Caught a Matt Lewis post at Townhall referring to a Wall Street Journal column by Pat Toomey suggesting a short list of right wingers for McCain veep slot as a means of unifying the party.  Here it is over at the WSJ  and he couldn't be more wrong. 

Yeah, a short list of a bunch of white guys. Friggin brilliant! I like Toomey and the Club for Growth but come on, doesn't he own a television?  If the GOP doesn't grasp the impact of, and better frame, the imagery of this election we are in for a trouncing of historic proportion. 

Unless you've actually been swallowing the "this isn't about race" crap you have to realize the only way a wrinkly, old, white, crank has any hope of beating a young, buff, bronze, silver-tongue is to balance the imagery.  If we can't present a package that says "see, we can make history too" we are screwed, so, sure, a conservative would be nice but it HAS to be a woman, or a black, or a Hispanic, or a black or Hispanic woman.  (This would be the same challenge should Bill Clinton's wife get the nomination, only with more emphasis on genitalia than skin tone)

Clearly McCain's strategy has been to sacrifice the loss of conservative purists by growing a larger share of moderate/independents, and, ahem, it worked. I think it's wishful thinking to believe a candidate would forsake a winning strategy.

I'm no demographer but I'd bet the farm moderates outnumber conservative purists somewhere in the 5, or maybe 10 to 1 range. Unlike us they are NOT political junkies but, unfortunately perhaps, their votes count just as much. Just as unfortunately, their consumption of political news consists mostly of sound bites, photo opps and TV imagery.

How else can you explain the rise of a vapid lightweight like Obama?  

Given some of the comments I've seen on other blogs, "it better be Romney or I'm outta here" for example, McCain is wiser to cultivate more moderates than wasting energy trying to salvage conservative die-hards. Don't get me wrong, I'm one of them, except I try not to let it blinker reality.  I really don't like McCain, but I really really really don't want Democrats to win.   

Mitt is right, if we weren't at war I'd throw McCain under the bus in a heartbeat.  But his victory did more than reduce the ultimate choice to the lesser of two evils. It goes beyond that. Now, regardless of who the Dems nominate, it is a matter of keeping troops between harms way and us - - or not. 

That should be a no-brainer even for the purest of the pure.