Fighting the Good Fight

OK, I can't stop blogging. No fat ladies here, not even me (I'm trying, I'm trying--literally only):

Tom Bevan, RCP: 9:42PM - Giuliani dropping out helps McCain, right? Well, not so fast. According to the exit polls, 49% of those who voted for Rudy today picked Mitt Romney as their 2nd choice while 44% picked McCain. And, interestingly, those who voted for Huckabee overwhelmingly picked McCain as their top 2nd choice over Mitt Romney, 54% to 32%. - TOM BEVAN

A minor blizzard brewing here in Illinois. OK. McCain channeling Rush in his speech. (Can we believe him?) Romney channeling Reagan. AP:

Republican Mitt Romney, his family and supporters vowed to carry his campaign into the vote-rich Super Tuesday contests next week after narrowly losing Florida's primary to rival John McCain.

In his concession speech Tuesday night, Romney issued a call to arms to conservatives to support him, vowing to cut federal spending, end illegal immigration and teach children "that before they have babies, they should get married."

But it was his wife, Ann, who took the microphone after Romney delivered nine minutes of prepared remarks, who explained the reasons for continuing to fight.

"We feel as though the conservatives are starting to rally around Mitt," she said, as her husband stood beside her. "This is just a send-off point; this is not an end. It's another beginning. We have 20 more states to go after, and we will be able to do that."

Romney a wonky guy, hey I relate to that. Mitt is smart, and knows how to work for solutions.He has lived his life as a conservative, and together with his wife have raised a great family, I give them a lot of credit. (Even my liberal friends told me their husbands like him--because he is such a good businessman.)

Remember--if the Democrats were running him, he would be a golden boy--they like liberals from Red States (Mark Warner, VA., probably their VP candidate for Hillary from a Blue State.) Mitt is a conservative who won in a Red[correction Blue] State. When it came down to it, he stood up for conservative values.

UPDATE: So Mitt narrowly corrals economic conservatives, according to RCP (see above) and Hugh Hewitt posits this question to social conservatives:

The shadow of the '96 Dole campaign will fall on McCain now, and the prospect of an Obama-McCain fall campaign will be the key consideration for Huckabee voters over the next seven days. Huck's voters are conservative or very conservative, and if they stay with Huck because they like him better than Romney, they hand the nomination to McCain.

Rich Lowry: Romney Won Conservatives.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn:

Tonight was a big win for illegal-immigration amnesty, remorseless socialization of health care, and big-government solutions to global warming.

Madder and madder.

There is this conflict of Vietnam vindication (toward McCain) --read: stick it to the hippies 25 plus years later vs. those who are conservative on domestic stuff--ie free-market and forward-looking. Look--both parts of the party are in sync with the war on terror. Who can best lead us? That is the good fight. McCain has earned his stripes as an American hero. Republicans usually defer to whose turn it is. But this year? It's not that easy. We face challenges on both fronts.

Romney is the one who has the energy and the vision to lead us on both fronts.

UPDATE: From the Left Coast. Patrick Ruffini: From Rudy to Romney:

Despite the outcome in Florida, Republicans across the nation should spend the next week thinking long and hard about the demoralizing prospect of a McCain nomination.

There has been a fair amount of discussion of flip-flopping in this race. Well, McCain has changed a few of his positions too. He changed away from conservatism. In the 1980s and early 1990s, he was a solidly credentialed member of the Reagan-Goldwater coalition who was right in line with the people of Arizona. In the late 1990s, when he saw that he could get better press for his dark horse Presidential aspirations as a “maverick,” he changed. McCain could fairly point out that he stood on “principle.” But it is equally fair to point out that those principles aren’t ours.[snip]

Mitt Romney gets that you don’t win by retreating. You win by winning. There will be no pale pastels on the Democratic ticket this fall — and I would not want to go up against them with the sense that we somehow had to trim our sails, to elevate our party’s most ardent internal critic, in order to remain in office but not in power.[snip]

Romney would do everything that McCain would on the war, and he would be vastly more conservative on everything else.

Finally: Quin Hillyer.