Tuesday's election returns continue to reverberate: Mitt is now moot, Mike Huckabee is running stronger than ever (for vice-president), and John McCain, now the GOP's presidential nominee-in-waiting, is in trouble. But only with capital-C, talk show Conservatives.

Just go down the list: Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, even El Rushbo himself . . . all sound dismayed, irritated and generally hacked off at Senator McCain's commanding performance on Super Tuesday, which must have seemed like Black Tuesday to the dittoheads of the world.

The Rev. Dr. James Dobson, who long ago was anointed pope of the Religious Right by all-knowing talk radio, has washed his hands of this upstart senator, this loose cannon on the good ship Ideological Conformity, who refuses to meekly recite the Reverend Doctor's political rosary.

That's the trouble with John McCain; he's always been his own man. He just will not go along with the party line, anybody's party line. He's always given his interrogators a hard time, refusing to break no matter what blandishments, punishments or calumnies are applied.

Sure, the man may get things done - like finding a way to get conservative judges confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He may even prefer fixing a system that's broken - like our immigration "system" - rather than just griping about it. And if he's proving right about the war in Iraq or on terror in general, well, that scarcely makes up for his unmitigated independence.

Consider the case of Ann Coulter, certified banshee of the American right. (The uncharitable might say certifiable on the basis of her more operatic performances.) The woman doesn't invite conversation so much as diagnosis. With her unfailing instinct for the outrageous, Ms. Coulter is always topping herself, and maybe has to, in order to keep our attention. Which she certainly does. You just have to watch - the way you find yourself slowing down to stare at a car wreck despite your best instincts.

Watching the Coulter Show, I keep thinking of one of those oh-so-mod Shakespearean dramas staged in contemporary costume and placed in the most jarring of settings - say, the executive suite of a modern Romneyesque corporation - in which Lady Macbeth appears as a bottle blonde in correct business attire text-messaging her latest order to Macbeth, Inc. When the curtain comes up, the sight may be a little jarring, but you keep watching - just to see what wretched excess comes next.

Ms. Coulter doesn't even have to raise her voice to be as grating as Chris Matthews, the only political commentator whose spiel rivals those HEAD-ON commercials for sheer volume. (Though his spiel may lack their intellectual content).

Except in Lady Coulter's case, you may not automatically punch the mute button at the sound of her exasperating voice. You've just got to hear what she'll say next. The other day, she conferred her endorsement on Hillary - yes Hillary! in preference to that maverick, that heretic, That Man.

Such has been John McCain's exile to outer darkness by those who hold in their hands, or at least have on their telescreens, the standard list of his deviations from the accepted canons of Rightthink and are checking it twice, thrice and on every re-run.

There's no getting around it: John McCain is just not popular with Conservative Spokesmen. It's only conservatives he appeals to, to judge by the election returns Tuesday. Also independents. Even discerning Democrats. And just plain voters in general. The kind who look to character first, and may even stop looking right there.

All these inescapable voices from stage right bring to mind the kind of true believer who'd rather lose with some ideologically correct robot - assembled according to their exact specifications - than win with a living, breathing, uncontrollable human being. Someone like John McCain. Someone with a mind of his own, and, much more worrisome, a will of his own.

But can John McCain unify the GOP in November? Maybe yes, maybe no. But if Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic presidential nomination this year, she'll unite the GOP for him. No wonder so many Republicans are rooting for her in the primaries; she may be their party's best hope - and Barack Obama the GOP's greatest fear. Continued...