Listening to the audience in the CPAC auditorium when Romney announced he was suspending his campaign it struck me that many of the conservative conservatives showed up at the dance too late. Milling around after his announcement, talking to those who were clearly disappointed, the point became more clear.

Conservatives blew their opportunity to nominate a conservative by waiting.

As conservatives argued about who was most like Reagan and who had flipped or flopped, they lost sight of the goal line. While waiting for Thompson to get excited and motivate people, or thinking Rudy might be the guy, or throwing votes to Duncun Hunter or Ron Paul or just simply waiting for a revelation, McCain capitalized on the disorganization of the actual conservative movement. As the movement remained distracted by the many good candidates in the game, McCain became the likely nominee.

There is much to be said in support of McCain but one can not honestly say that in the last several years he has acted like a conservative on key issues. While his support of the effort to stop radical Islam should be commended, his positions on illegal immigration, campaign finance, the environment, stem-cell research... run counter to conservative positions.

Prior to CPAC, the pundits told us McCain needed to reach out to conservatives at CPAC and prove he wanted to work with them to solve these very serious issues facing the United States.

His speech at CPAC was NOT about reaching out to conservatives. His tone, from the first remark about not showing up last year, demonstrated his mocking of conservatives. (click here for video of first part of speech) (click here for the text of the speech)

McCain started his speech with:

"It's been a little while since I've had the honor of addressing you, and I appreciate very much your courtesy to me today. We should do this more often. I hope you will pardon my absence last year, and understand that I intended no personal insult to any of you. I was merely pre-occupied with the business of trying to escape the distinction of pre-season frontrunner for the Republican nomination, which, I'm sure some of you observed, I managed to do in fairly short order."

His attempts at humor sucked the air out of the room. If he was trying to be funny, he failed. There is nothing funny about this race. He avoided CPAC last year because he does not respect the people at CPAC. He knew he wouldn't be welcomed and he didn't want to give the conservatives the opportunity to whack him. His failure to show up was a snub. His showing up this year was also a snub.

As he continued on, his rhetoric was clear- he is who he is and while we might disagree with his views, he is right and that is that.

Conservatives should understand that while McCain will continue the necessary fight against fundamentalist Islam and most likely follow through on cutting taxes and pork barrel spending and hopefully securing the border, he also said, by saying nothing, that he still believes in his amnesty proposal. (Say what you want, but a minimal fine and a path to citizenship is amnesty. Allowing those who who broke the law to cut in front of law abiding people who have waited for years for the opportunity to come to this country is wrong. These people should be required to leave in an organized manner and then get in line behind those who have done things right.)

(And by the way, if Congress passed a law that would permanently deny all visa applications or the opportunity for citizenship to any person caught in this country illegally after a date in the future- give people 1-2 years to settle their affairs, sell their houses, finish out their leases, finish out school years...- many illegal aliens would leave voluntarily.)

Now Huckabee will do his best to put the brakes on the McCain train, McCain will do his best to convince conservatives that he is on their team most of the time and conservatives will have to decide whether to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the campaign to elect McCain President or to spend some of that money on conservative House and Senate candidates that may be able to stop those liberal policies that McCain or the Democratic Nominee would allow through.

As the Democrats fight to the finish in their primaries, the best options for conservatives will flush out as well. Lets hope conservatives find a way to rally in a more organized and effective manner in the fall or the reults for the party, and the country, may be tragic...