Romney 2012?

It’s a good thing I don’t earn a living through political punditry or prognostication, I’d be penniless and homeless. But then again those that do specialize in punditry didn’t see Tuesday’s results coming in the way that they came.

My man didn’t do as well as he needed on Super Tuesday and the Republican primaries are only slightly more clear. John McCain is firmly entrenched as the frontrunner by proving he can win in left leaning blue states where the conservatives are moderates. Mike Huckabee has surprised most by showing he’s not dead and is still strong with faith-based conservatives and in the South. Mitt Romney remains strong among the very conservative outside the South.

RealClearPolitics has the delegate count at McCain 604, Romney 244, Huckabee 187.

What’s it mean? Barring anything unforeseen McCain will take the Republican nomination. Huckabee and Romney by themselves cannot mount an opposition and their support does not flow to the other. What they can do is push John McCain to the right. Each from their areas of strength; Huckabee on social issues of life and marriage and Romney on fiscal issues of taxation and trade.

It will be up to McCain to heed the conservative base and assure and reassure that he will govern as he has promised in a Regan conservativism. And it’s up to the conservative base to hold McCain to those positions. Hold him to border enforcement first, making permanent the Bush tax cuts, nominating constructionist judges, cutting spending, preserving free speech (no Fairness doctrine), support for traditional marriage, market-based solutions for health-care and supporting life on embryonic stem cells and abortion.

I’ve never voted in a primary before and if Romney is still in the race I will cast my vote for him. But if the inevitable happens (and I think it will) then John McCain is my choice for president. Not my first, second or third choice but my choice none-the-less.