The notion that John McCain will ruin or even damage the precious Republican party is a figment of the imagination of the talk show hosts who have appointed themselves the guardians of the "conservative base" and the "Reagan legacy".  Rush Limbaugh and his sycophants like Hugh Hewitt, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, et al. imagine themselves to have their hand on the pulse of the Republican voter.  The election results, while these sycophants continue their chorus of denial, prove them wrong.  A lot of Republicans support McCain despite the daily, nearly unanimous anti-McCain ravings of these loudmouths whose primary qualification as political gurus is that they have a microphone and an audience.    Michael Medved is a refreshing exception.
Ronald Reagan's appeal, looked at now through a handy rear-view mirror, was largely that he was true to his beliefs.  He had principles and stuck to them.  He didn't change them when he made the transition from California governer to presidential candidate.  He was the opposite of Mitt Romney.  His legacy is better suited to John McCain.  Like Reagan, McCain does not take his views from the latest opinion polls or the talk show "experts".   His principled refusal to bend his beliefs to match Rush Limbaugh's wrongfully get characterized as "sticking his thumb in the eye of the Republican Party".    Rush's considerable ego notwithstanding, not all Republicans take their marching orders from Rush and his loyal band of copycats.  
The sad truth is that most of these talk-show hosts build their audience by being divisive.   The venom they have for McCain is far beyond simple opposition and principled support of Mitt Romney.   Many of them have hinted or even directly stated that the future of the Republican party is jeopardized by McCain dividing the party.  The reality is that it is the constant chorus of McCain hatred that is doing damage that threatens to guarantee election of a democratic president in 2008 and might not be repaired anytime soon.  By any fair measure, McCain has been a loyal Republican, supporting other Republicans, even when he had policy disagreements.   Besides themselves, exactly who has anointed these talk show hosts the protectors of the so-called "true conservatives"?   They need to ask themselves whether the beloved party is really more important than the country, as many of their comments suggest.   They should make it clear that the country comes first and their party is somewhere lesser in importance. 
For them, McCain has become a handy target of the same sort of divisiveness they previously bestowed on "illegal immigrants".  Since they see McCain as a supporter of "amnesty", he has become their convenient target.     Of course, their public commentary is careful to point out that their venom is directed only at "illegal immigrants" while they continue to welcome "legal immigrants".   But they root on their callers who continuously rail against the foreigners in the hospital emergency rooms and their kids' schoolrooms.   Do these whiners even pretend to know the legal status of the foreigners they see sucking up our limited resources?   Of course not.  Their hatred is actualy rooted in pure selfishness.  But, of course, it sounds noble when they give lip service to welcoming legal immigrants.  The truth is that there has always been an element of immigrant hatred and it has now become a central tenet of the "conservative wing of the Republican Party".  Who said immigrant bashing is a conservative principle?  Exactly how is the immigration debate related to traditional conservative values of smaller government and family values?     The reality is that immigrants are a convenient enemy and McCain, by being associated with an attempt to address the problem rationally rather than divisively, has become the new enemy. 
McCain is a patriot deserving the support of patriotic Americans.   The suggestion that he is unworthy because he has managed to find ways to compromise with the even more hated liberals, aka democrats, is preposterous, short-sighted, bigoted and wrong.  It is those who make that suggestion who are the true cause for alarm.
Ed J.