they still make up the infantry of the gop. They are the people who volunteer and do the gotv and other operations of that sort. So there leadership may be motivated by media glory or ego but the actual people seem to need more than just the nomination to get out on the street. Something like Sarah Palin...

Regarding this:

"...McCain wrote, "Weyrich possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain. Corpulent and dyspeptic...."

MCCAIN wrote? JOHN "GRUNT" MCCAIN?

That's rich! McCain wouldn't even know how to read a sentence like that, let alone write it!

And if McCain's ever read any Dickens other than under a direct order I'll eat Sarah Palin's moose.

Sheep. Hypocritical sheep, the lot of them.

I would say the selection of Sarah Palin made it much easier for them.

the religious right looks an awful lot like a paper tiger.

It also looks more like an economic-political operation than a religious one.

Really? Didn't he basically hand them the keys to the government by tapping Palin? If McCain wins, then they pray (literally) for his death and the ascension of Queen Palin, or they wait for her to run as the sitting VP. If he loses, the party blames the political environment or they blame him. Palin comes out as a major national figure and a front-runner for the 2012 nomination. And don't forget how much McCain has moved to the right during the campaign. As I see it, McCain gave the religious right everything it could possibly want.

Progressives really aren't much better. Remember in 2003, ah, those halcyon days when we only had war to worry about? You can count on 2 hands the number of senators who opposed the Authorization for the Use of Force in Iraq. And yet, we still vote the chumps into office, don't we? Look at the last 2 years. What do you think the chances are of Nancy Pelosi, despite wide-ranging scorn, is going to lose her seat? Harry Reid? If you happen to have a democratic Senator to vote on, what are the chances that you'll vote Green or some other third party this election?

This is precisely why the winner-take all system we have is such a very poor device for holding anyone accountable. Both parties know, for a fact, that we're not going to vote for anyone but them. Therefore, their base is always secure. The challenge is always to reach out to the muddy, muddled, middle.

I think you mean to say that Mark Salter wrote it in a book, the cover of which says the author is John McCain. Not that there's anything wrong with ghostwriting, but let's be clear.

Also, this has been the key to GOP success for quite some time. When your primary political need is to feel an emotional and tribal connection to a candidate and your default political setting is resentment, your vote comes pretty cheap. All it takes is some red-meat rhetoric and "one of your own" on the ballot. There's no such thing as a "policy difference" when you don't care about policy.

Actually McCain gave them a very big thing: the hockey mom. If McCain dies in office, they then have a true believer in power.

Actually, the wingnut freakazoids don't look like a paper tiger as much as they act like the easiest lay in school.

When that c**t gives you a nasty rash/discharge, remember that we TOLD you to use condoms.

They came around because of Sarah Palin. She is a religious fanatic who not just believes in the End Times but thinks Alaska will play a big part in it. She associates with like-minded radicals. She fits into their world view and they know that if McCain is elected that she will wind up president (or de facto president if he becomes ill and doesn't die).
Read the post and watch all of the videos. You will understand why these people now support McCain as vigorously as they do.

This is the nature of the two-party system. It happens on both the left and the right. Whoever the nominee is, eventually the vast majority line up behind a candidate, the left for the Democrat, the right for the Republican. We even rationalize and twist our own principles to fit the nominee or just ignore behavior that we abhor (see the FISA/Obama episode). The alternative is to support a third-party, which ends up hurting your preferred party under the "winner take all" system, or checking out of the process altogether (see the abysmal election turnout rates). Welcome to the American political process, enjoy the ride.

They didn't get nothing. They got Palin. How much that's worth depends on the state of McCain's health --- which is not generally known, since he hasn't released his full medical record. But it's conceivable that Republican insiders know more about that than the rest of us...

Just recently I read that there had been a study that showed Republicans to be more "fearful" ... I think what they meant was cowardice.

Really, what else is he going to do? the only hope the religious right has to implement its agenda is the Courts, and McCain is their ownly hope for continuing to pack the Courts with judges friendly to an evangelical conservative agenda.

I think the religious right leaders are following their followers on this. So at least they have to go through the humiliation of publicly supporting a man who has called them a-holes if not in so many words.

If you fall for God, you'll fall for anything.

That's Just What I Said

This is why many people end up leaving the church. The hypocrisy of some of its "leaders" really undercuts their message.

"Weyrich possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain. Corpulent and dyspeptic, his mouth set in a perpetual sneer as if life in general were an unpleasant experience,. . .

Life probably is "an unpleasant experience" for him. The problem being is he doesn't understand that it's his ilk that helps make life like this for others as well.

Nothing? They got to select the VP and, one has to assume, any Supreme Court judges.

McCain has made a faustian bargain with the religious right with his nomination of Palin. He will regret this more and more as she continues to upstage him and refers to him as "my running mate", as though she was the real Presidential candidate.

You are so wrong, what has McCain not given the Religious Right ? The guy has ruined his reputation catering to them and some call it a Paper Tiger, I don't think Palin is paper. She is a Saber Tooth Tiger with a cross around her neck. All this talk of Obama getting assassinated, ya, if Palin is one bullet from glory, McCain has better get some doubles.

All that aside, there is no doubt in my mind what sort of Judicial appointments McCain will make. Bush has the cahonas to stub them, McCain doesn't give a damn. He has made it clear what he thinks of this country, his reputation could not be more tarnished, and he will never ever live long enough to feel the effects of his decisions. He has nothing to lose.

McCain has given the Religious Right everything Bush promised. He is the Bush sellout. Bush pretended to be one of them, McCain will be run by them, and Palin is one of them. That 'my friend' is no paper tiger.

Huh? All they got was Palin? Not quite - John McCain sold his soul to this set (Palin was just the piece de resistance). That's why they came around. They exacted a huge toll on McCain - he is now one of them.

That said if elected I expect McCain will be a lot like Bush and other evangelical power brokers - they'll do nothing to get the agenda of the footsoldiers passed but will continue to use it as a carrot.

Go HERE and vote Hell NO!

This post doesn't mention Palin anywhere, so I'm guessing she was forgotten. She is a huge sop to the Christianists.

You mean Cosmopolitan conservatives are cheap dates. Provincial conservatives, who are not worried about being invited to speak to CPAC Conferences because we don't live in the Beltway unlike Mr. Weyrich, aren't lining up to support the man we still call McInsane so we can get inaugural ball tickets as this Takimag.org article shows: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/gop_turkeys

The real story here is McCain chasing around a lot of old, washed up "New Right" figures like Weyrich as though they still mattered (Hell, Sarah Palin stiffed Phyllis Schlafly and Eagle Forum for AIPAC). Instead of focusing on these politically compromised and pathetic bankrupts, why don't you visit the following provincial websites and find out where the real intellectual energy is. (Hint...It's not Washington D.C.)

www.lewrockwell.com
www.takimag.com
www.conservativetimes.org
www.chroniclesmagazine.org
www.antiwar.com

Of course, although they are based in the Beltway, I don't want to forget The American Conservative at www.amconmag.com and their best blog Eunomia by Daniel Larison.

what the hell are christianists?

In one of his books, McCain wrote, "Weyrich possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain. Corpulent and dyspeptic, his mouth set in a perpetual sneer as if life in general were an unpleasant experience, he is the embodiment of the caricature often used to unfairly malign all religious conservatives." McCain concluded that Weyrich is "a pompous, self-serving son of a bitch."

Slightly off-topic, but if McCain rather than a ghostwriter actually wrote that, I'll eat my hat. I will lay down good money that McCain is simply not smart enough to have ever thought up the phrase "corpulent and dsypeptic" much less even used it in conversation, or that he knows what atributes a "Dickensian villain" has.

The hell with that; why isn’t Focus on the Family et al talking about McCain’s gay chief of staff? (Link has FoF toll-free phone number, if you want to ask one of Dobson’s scrubbeenies that question yourself.)

I agree with Chris above. Palin was McCain's price for the RR's support. I can visualize Dobson etal giving McSame the word that they would sit this election out unless McSame came up with a real live move instead of an empty gesture (a la Rove/Bush).

We can only hope they lose...or the RR will get huge inertia from a McSame/Palin win. Yuck.

Add me to the list who think the original post is way off. The evangelicals got the VP slot, plus who knows what else in private (SCOTUS??).

If John McCain will sell out the Vice Presidency, just to get elected, then what else might he sell out?

We Americans have higher standards. We can't take a chance on John McCain. It's time for a younger man to lead.

"In one of his books, McCain wrote, "Weyrich possesses the attributes of a Dickensian villain. Corpulent and dyspeptic, his mouth set in a perpetual sneer as if life in general were an unpleasant experience, he is the embodiment of the caricature often used to unfairly malign all religious conservatives."

Gosh..."corpulent"? "dyspeptic"? "Dickensian?" "embodiment"?

All these big French words sound very elitist to me! What's McCain playing at?

Slightly off-topic, but if McCain rather than a ghostwriter actually wrote that, I'll eat my hat. I will lay down good money that McCain is simply not smart enough to have ever thought up the phrase "corpulent and dsypeptic" much less even used it in conversation, or that he knows what atributes a "Dickensian villain" has.

Personally, I don't question McCain's intelligence - just his attentiveness. I agree that it's unlikely that he wrote any part of that phrase. But I'm certain that he approved every damn word before it was published, very enthusiastically. It would be nearly impossible for this to get published without him knowing about this. Even a loose cannon like McCain won't let such a nasty and, well, ornate attack appear under his name unless he's ready for the blowback. Hell, McCain probably enjoyed thinking about Weyrich's reaction.

Remember, McCain may be pretty consistently anti-abortion/anti-gay, but he seems to genuinely believe these things in the absence of any deep religious conviction, and until very recently he's been terrible at hiding his contempt for the spiritual exhibitionism of the far right. His social conservatism is almost certainly the product of his military upbringing, and the holy rollers probably seem as creepy to him as they do to us. It's almost an accident that their views overlap just enough for either to be useful to the other.