Tom Tancredo at the Tea Party convention: "Thank God John McCain lost the election."

"In Tancredo’s view, the Tea Party movement would never have been sparked under a McCain administration because Republican Party leaders and activists would have been muffled from criticizing their president. Meanwhile, McCain would be cutting deals with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid."

Ha. This has resonance for me. On October 8, 2008, I abandoned the "cruel neutrality" stance I had maintained throughout the campaign season and explained my reasons for rejecting McCain:

McCain never presented the conservative alternative to Obama....

McCain has lost definition. He's stumbling along to the finish line, hoping to achieve his lifelong ambition, to seize the crown at last. But why? To show he can get along with Democrats? I worry about what awful innovations the new President will concoct in league with the Democratic Congress, but at this point, I'm more worried about McCain than Obama....

On October 16, 2008, I said:

Is there some sort of idea that if you think McCain is too liberal, you still have to vote for him, because if he's too liberal, then Obama is really too liberal? I don't buy that. Better a principled, coherent liberal whose liberal choices will, if they don't go well, be blamed on liberals than an erratic, incoherent liberal whose liberal choices will be blamed on the party that ought to get its conservative act together.

On October 30, 2008, I said:

Usually, I prefer divided government, but that doesn't mean I need to support McCain. I've seen McCain put way too much effort into pleasing Democrats and flouting his own party, and I can picture Obama standing up to the Democratic Congress and being his own man. What, really, will he owe them? McCain, by contrast, will need them. And we've seen that he wants to be loved by them.

Sometimes, I think that letting the Democrats control everything for 2 years would work out just fine. Let one party take responsibility for everything. When they can't whine and finger-point, what will they actually step up and do? It will be interesting to know. And it will do the Republicans good to retool and define themselves, with an eye toward the 2010 election. I'd like to see this clarification after so many years of obfuscation.

After the election, summing up my 4 reasons for voting against McCain:

3. He never defined himself as a principled conservative.

Think about it. You may not like Obama, but picture, realistically, what would have happened with McCain.