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.

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:

Steve Forbes just appeared on Neil Cavuto's show on Fox. He sounded like he will follow his candidate, Rudy Giuliani, and become a McCain supporter, though nothing formal has been announced yet. Asked about Romney's claims that he is a tax cutter, Forbes responded that it depends on the meaning of tax cut. He went on to highlight Romney's record raising fees and implied that there's little difference between fees and taxes. (He's right, of course.)

Forbes said he's less concerned about McCain's votes on President Bush's tax cuts than he is favorably impressed by McCain's promises to cut taxes going forward. When Cavuto noted that he sounds like a McCain man, Forbes responded: "That's where I'm heading now."

Every Republican candidate's strategy failed. Including John McCain's. Remember his original strategy: run as the party's heir apparent and bank on the benevolent neutrality of the Bush White House (obtained by the emotional reconciliation of John Weaver and Karl Rove) to raise large sums of money. This failed spectacularly at the end of June 2007, and the McCain campaign had to reboot. Its strategy: keep the candidate in the field and hope that other candidates would screw up and that external events would strengthen McCain's appeal. I have always been wary of campaign strategies of which one essential step is, "The other guy screws up." In McCain's case there were many steps, not just one. He was like the safecracker who must tackle an unfamiliar safe and must get one tumbler after another to fall in place. But for McCain it looks like all the tumblers fell into place.

Every Democratic candidate's strategy has failed or is failing. Hillary Clinton hoped to wrap this up with back-to-back victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. No such luck: She lost Iowa and came within a few tears of losing New Hampshire. Barack Obama hoped to sweep to victory by bringing young voters into the process and pitched his appeal not just to black voters but to a broader electorate that goes beyond the usual Democratic primary constituencies. He has had some success—he clearly expanded the pool of caucusgoers in Iowa and the primary electorate in South Carolina. But he's also seen himself defined by Bill and Hillary Clinton as a candidate appealing mostly to black voters, and while his percentages among blacks first in South Carolina and then nationally rose sharply in December and January, Clinton carried Latinos and Jews by more than 2-to-1 margins in Nevada and Florida. That's significant for California, which votes February 5 and where Latinos and Jews outnumber blacks by a ratio of 5 to 2.

In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."

At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? "Slow down our economy"?

I don't really think there's much debate that, at least initially, a full commitment to reduce greenhouse gases would slow down the economy….So was this a moment of candor?

“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.