Renew the conservative coalition

Michael Medved observes how talk radio, arguing fervently against McCain and Huckabee during the South Carolina primaries, utterly failed to convince the voters not to vote for them. I myself was surprised at the all out "talk attack" on McCain and Huckabee.

It is interesting to see how talk radio, and I mean the powerful voices of Rush, Ingraham, Beck, and Savage, didn't seem to leave a dent in the conservative voters of South Carolina.

Medved asks his colleagues to look at this differently. (emphasis mine) Keep in mind, this was written before Fred dropped out.

As the campaign moves forward, my colleagues in talk radio (along with program directors, general managers, advertisers and the other segments of our industry) ought to reconsider the one-sided, embittered negativity toward two of our four surviving candidates for President.

McCain and Huckabee are both decent and principled conservatives --and so, for that matter, are Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Duncan Hunter (who’s due to leave the race within twenty-four hours). Isn’t it about time for the nation’s other high profile talkers to join me in acknowledging that we’ve got a group of outstanding candidates each of whom, in his own way, represents different aspects of the Reagan legacy?

There’s no need to pretend that the candidates are identically conservative (they’re certainly not), or equally qualified, or similarly appealing. But they’re all solid Republicans, dedicated public servants, and worthy contenders for the party’s nomination. Most important, each of them is vastly preferable to Clinton or Obama.
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Heading into Florida (on January 29th) we need to acknowledge that one of four remaining contenders will almost certainly head the Republican ticket. He (whoever he turns out to be) will need a united party and a revived, renewed conservative coalition.

I couldn't agree more. Sometimes I have been exhausted from defending McCain on other blogs. Many commenters say they would stay home rather than vote for McCain or Huckabee in the general election. Are they NUTS? Your local councilman would be better than the socialists they have running on the Democratic side. Let's get our priorities straight here. We want to finish this war having achieved what we wanted to achieve, not back out and let all this sacrifice and hard work be wasted, as Hillary and Obama would do. We need to stay safe here, which we have taken for granted, and Hillary or Obama would not do. We need lower taxes, less regulation, a veto on spending, and most importantly, no additional bloated bureaucratic nightmare of social programs, which Hillary and Obama have promised to do.

Go ahead, hate McCain, Huckabee, or even Romney all you like, but you better dang well vote for them. This is important stuff. Life changing, history changing, nation changing stuff.

So stop whining. Keep fighting for your guy now, but when the nominee is selected, we better all get behind him. If we fail to do that, we fail at our own peril.