the G.O.P. nomination soon thereafter.  But he did so on the strength of voters who want to see him defeated in November.

The second two links that I noticed on Drudge are links to today's primary results in Indiana and North Carolina.  They show, of course, the contested race in the Democrats' primary but the links also show the results in the Republican primary.  Remarkably, the only candidate still running, McCain, received only 78% of the vote in Indiana and 74% in North Carolina.

Significant numbers of Republicans are unhappy with the choice of "Maverick" McCain as the party's standard-bearer this year.  McCain was a poor choice for the party.  He is not conservative and not right for the country.  Lots of people know that and, despite the futility of their vote against him, lots of people in Indiana and North Carolina chose to lodge a protest vote for Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney or even Alan Keyes.  They're protesting against this candidate who was selected for them by Democrats and "independents."

Apparently the message of conservative dissatisfaction has gotten through to the McCain campaign.  That shows in the last Drudge link I'll mention tonight.  According to this article in the Financial Times, McCain is seeking to reassure conservatives that he intends to appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court and other federal courts.  He says that he will use John Roberts and Samuel Alito as his models for McCain appointees.  

I would love to believe McCain.  I really would.  Maybe the folks who got him nominated will regret their choice.  

I'll vote for McCain this November because I'll have no other real choice.  He is certainly the best option of the three remaining but I'm likely to cast my ballot holding my nose.  If McCain means what he's saying about judicial appointments, maybe he won't smell as bad as I fear.