SIGNALS FROM HELL: McCAIN GETS BUSH ENDORSEMENT; HUCKABEE GETS THE NOD FROM DOBSON

McCain has had a very able p.r. machine. When he was caught taking bribes, he turned himself into a campaign finance reformer and voters still have the impression he fought against the dreadful Keating Five, instead of understanding that he was the Keating Five-- or at least one of the 5 senators who were caught. And McCain, probably the dirtiest of the 5 is the only one who is still in government. Many voters, Republican and otherwise, see him as the anti-Bush. The pictures of him with Bush, the voting record of him rubber stamping virtually every piece of disastrous legislation Bush sent down the pike... none of that matters compared to the carefully planted and nurtured impression that he stands up to Bush.

I wonder how they will spin tomorrow's endorsement. By Bush. According to Peter Baker in the Washington Post Bush is going to skip over to the Hate Fest tomorrow morning to bless McCain for the hard core radical loons on the fringes of his crumbling coalition.

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."

Bush, of course won't mention McCain by name; that could wind up in a Democratic attack ad. Instead he just blows the dog whistle, lets the 26-27% of Americans left who still claim Bush is doing a swell job know that McCain is Bush's political heir and leaves it at that, hoping McCain's p.r. crew-- with a little help from GOP-controlled media-- spins it in such a way so that the masses never figure it out.

Meanwhile the Grand Ayatollah of the religionist right, Jimmy Dobson, has endorsed The Huckster. Dobson hasn't endorsed in a contested GOP primary before but he has already said he would never under any circumstances vote for McCain, which is fairly ironic since they see exactly eye-to-eye on every important issue facing America today. Huckabee came to seek his endorsement in Colorado Springs today.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out that on "the sane day the Arizona senator became the near-certain Republican nominee following Mitt Romney’s exit from the race, prominent evangelical leader James Dobson has decided to endorse his opponent, Mike Huckabee, the Associated Press reported this evening."

So, at least for now, it will be a two-pygmy race for the worthless GOP nomination. Huckabee says he's in for the duration, which is what Romney said yesterday and before him it's what Frederick of Hollywood said, as well as Giuliani, that other Thompson, Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter, so...