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"FacebookPinterest\n\nSouthern California talk radio is a great way to catch up with the cacophony of conservative voices, especially on the eve of a make-or-break primary in the most contested Republican primary season in a long time. I spent hours listening to the radio in the days before last night's debate. These guys are worried. Call it the anxiety of the affluent.\n\nItem: I heard Michael Medved struggle to explain to his callers why it was not a good thing that Rick Santorum claims that mainline Protestantism had been taken over by Satan as of 2008; one caller even wondered which side Medved was on. Medved, a cultural warrior par excellence, was left to make a nakedly political argument: beating Barack Obama requires a three percent shift in the electorate. Asserting that American institutions had been corrupted by the devil himself was akin to asserting that the people who belonged to those institutions, or who were fans of, say, the NBA, were themselves irredeemably tainted.\n\nChances are good that the three percent of folks who voted for Barack Obama last time and who the GOP needs this time are not among those who Santorum empted from Satanic influence: conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Chances are pretty good, as Medved knows, that these three-percenters are not the type of voters who have assimilated conservative dogma in their hearts. \"It's about persuasion,\" he says.\n\nItem 2: Rush Limbaugh, while insisting that he likes Mitt Romney, he really does, bemoaned the governor's new tax-cut plan: \"Ah, well, the tax plan, and Snerdley is telling at me that it's aimed at the moderates, the tax plan really isn't aimed at moderates, the way he's describing it is aimed at moderates, and I... if that's a good way of describing why it could be so much more. Let's just put it that way.\" Limbaugh didn't like Romney leaving some tas on the top one percent of Americans untouched because, the candidate says, they don't need as much help. \"The 99 percent/one percent thing exists for a reason,\" he said. \"Class warfare works, for the voters. And we don't do this.\" We, meaning real conservatives. Romney has basically given up the game to Obama if he buys into the idea that, in Limbaugh's mind, one needs to punish some Americans in order to help others.\n\nItem 3: Hugh Hewitt, anxiously attempting to get Michael Barone, the walking American political almanac who edits The Almanac of American Politics, to tell him that, no, Michigan really isn't Mitt Romney's home state, and that no, the Romney name really won't give Romney much of a boost there, and that, really, if Romney loses (which Hewitt insists he doesn't think he will), it won't be that big of a blow to his campaign. Barone may or may not detect the plea in Hewitt's voice. Actually, as Barone explains, rather longwindedly, it's true that George Romney's name won't remind too many Michiganders (\"or Michigonians\") under 60 of anything tangible. For instance, Romney's brother and sister-in-law ran for statewide office, and lost; then again, in 2008, Romney blasted away his other primary rivals. There is some cachet to the Romney name here, Barone was saying. It may not be a lot, but it is significant enough.\n\nMore than ever before, I hear in the voices of the conservative echosphere an existential edge. Obama is eminently beatable. Maybe not as easily beatable as he was two months ago, but eminently beatable. Heck, Gallup has Rick Santorum neck-and-neck with the president in its polls\u2014and while this surely is a flavor-of-the-moment thing\u2014it has its roots in a restive public that is ready to turn out of office Mr. Obama should they be given the right choice. But the right choice still eludes the party. And that whitens the knuckles of the Medveds, the Hewitts and the Limbaughs. For all the talk about a contested convention and a dark horse who gallops in at the last moment to save Republicans, these hosts are smart enough to know that the chances that one of these three men won't be the nominee is infinitesimally small.\n\nThe debate itself was like a shuttlecock match. I don't think anyone scored in a way that will decisively change the results. I was, however, struck by the absence of discussion of jobs and the economy, and the long time spent disputing health care and the non-issue (even to GOP voters) of earmarks. I know that moderators and rules govern the debates, but great candidates can hijack them, as Newt Gingrich, at his height, was able to do before the South Carolina primary. No one in Arizona rose to the challenge. All the candidates looked exhausted. If you're anxious about the Republican field, your frets were not freed from your conscience last night.\n\nRead more from Death Race 2012\n\nA Senator Without Constituents: Russ Feingold on Obama, the GOP primary, and the Tea Party's patriotism-deficit\n\n_[\"GQ's Presidential Playlist: Michigan Edition\"\n\n](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race/2012/02/gqs-presidential-playlist-michigan-edition-022212.html)_\n\n \"The Thimble vs. The Iron: Walter Kirn on Why The Republican Primary Has Turned Into a Game of Monopoly\"\n\n\"The Truth About Young Republicans and Gay Marriage\"\n\n\"Megadeth for Santorum: A Political Reading of Their Lyrics\"\n\n\"Everything's Coming Up Obama (Here's Why)\"\n\nFollow Marc on Twitter for more updates from the campaign trail."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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