Update from Hugh Hewitt

"Huckabee voters across the country are indeed coming to Rush's conclusion that "a vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain."

Romney credits talk radio with helping to lead his comeback after his narrow loss in Florida. While it is difficult to overstate Rush's influence on American conservatives, and while all of the talkers have audiences that do indeed listen intently, the real reason behind the Romney surge is the incredible connectedness of center-right voters and the sheer amount of data they take in. The talkers just opened the spigots on the information, much like they did when the audience killed the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill in the spring and summer. Rush sets the menu for more than 20 million people, and the rest of us for smaller but still very large audiences. But the listeners decide what to order.

Once the score was clear after Florida --a McCain or Romney nomination-- the Republican base quickly began to rally to Romney because the Republican base cares deeply about the issues that bind the Reagan coalition --tax cuts, originalist judges, free markets, and of course the value of unborn life and traditional marriage.

A vote or McCain or Huckabee is widely understood as a vote for a long eclipse of that agenda. The turn to Romney led by Rush and then Sean, Laura, Mark Levin et al was simply the widespread and widely broadcast recognition of the choice in front of conservatives.

California is among the most wired of states, with a Republican base used to communicating around the dominant MSM represented by the Los Angeles Times. The big shift to Romney coincides with Arnold's and Los Angeles Times' endorsement of McCain and underscores just how weary the Golden State GOP is of accommodation to political elites.

But this election is about much more than affection or admiration for candidates. It is about the ideas behind their desire to lead, and Romney's ideas are Reagan's. Romney came to some of those convictions later than long-serving Republicans in the party and beyond, but he's where they want him to be, and he's not going to abandon these ideas upon entering office.

In Georgia and throughout the evangelical precincts of the south and the west, the Huckabee vote is dwindling because evangelical voters don't need to make any more statements. The evangelicals need a political leader who can win and who will work towards the goals they want, not agree with their theology. The prospect of a McCain candidacy and an Obama presidency has clarified things in a wonderfully abrupt fashion for them. Most of them have no desire to look back in a few years and see themselves as the Perot voters of 1992. They are flowing to Romney because they really do care about the culture they see in decline and McCain's indifference to it. They know that Huck has no chance of winning the nomination. A gesture isn't enough in these circumstances."

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/

"How big is the rally to Romney? Big swings in short times have marked Campaign 2008, and an almost impossible-to-quantify-in-terms-of-impact new dynamic from the new media's role has overtaken MSM's ability to forecast results much less determine outcomes.

Here are three polls from California: Reuters-CSpan/Zogby has Romney up 8 points. Rasmussen has it tied. SurveyUSA has McCain up 3.

All three show a tremendous rally to Romney as do polls from Georgia, Missouri and Tennessee. The Huck voters are switching to Romney in order to make their vote count and to keep the GOP committed to a conservative agenda, but McCain has enormous Beltway support and an MSM force-field around his record. Rush et al have been vocal throughout the day as they were last week, and will continue to be tomorrow, and Romney's campaign has gone straight on McCain on the immigration issue in California.

Romney's decision to return to Long Beach airport tonight for a final rally to compete for the minutes on local television underscores how the Golden State, for the first time in years, will have a huge say in the nomination for both the Dems and the GOP. If Romney can win in the home of Reagan, he will have a great chance at leading the party of Reagan in the fall, regardless of how the Rockefeller Republicans vote in NY."

[Me again: keep reading below for more of today's posts]