As much as I admire Pat Hynes, he's on a sinking ship and should have known better to hop on board.Ken Blackwell, writing at TownHall, gets at the first problem that McCain has: free speech. McCain-Feingold is a miserable law that should never have been put on the table. Sure, there is plenty of blame to go around... Congress thought Bush would veto it. Bush thought that the Supreme Court would find it unconsitutional. SCOTUS didn't want to touch it. But it has McCain's name on it front and center, so he gets the most blame.
But the other issue is the Gang of 14... Judges matter to conservatives and McCain (and his buddy Mike DeWine) blew this one badly. Sure, they can say that because of their agreement with Democrats they were able to get Chief Roberts and Justice Alito on to the court, but the thing that these guys don't get is that conservatives wanted to have the fight. And let's not forget that there are plenty more seats still open in the judiciary.
Matt Naugle, who attended CPAC, writes at Right Angle:
All I will add is that if you saw the type of reaction McCain's name got at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), I think it would be fair to say he is toast among primary voters.That doesn't surprise me a bit...
