I have a “bone to pick” with Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, Dr. Bill Bennett, Sean Hannity and all of those ordained by God to reveal to all of us mere mortals which candidates will destroy or defend the Republican cause as we know it. Why have they failed to grasp and accept the fact that many Republicans, including myself, are powerfully drawn to and strongly supportive of Senator John McCain?

Listeners are getting an earful and callers are doing a great job of parroting anti-McCain tirades. Yet, in the vein of the Fox News motto “We Report, You Decide,” Rush and fellow conservative talk radio hosts reported (if you can call it that) and Florida Republicans decided—just not the way Rush and friends pushed us.

Like most of his conservative listeners, I like Rush. I am drawn to Rush and his unique ability to articulate the conservative, free market gospel (of which I am a “dyed in the wool” believer). I like his comedic devices, including his tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment of his “talent on loan from God.” He makes the message exciting and insightful to new listeners, especially liberal converts who had been “warned” about the threat of a life-transforming conversion to conservatism by merely tuning in to El Rushbo.

But it is time for Rush, Laura, Sean, Bill and friends to deeply ponder the fact that almost two million Republicans voted in Florida’s closed primary—a huge number. More people voted in Florida than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina combined. More than twice the population of all of New Hampshire—and McCain was the Republican choice! Amazingly, this happened in the face of an unmerciful pounding by Rush and friends, as well as Romney’s 4,475 television ads to McCain’s 470.

And yet, Rush rants while pledging to fight on; Laura consoles the base against despair; and Sean rings the alarm bell—all of them noticeably shaken by their inability to move America’s unwashed masses of Republican voters away from McCain. They must secretly marvel at how Florida Republicans had the audacity to ignore their message from God and vote en mass for McCain. Was it their message? The messengers? How could this have happened?

Here’s the answer. Having been involved in hundreds of elections as the Republican Speaker of the Florida House, I know that Republican elections are about more than who is the most conservative or who has the best ideas, issues and ideology and, more particularly, who the establishment (Jeb Bush, etc.) needs in order to live on. If elections were just about ideas, it would be easy. It takes more than being “an anti-tax, anti-abortion, gun worshiping poster child for the far right” (that’s what my wife called me!). It takes more than pushing hard against liberals and so-called moderate Republicans in support of the conservative gospel. 

What does it take? Yes, it takes “talent on loan from God”—it takes something special like that. That’s what it takes, and that’s what Senator John McCain has. Like it or not, he has it. Presidential candidates are real people with real stories. Voters, thank God, are not automatons, but have an uncanny ability to “size up” candidates and decide who to trust. (Note, I’m not talking ‘likeability’; that’s different; Huckabee has that.)

Here’s the bottom line. Most Republicans trust John McCain. Like me, they place more weight on “straight talk” than scripted talk, especially from a flawed candidate like Romney who has been re-invented by the Republican establishment folks so they can stay in power. Sorry Rush and friends, but most voters find Mitt too slick, like a polyurethane coated dish in the window of a Chinese restaurant.

I do agree with Laura Ingraham that we may need to “start over” or get back to basics contemplating why conservative principles are not embraced by all who register as Republicans. (I would add to that to-do list the admonition of Ronald Reagan that if we take care of the courthouse and the statehouse, the White House will take care of itself. But that’s next time.)

This time it’s the supremacy of John McCain because most Americans see serious challenges ahead for our nation—at home and abroad. They sense McCain’s deep love for our nation and his strength of character—both on loan from God and both unable to be manufactured from full cloth by spin doctors and establishment cronies. Americans intuitively know McCain alone is up to the task, and no amount of brow beating by those with self-proclaimed “talent on loan from God” can change that.