Drudge posts that 23 percent of voters in Indiana and 27 percent of voters in North Carolina voted for a candidate other than John McCain in the Republican primaries. Thus Mark Levin concludes that “McCain still has not united the GOP behind him in these primaries.” Now, McCain may need to do more to turn out the Republican base, but the returns from these Republican primaries don’t appear to mean much. During the 2000 Republican race, McCain endorsed Bush on May 9. On June 6, 22 percent of voters in the South Dakota didn’t vote for Bush, as did 17 percent of voters in New Mexico and 16 percent in New Jersey. I bet that most of those Alan Keyes voters went on to vote for Bush, just as most Huckabackers and a decent number of Ron Paul supporters will go on to vote for McCain. My hunch is that these voters don’t cast their ballots for the presumptive nominee because they want to send a message. A friend emailed me back in February to confess he felt dirty voting for Mike Huckabee in the Virginia primary. This friend is a strong supporter of the Iraq war and said he actually preferred McCain over Huckabee, but he was also wary of McCain’s moderation on judges, abortion, immigration, etc. He wrote: “I just want to send McCain a message, so he knows where his bread is buttered.”
