Ain't Goin' Out Like That

James Dobson, showing the stunning lack of an ability to count, endorses Mike Huckabee, who needs practically every single delegate available to win the nomination.

Dobson knows what he's doing, of course. He wants to have an argument to make after the election is over, that the Republicans lost because they didn't pick his preferred candidate. This is how they keep the movement alive; by calling anyone who loses an apostate, anyone who wins one of their own, and anyone who loses after he wins an apostate ex post facto.

The question, of course, is how actively Dobson and the theocons will undermine McCain. Will they simply not volunteer (evangelicals made up a substantial portion of Bush's ground team)? Will they stay home? Will they run Judge Roy Moore on a third-party ticket?

The world waits, and wonders.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, McCain gets the coveted 24% endorsement.

President Bush plans to give an implicit endorsement of onetime rival John McCain's conservative bona fides tomorrow as the Arizona senator seeks to consolidate the party behind his candidacy.

In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in the morning, Bush plans to say that the nominee of the party will be a strong conservative, according to excerpts released by the White House tonight.

"We have had good debates and soon we will have a nominee who will carry the conservative banner into this election and beyond," Bush says in the excerpts. "The stakes in November are high. Prosperity and peace are in the balance. So with confidence in our vision and faith in our values, let us go forward, fight for victory and keep the White House in 2008.

That's got to be good for a 5% drop in the polls right there, no? The political version of King Midas?