Unfortunately, Open Left no longer exists and their articles seem to be unavailable on the intertubes. So, here is a cached version of a post Mike Lux wrote in January 2008, about a ride he took on Amtrak during the early stages of the primaries.
So I went up to NYC a couple of days ago for some meetings, and I was coming back yesterday on Amtrak. Sitting behind me I hear some guy coming up and greeting another guy, sitting behind me. I don’t know who it is because they were sitting behind me, but I can hear the conversation. The one guy is being kind of a suck-up, and they start talking about being in conservative politics and that they need to deal with McCain. Then the other guy says great to see ya and walks away. So then the guy sitting behind me starts making phone calls on his cell. He’s got a fairly loud and authoritative voice, so I can’t help but overhear, and he’s making call after call after call to tell various people that we’ve gotta find a way to beat McCain, just would be just awful, and going on and on about how much McCain sucks and that even having Hillary or Obama would be better than having McCain because he would just be horrible for the conservative movement because he just doesn’t get the movement and he’s always using liberal language to talk about things and how that’s a terrible thing. And in one conversation with one person he was talking to, he was trying to talk him into coming out with a terrible story about McCain from five or six years ago, and he’s like yeah, what he did to you was just incredible, and you should go public with that story, etc.
After a while I got up to go get something from the café cart, and it turns out the guy sitting behind me was Rick Santorum, which makes it all the more fun and all the more interesting. So pretty much the whole trip this guy is working his cell phone, talking to people about how anyone is better than McCain and Giuliani would be better than McCain because then at least he wouldn’t betray the conservative movement… yeah, Giuliani is bad on some issues like abortion, but at least he would stand with the conservative movement. He was saying that there are people like Susan Collins who vote moderate sometimes, but at least she is a team player who always plays with the team and never plays against the conservative side even if she has to give the liberals a vote because she’s from Maine. But McCain will sometimes go against the team even when he doesn’t have to. Anyway, he’s just calling person after person after person on his list, trying to rally them against McCain to give money against him, be uncommitted to the national convention- apparently he was talking to some committed delegates- and he was thinking the best thing for the conservative movement would be a brokered convention, because then at least the conservatives would still have enough pull to pick the nominee.
Based on that account, I cannot see how John McCain urging Santorum to get out of the race is going to do anything but make him more determined to stay in. It’s clear that Santorum really, truly hates John McCain’s guts. I am certain that John McCain has verbally abused and humiliated Santorum more than once in closed Republican senate caucus meetings. It’s completely personal between them.
McCain said on CBS This Morning that Santorum should recognize “it’s time for a graceful exit” from the Republican campaign in the wake of Romney’s sweep in Wisconsin, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.
In Mechanicsburg, Santorum, instead, reminded listeners of the excitement deficit that has plagued Romney’s candidacy and has worried GOP strategists throughout much of the primary season.
“Folks want someone they can get excited about, who they can trust, and who can beat Barack Obama,” he said. “The question is, why isn’t [Romney] blowing the doors off this thing?”
Santorum might bow out under pressure, but not from John McCain. Also, Lux’s account makes clear that Santorum has been thinking about a brokered convention for over four years. It’s probably what he had in mind when he decided to run for president. Talking him out of it may not be possible.
