The right has its foe, but not its friend

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Hostility towards John McCain among most leading conservative bloggers has been linked to the Arizona senator’s recent rise — the more McCain looks like the Republican frontrunner, the more conservatives express their ire.

The past couple of days have been particularly striking in this regard. With polls showing McCain in a pretty good position right now, National Journal summarized some of the more notable examples from the conservative end of the ’sphere.

* Right Wing News‘ John Hawkins: “[W]e’re talking about a man who could fairly be called a Rockefeller Republican, a Country Club Republican, a RINO, or just a toweringly arrogant, out of touch D.C. insider who seems to assume that any position he takes is right solely because he happens to hold it. However, what John McCain cannot fairly be called is a conservative.”

* Townhall’s Hugh Hewitt: “A GOP vote for McCain is a vote for a shattered base and a desultory campaign in the fall. It is a vote for lecture after lecture on global warming, campaign finance reform, and the bridge to nowhere. It is a vote for an old warrior way past his prime.”

* NRO’s Mark Levin: “There’s a reason some of John McCain’s conservative supporters avoid discussing his record. They want to talk about his personal story, his position on the surge, his supposed electability. But whenever the rest of his career comes up, the knee-jerk reply is to characterize the inquiries as attacks. The McCain domestic record is a disaster.”

* NRO’s Mark Steyn: “McCain has an almost Edwardsian contempt for capitalism, for the people whose wit and innovation generate the revenue that pay for your average small-state senator’s retinue of staffers worthy of a Persian Gulf emir.”

* Townhall’s Patrick Ruffini calls McCain “a tax-loving, free speech-crushing, amnesty-awarding, big government Republican nominee.”

The question, of course, is what they’re going to do about it.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/

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OTOH, a return to Rockefeller Republicanism would be a return to the GOP before the Bible Thumpers took over.