Conservative blogger Robert Stacy McCain (no relation to John) on his namesake's campaign:
[The] "exhaustion" attitude is particularly true of professional conservative operatives in Washington. The older ones succumbed to Beltway fever at least five years ago; they're more concerned about getting new donors for their 501(c)s than advancing a conservative agenda.
While the Old Guard are now calmly re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, the younger staffers involved in the RNC/John McCain campaign are just collecting a paycheck and going through the motions. The McCain campaign is merely a resume-builder for them. None of these young staffers really believes in John McCain and none really expects him to win, and the honest ones don't mind saying so -- privately....The GOP is already psychologically defeated. John McCain's campaign is a symptom, not a cause, of this mindset....
The basic problem with the conservative movement during the Bush administration is that it has ceased to be a movement -- that is, organized political activism driven by the concerns of its grassroots supporters. The "movement" has been almost entirely co-opted by professional partisan operatives, who now issue orders telling conservatives what they're supposed to think, and banish anyone who dares disagree with the official GOP position.
(via Andrew Sullivan)
--Christopher Orr