An aggregator has been set up to keep track of CPAC coverage on the blogosphere. Check it out here.

Former SavetheGOP blogger John McCormack broke the news over at The Weekly Standard

If he’s good enough for Tom Coburn, he’s good enough for me.

Disclaimer: I was a paid employee with Friends of Fred Thompson

In the last week, after Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani fell in the early primaries, the conservative blogosphere has been in an uproar over John McCain as the probable GOP presidential nominee. Conservatives have been pushed to unite behind a candidate in order to defeat him. Claims that conservatives will “stay home” for the general election with McCain as the nominee have been rampant.

Now, I have serious misgivings about him as the Republican nominee, as do many conservatives. But we could do far worse. And more to the point, its too little, too late. History will record that in this primary election conservatives failed to rally around the candidate that best represented their values, in favor of others who were flashier or more willing to play the media game that our nominating process has become.

Senator Fred Thompson is not perfect, but he ran the campaign that conservatives claimed they wanted. A campaign based around conservative core principles, limited government, returning our party to the ideals of 1994. And for whatever reason, voters rejected it.

And now I hear griping from various corners of the blogosphere about John McCain as our probable nominee. Complaints that our party will be demoralized with him at the helm, that conservatives will stay home, that we will continue to stray further from our principles.

They may be right, and they may be wrong. But more to the point: a lot of those doing the griping were the same people who spent the last year playing armchair quarterback on presidential campaign strategy, particularly with regards to the Thompson campaign. Our campaign had many flaws to be sure, but its loss of momentum and eventual demise was certainly aided by the constant harping on its management and strategy by right-of-center bloggers.

For a normal campaign, this might not have had a major impact. But for the Fred Thompson campaign, which was jump started largely by conservative bloggers’ early praise of his potential candidacy, it did serious damage. His campaign was launched with the unspoken promise that conservative bloggers would rally around it, and instead they began tearing him apart on the web from the moment he announced.

Conservatives wonder why our side of the blogosphere has so little success influencing elections when compared to the massive fundraising and organizational power of the lefty-netroots. The reason is this. Their side is full of activists, ours full of pundits. We had an opportunity to use our influence to push a great conservative candidate toward the nomination. And we blew it.

So for everyone complaining about McCain as the nominee, go back and check your blog archives and see how many posts you wrote about how the Thompson campaign was failing to live up to expectations, or how its fundraising numbers were too low or its media strategy unsound. And hopefully you’ll learn a lesson for the next time around.

With Senator Fred Thompson out of the presidential race, I prefer John McCain among the remaining Republican candidates. While I think he’s wrong on a whole host of issues, Senator McCain’s leadership on the Iraq war has been the type of steadfast courage that this country needs in a president. Also, from having worked against each of the Republican presidential campaigns, McCain’s has been the most ethical among them.

However, when I filled out my absentee ballot earlier this week, I voted for Fred and all his delegates. I chose my candidate, and I worked my heart out for him. And in November, if McCain is the nominee I’ll vote for him. But when I do I’ll be more than a bit sad thinking about what might have been. And hopefully, we’ll all have learned from our mistake when it next comes time to choose a President.

Watch it through to the end. And kudos to the Paultards for the Terminator music. H/T Hot Air.

It looks very much like we’re heading toward one, though not on the Republican side.

According to a number of estimates, either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would have to win over 75% of the remaining delegates for the race to be decided by the end of the primaries. This is simply not going to happen.

The race on the Democratic side will come down to the superdelegates - Congressmen, Senators, Governors, former Presidents and party chairmen, etc.

Thus, it’s entirely possible that we will not know who the Democratic nominee will be until August.