So - McCain, then?

Well, last night we were without power from 8pm through until the wee small hours, so instead of watching the Florida results, you would have found me reading the new issue of the 7th Circuit Bar's journal - which by pleasing coincidence arrived earlier in the day - by the flickering light of a blueberry-scented candle. So I'm playing catchup today and see that McCain won Florida handily. I find this a little surprising (I'd thought Romney would win it), and the dismay in certain quarters is palpable. There are a lot of people in the GOP who really don't like McCain and who are alarmed that victory in Florida may mean that he's on course to get the nomination.

What to make of this? The first thing is, of course, to incorporate by reference remarks I offered when for one perilous moment it looked as though Huckabee might be more than an Iowa hiccup. That post basically holds good with regard to McCain's winning the nomination as much as to Huckabee's doing the same. As I said then, "if one involves oneself in the primary, one morally commits oneself to abiding by the outcome. That's the bond of trust that is a prerequisite to a primary system: it's a kind of social contract wherein I expect you to honor the result if it goes my way and you thus legitimately expet me to honor the result if it goes your way."

Beyond that, while McCain's not my first choice, I do think the handwringing over his potentially getting the nomination is a little overwrought. Of course I acknowledge there are serious, real concerns about McCain which counsel against nominating him. I agree with much of it. But there's also some deeply unserious reasons advanced for opposing him, and even among the real concerns, at least in my view, there's nothing that would make him a less desirable President than the alternative which is one of the dem candidates. As Tully has said in another place, you go into the general election with the candidate you have. Take immigration, for example: many conservatives disagree with McCain's position amnesty, as well they should. But if the choice is McCain, who supports amnesty but is likely to deal with border security going forward, vs. Clinton who will grant amnesty and do nothing about border security, the choice isn't difficult. And that's assuming aguendo that it's sensible to consider a single issue in isolation (it also sets aside, again arguendo, that many of the same people who see this as a critical failing in McCain were hapy to overlook it in Bush)!

Furthermore, I have a hard time understanding how much of what's written with him squares with reason, let alone reality - for example, one sees people saying that the Gang of 14 means he won't appoint conservative judges, which doesn't even rise to the dignity of being wrong - it's a non sequitur. As Patterico puts it, "[w]e have a better chance at good judicial nominees with McCain than with Hillary and Obama. There’s no question about that." Another frequent criticism raised is that McCain opposed the Bush tax cuts and is thus an apostate on a central plank of Republican orthodoxy - but wait a second: as I remembered it, McCain opposed the tax cuts because they weren't conservative enough: the package didn't include spending cuts. Am I misremembering, or is the goal of cutting taxes not to borrow and spend, but to reduce the size of government?

In sum, McCain's not my first choice, and it's a good idea to oppose him in the primaries, but criticisms should be coherent and deal with his actual failings rather than overblown and amorphous silliness, and we should look askance on those who would declare themselves RINOs and stay home before voting for McCain should he win the nomination. To echo Capn' Ed once again, if those opposed to McCain fail to prevent his nomiation, they "should acknowledge that the party made a different choice and support the end result of the primary process."