Well, here we Republicans are, scratching our heads and wondering how we could have a presumptive nominee that approximately 60% of the party does not approve and for whom many have outright disdain.  We all seem to be mourning the lack of a TRUE CONSERVATIVE as our standard-bearer.  Thinking it over as one who has had a favorite since last summer but remained willing to consider others, I have come to some definite conclusions.

My belief is that we, as a party, have once again suffered a self-inflicted wound from which we will have to struggle to recover.  There are three primary reasons for how we've gotten where we are, and the saga of the Romney campaign, while not the sole possibility, provides the most vivid example for how they have played themselves out:

1)  Religious Bigotry
2)  Violation of Reagan's 11th Commandment
3)  Institutional and Individual Arrogance

Religious Bigotry:  There has been an undercurrent of disapproval because of Mitt Romney's Mormonism from the outset of his campaign.  One has to wonder how this even became an issue of any import, and I believe it happened, in large part, when Romney, through one of his most ardent supporters, decided to make it an issue.  When Hugh Hewitt published A Mormon In The Whitehouse?, I believe he unintentionally created a stigma that defined Romney by his faith rather than by his credentials.  It became the focus for those who were considering whether they should support Mitt.  Even though the book was designed to make Romney more than acceptable, its title brought unintended consequences that have made Hugh appear too smart by half. 

But I do not believe Mitt's Mormonism was a disqualification in the minds of an overwhelming majority of our party.  I would estimate that well over 85% of Republicans have no problem supporting a nominee of the LDS faith as long as he is otherwise acceptable to our ideals.  And, early in the campaign, Romney had a hard time defining himself as a real conservative.  His track record could not support the notion, so he had to pronounce his many changes of heart on issues that most conservatives hold as primary factors in deciding their support.  His failure to convince us left most looking for a better alternative.

The religious bigotry that has been far more pronounced in this race was NOT against Mormonism, but against a Baptist.  Mike Huckabee was dismissed out-of-hand by many of our own conservative pundits because they believed his early career as a Baptist minister made him unacceptable to the general electorate.  Romney supporters who became alarmed when Huckabee overtook their man in the Iowa polls resorted to various versions of the mantra "Huck's not electable."  Again, Hugh Hewitt was a prime mover in this regard with his "trash talking" style of discourse, but he was not the only one.  Huckabee was a candidate that had a genuinely more conservative record than Romney, but his supposed "unelectability" due to his religious background brought him the disdain of those who are now wondering so loudly how we're going to be able to support a non-conservative for president.

Granted, Mike made some errors in his campaign that gave pause to those who were not on his bandwagon, but far too many were willing to emphasize his mistakes while overlooking far more serious errors by their own chosen candidates.  It's really amazing that we as conservatives would not have embraced a man with the moral underpinnings that being a minister would indicate.  We got tied up in debates over "floating crosses" and steeled ourselves against a man who, allegedly, would have the audacity to insert a religious symbol in his Christmas television ad.  Many "talking heads" on the right concluded that Huckabee was too religious to make it to the big leagues and, thus, affirmed a climate of acceptable religious bigotry that undermined the candidacy of one of the more conservative men running.

Violating the 11th Commandment:  Many of the "Movers and Shakers" on the right have been almost gleeful in their disregard of Reagan's wisdom.  One good example is Ann Coulter whose slash and burn tactics are cute when they're directed at left-wing Democrats, but are downright stupid when turned against our own.  Trashing the candidates with whom they disagree does not assist the party's "seekers" in making rational decisions.  When McCain is called everything but a child of God and we hear "Tom Tan-crazy" and "Huckaphony" from many of the so-called "leaders" of conservatism, we could have guessed what the harvest would be.  Sure it's entertaining to use such tactics, and many of those "leaders" are in the dual role of pundit and entertainer, but it is still a great disservice to the conservative principles by which we claim to be guided.

The Romney campaign became the earliest and the best-funded of the violators as Mike Huckabee surged past Mitt in Iowa.  Spending millions of dollars on ads that, according to independent sources such as FactCheck.org and others, were distortions and unsupportable innuendo related to Huckabee's record as governor for over ten years.  These were attacks that Romney had to know could not be answered by a candidate that did not have the deep pockets he enjoyed.  While the voters of Iowa chose not to reward Romney's breaking of the commandment, the long-term damage was done to Huckabee's campaign as Hewitt, National Review, Levin and others picked up the clarion cry of "liberal" against Mike.  Rush Limbaugh got his nose out of joint when Ed Rollins, answering a question that lumped Rush in with other media figures, gave an answer that offended the 'Great Ma Ha Rushie.'  Consequently, Rush took up the fight and compounded the offense against Reagan's admonition.  As a result, the momentum that could have helped the candidate who was arguably the most conservative of the top-tier was blunted.

The man who should have occupied that position, Fred Thompson, finally woke up in Florida, but, lacking much in the way of original thinking, he chose to continue to ignore Reagan's advice, and lashed out at Huckabee as well.  It was discouraging if not disgusting to see how the Laura Ingrahams and K-Los of the world lauded Fred for coming to life and getting in the campaign when all Fred was really doing was tearing down a fellow conservative and aiding and abetting the McCain momentum.

Another notable is Mike Gallagher who spent at least two broadcast days and an article on TownHall.com calling Huckabee a liar for claiming to have eaten fried squirrels.  This example bleeds over into the arrogance category as Gallagher made his case by saying, in essence, "Since I don't know anyone that eats squirrels, then there could not possibly be any people who eat squirrels, thus making Huckabee a pandering liar."  As a country boy that has enjoyed many a fried squirrel in my time, I would see Gallagher's attacks as something out of the "Ivy League Elite" style of snobbery if I thought he could have actually gotten into an Ivy League school.

Romney's use of and failure with the offense against 'Ronaldus Magnus' in Iowa did not seem to teach him anything, for he tried it all over again in New Hampshire against John McCain.  Taking up the bludgeon of negative advertising and using it to try to derail McCain didn't work any better in New Hampshire than it did in Iowa.  Quite apart from one's interpretation of the concept of "amnesty", the damage of a heavily-funded attack strategy was of greater weight.  It did not help Mitt and it did not help the party to choose wisely, for the negative campaigning became the focus of the voters rather than the real issues that should have been the deciding factors.  It's quite all right to state in an ad that "I disagree with my opponent's position and here is my view," but to trash your opponent with catch-words designed to inspire resentment against that opponent crosses a line that does damage to both the attacked and the attacker.  The old saying is true that "you lose ground when you sling mud."

The overall result we have achieved for all of the destruction wrought by the violation of the 11th Commandment is that the campaigns of the two conservatives left in the race going into Super Tuesday, Huckabee and Romney, were damaged; possibly beyond repair.  If Romney had wanted to establish himself as the "new Reagan", he should have embraced the creed of the Gipper and stuck to the business of using his resources to tell the electorate why he should be their choice instead of spending so much time and money stating why the other guys should not.

Arrogance:  How often this vice has cost people the happiness they might otherwise have enjoyed.  There are many examples of arrogance throughout the unbelievably long campaign season, but the most glaring one came in the week prior to Super Tuesday.  With only three viable candidates still in the race, Romney suddenly enjoyed the mantle that had come too late to matter.  He was NOW deemed to be a real CONSERVATIVE, and his late-to-the-party supporters in the conservative media joined with Hewitt to take up the mantra "a vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain."  They were finally and indirectly acknowledging that Mike Huckabee was truly a conservative by taking this approach.  Had they figured this out after Iowa, they could have supported someone who did NOT have to keep explaining why the party ought to believe that he was now in the conservative fold. 

Their desperate attempt to stop the McCain juggernaut exposed the arrogance that is often at the heart of such silly reasoning.  Logic demands that, if their assertion is true, the opposite is true as well.  For if a vote for Huckabee would otherwise go to Romney and stop McCain, it follows that a vote for Romney would otherwise go to Huckabee.  If that is true, then Mitt's supporters should have encouraged their man to step aside so the conservative electorate could join forces to deny the nomination to McCain.  They arrogantly decided that the other guy should go, but there was no firm evidence that their assertion was even correct.  Exit polling in Florida indicated that most of Huckabee's voters had McCain as their second choice, not Romney.  While Florida voters do not necessarily reflect the views of those in the Super Tuesday states, there was not any real evidence that the hue and cry of Mitt's minions had any basis in anything other than their wishful thinking.

We usually get over arrogance by being humbled, and Romney's supporters are no exception.  Yet again, we learn too late that this vice usually keeps us from what we really want.  It was the arrogance of people like Hugh Hewitt that drove the self-destructive thinking of Romney's campaign in which money was more valued than message and going negative was acceptable for US, just not for anyone else.  Too soon old, too late smart.

So here we are.  We're not happy with the idea that we've got to get behind someone that's not considered a true conservative, but we're, for the most part going to hold our collective noses and back McCain.  But why do we need to do that?  There is still a shot at derailing McCain's 'inevitability.'  If conservatives would not forsake the last chance to support the last conservative standing, namely Mike Huckabee, we might just pull off an upset and get a candidate that needs no nose-holding.  Will we learn from our mistakes?