My new Townhall.com column is up.

Michael Reagan also has a new column up, "John McCain Hates Me." It begins:

Until last night, when I watched the Republican debate, I had no idea how much John McCain dislikes me and just about everybody else but Rudy Giuliani, who if you believe The New York Times is a pretty good hater himself.

As I watched McCain and Governor Romney go at it during the debate at the Reagan Library I was struck by the huge gap that separates McCain -- whose contempt for his fellow humans is patently obvious -- and my dad, Ronald Reagan, who had nothing but the deepest affection and respect for the American people. 

The feeling is mutual between McCain and me. I don’t like the way he treats people. You get the impression that he thinks everybody is beneath him. He seems to be saying, “I was a war hero, and you had damn well better treat me as your superior.”

He has contempt for conservatives who he thinks can be duped into thinking he’s one of them, despite such blatantly anti-conservative actions as his support for amnesty for illegal immigrants, his opposition to the Bush tax cuts which got the economy rolling again, and his campaign finance bill which skewed the political process and attacked free speech.

Read the whole thing.

McCain picked up Arnold's endorsement today.  Romney picked up Sean Hannity's nod:

Sean Hannity:  "I'll tell you right now, and I've not announced this, but I will be voting for Mitt Romney in this campaign. It's the first time I've stated it publicly.  I'll state it now."  ("Sean Hannity Radio Show," 1/31/08:

Arnold's popularity is largely outside of the California GOP.  If you had to chose, either guy would rather have Sean Hannity and his national reach, with three more hours on Friday, Monday and Tuesday.

Rush also noted today that a vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain.  There is clearly a message developing within the conservative world that this is the week in which the Reagan agenda is defended or lost.

Arnold's prescription for improving voter turnout, courtesy of WhyTuesday.com.

Mark Levin blasts John McCain and praises Mitt Romney in "Rally for Romney."

Mark Tascott predicts that Mt. McCain will blow soon.

What would a McCain-dominated GOP platform look like?

Robert Novak confirms John Fund's deeply troubling account of John McCain's suspicion of Samuel Alito:

“In fact, multiple sources confirm that the senator made negative comments about Alito nine months ago. …

“I found what McCain could not remember: a private, informal chat with conservative Republican lawyers shortly after he announced his candidacy in April 2007. I talked to two lawyers who were present whom I have known for years and who have never misled me. One is neutral in the presidential race, and the other recently endorsed Mitt Romney. Both said they were not Fund's source, and neither knew I was talking to the other. They gave me nearly identical accounts, as follows:

“‘Wouldn't it be great if you get a chance to name somebody like Roberts and Alito?’ one lawyer commented. McCain replied, ‘Well, certainly Roberts.’ Jaws were described as dropping. My sources cannot remember exactly what McCain said next, but their recollection is that he described Alito as too conservative.”

Ed Morrissey notes that this account is even more troubling than Fund's, and of course we have McCain's denial of what seems certainly to be a true account, a denial that mirrors those he thrashed his way through last night on the "timetables" nonsense. (See Paul Mirengoff's "A Surge Of Dishonesty" for a standard reaction to this low point for the McCain campaign.)

This revelation, combined with McCain's halting debate performance last night and his increasingly strident assertions about global warming are going to give his handlers heartburn this week.  McCain ought to be striding forward, but he is tired and unfocussed, and the fact remains he is trying to win a GOP nomination with a string of 35% wins against a divided conservative vote.

The conservatives care about judges in ways Senator McCain simply does not, and that message is going to be broadcast again and again this week, and weekend, as well Senator McCain's record on the First Amendment, tax cuts, ANWR, and of course illegal immigration.

If the Huckabee supporters are conservatives, they will recognize the peril to their party's core beliefs and abandon their favorite who has no chance of winning in favor of Mitt Romney who does.  The Giuliani voters may surprise as well, as many of his fans in California are conservatives who were willing to overlook Rudy's views on abortion in order to win, but who are now facing a possible McCain nomination and the recognition that the Arizona maverick is a phenomenally weak general election candidate upon whom the Dems and MSM will fall as soon as he has the nomination locked up.

Their attack?  McCain's age, of course, which Democrats used against Bob Dole with great effectiveness, and the idea that McCain's judgment on matters of war will be inflexible and dangerously hair-triggered --the Goldwater reprise. 

22 states vote in six days, but that's an eternity in politics, especially after a big event last night put John McCain's ideas and vulnerabilities on stage opposite Romney's calm demeanor, command of the issues, and his conservative beliefs.

Expect the talkers, led by Rush but seconded by Ingraham, Bennett, Prager, Beck, Hannity, Levin and me to spend the next few days putting down a marker:  McCain is a very weak general election candidate, and if he was to win, would not govern as a conservative in any significant way.  Our audiences are not, as MSMers like to imply, not only shrinking but mindless.  They are growing, but they are incredibly independent of thought.  They also take in and respond to good information, and now the information will be focused on John McCain and the choice before them.

MSM will of course be sending a very different set of talking points into the general population, one that obscures McCain's record and which refuses to remind voters of the immigration fiasco etc.  MSM will focus on Rudy and Arnold and leave the impression of a coalescing around McCain.  Romney will battle to keep the issues out front, McCain the process.

But the new media is at work.  We'll see how it plays out.

A thank you, btw, to the readers.  As of this moment, 1,462,973 visitors to  this site have come to this site this January, a new record for HughHewitt.com. I know many of you don't agree with what you read here, but I appreciate your continued patronage.

Red State's Jubal provides a reaction to last night's debate that is probably representative of California conservatives.

The Golden State GOP is dominated by conservatives, and most recently picked conservative businessman Bill Simon over LA Mayor and GOP maverick Dick Riorden in the 2002 Republican primary for governor.  Arnold helps McCain on the coast, but Romney is very competitive throughout the state, and if Romney begins his comeback on Tuesday next, it will become obvious in the California results.

John McCain won over few if any conservatives tonight, and his display of bad temper and his rambling filibuster of his wrongful "timetables" attack on Romney from last weekend may even have lost him some moderates.  In the spin room heads were shaking.  McCain was at his worst in the second half of the debate, and those who watched had to ask themselves how this sort of performance would play against a youthful, upbeat Obama with a MSM ready not to protect McCain but tear into him as aging and confused --even obviously deceptive-- about his facts.

The first half of the debate was Romney's on points.  Romney began by listing the series of assaults on conservative values championed by McCain including McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, the McCain-Lieberman global warming regulatory monster, the opposition to exploration in ANWR and the votes against the Bush tax cuts.  McCain's responses are the same we have heard again and again, and they do not wear well.  Romney was assisted by the obvious downgrading by Anderson Cooper and Janet Hook of Mike Huckabee, and Huckabee's frustration at his demotion to Ron Paul status broke through in the second half of the debate, but only served to underscore that the real contest doesn't involve him.  It is a McCain-Romney race, and anyone watching the debate knows that.

If they are Republicans, they also will almost certainly walk away disquieted by the prospect of a McCain nomination, both because of his ideas and even more so because he just didn't look electable tonight.  Romney did.  In fact McCain's best part of the day was when Rudy was talking about him, and it went down hill from there.  McCain will get another assist from Arnold tomorrow or Friday, but it is hard to hide the fact that this would be a second Bob Dole campaign, with less energy and fewer conservative principles.  Many, many Republicans have to be worried not just about losing the White House, but about a dispirited party and a down-ticket wipe-out.  McCain supported the surge.  That's true, and a very strong point.  But is it enough to wage a nine-month campaign on?

Romney's third conscutive strong performance in a debate will almost certainly lead to a rise day-to-day over the next six days in key states, but whether he rises fast or far enough depends primarily on the Huckabee voters' recognition that continued allegiance to the Huck spells a McCain nomination and all that means for the next nine months.

The long exchange between McCain and Romney on global warming is a crucial moment in this debate and campaign:  McCain-Lieberman is a massive regulatory program which would greatly burden the American economy.  It would tax energy in a regressive and lasting way, and as Romney points out, would drive huge numbers of jobs off-shore without measurably reducing greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale.

Conservatives:  "Cap and trade" would be the greatest expansion of the federal regulatory authority in the past half-century.  John McCain's certainty about the causes of global warming and the solutions put him far outside the mainstream of the GOP.

UPDATE: Bravo to Janet Hook for pointing out that when John McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts, he used class warfare rhetoric to explain his votes.

UPDATE:  "No amnesty."  "No special pathway."  Second mention of the Z Visa. Mitt Romney draws a big line between himself and McCain.  Are conservatives watching?

McCain: "We are all in agreement on what we want to do."  That's just not true.  The more the debate stays on immigration, the worse it is for McCain, period.

Geraghty The Indispensable does the math for super Tuesday:

That would put things at about McCain at 500 (needing 1,191 to be the nominee), Romney at 325, Huckabee at 230 or so.

From the land of the black flag:

I can't keep knocking Hewitt for being a bit overly enthusiastic about being, ultimately, right. If some of us had seen the lay of the land as well as Hewitt and supported Romney as the best realistic consensus conservative candidate, we might not be in the position we're in now.

Why do I say premature?

John Ellis has the shortest, best take of what has happened and what might happen still.  The only thing missing from the Ellis analysis is the possibility --however large or small-- that GOP voters react like Democratic voters did in New Hampshire to the MSM telling them their race was over.  Conservative voters especially are very tuned into the race and to the effect of the split in the conservative vote.  Huck might not be quitting, but the decision is up to his supporters whether to hand the GOP nomination to John McCain.

Chris Cillizza reports the MSM understanding of what is happening on the GOP side --the repudiation of conservatism:

The traditional thinking about the Republican nomination is that no candidate can emerge as the standard-bearer of the party who is not embraced by the conservative wing. McCain, with an assist from Giuliani, appears well on his way to proving that conventional wisdom wrong.

In fact, the conservative vote has been split in many directions, but now has to decide whether to coalesce around Romney and send the race deep into the spring or turn the party over to Senator McCain and run a 1976/1968 campaign of the center.  Mike Huckabee wants GOP voters to ignore what is at work in his remaining in the race, but that's hardly likely.  Next Tuesday's contests will be a measure of the strength of the GOP's conservative wing.  If it remains strong, it will keep the Romney campaign competitive with wins across the country except in the northeast.  If it shrugs its shoulders, the Reagan Coalition will have finished its run.  Indeed, if the Arizona maverick  triumphs next week, don't be surprised if John McCain selects a Rudy or Joe Lieberman as a running mate as an "all-in" play for the muddled middle of the country.

UPDATE: Lefty Kevin Drum thinks McCain can't possibly pick a Rudy as a running mate.

Kevin just doesn't understand McCain.  He'll do what he thinks will win, and if he thinks the conservative base has nowhere to go and will vote for him because of the war, look for a pick left, not right, if he prevails in the nomination race.

CNN puts McCain with 97 delegates and Romney at 74.

Let's look at the worst case for Romney on Super Tuesday.

Next Tuesday the winner-take-all states that lean McCain are New York (101), Missouri (58), Arizona (53), New Jersey (52) Connecticut (30), and Delaware (18) for a total of 312 delegates.  (Even though Missouri, another winner-take-all leans Huck right now, lets give its 58 delegates to McCain.) 

Romney is favored in winner-take-all Utah (36) and Montana (25), for a total of 51 delegates.

Thus before the sorting takes place in the other states, McCain's got 409 delegates and Romney's got 126.

Huckabee will certainly get the 34 Arkansas delegates to go with his 29, for a total of 63. 

States dividing delegates Tuesday on other-than-a-winner-take-all basis:

California          173
Georgia               72
Illinois                   70
Tennessee          55
Alabama              48
Colorado             46
Massachusetts    41
Minnesota            40
Oklahoma            41
West Virginia      30
Alaska                  29
North Dakota       26

Total                     671

If these divide 40-40-20,  McCain and Romney will add 269 delegates each, and Huck 133.  But since we are going worst case for Romney, make it 50-30-20, or 336 for McCain,  201 for Romney, and 134 for Huck.

Total at the end of Super Tuesday without a major reversal of fortune for Romney:

McCain 745, Romney 327, and Huck 197.

It takes 1,191 delegates to secure the nomination.  There are more than 900 delegates left to fight for after Super Tuesday.

Start looking hard at the numbers and put yourself in the discussions with Team Romney.  It isn't pretty, but it is far, far from over.

And if the Huckabee voters look at the reality and see they are voting for McCain when they vote for Huck, anything can happen.

Mitt Romney On Good Morning America Today:

"I think what will happen across the country is that conservatives will give a good thought to whether or not they want to hand the party's nomination over to Senator McCain. He has not been their champion over the last several years," Romney said in an interview Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"I think there will be a movement within the Republican party to coalesce around a conservative candidate. Mike Huckabee, of course, might stay in, and that might be one of the reasons he does so - is to try and split that conservative vote."

Romney's correct that Huck's role is now as a spoiler of a conservative attempt to stop McCain, but it is hard to imagine Huck leaving the race though many of his voters may leave him.

Meanwhile, John McCain's senior advisor John Weaver makes sure that it won't be a pretty week  "[I]f Romney wasn't born on third base," Weaver told the Washington Post, "if he had to campaign and fundraise like everyone else, I'm sure he wouldn't be here anymore."

George Romney never graduated from college, rose through the ranks of the auto industry, and while he lived a comfortable upper-middle class life as head of American Motors before becoming governor of Michigan and Secretary of HUD. He was not a wealthy industrialist who began with a vast inheritance or a trust baby, and neither is Romney.

Mitt Romney earned his money, and if that constitutes being born on third base, lots of Americans who hit triples are going to be surprised to learn that Team McCain has contempt for their efforts.

An NRO symposium on conservatives and Senator McCain.