Last night’s razor-thin victory by John McCain is being treated as though it’s all over for Romney and the rest of the field. Combing through the blogosphere, you can see a lot of people are resigned to what they feel is the inevitable. I’m not one of them.

Rudy is reportedly about to drop out and endorse McCain but, knowing the media the way we do, I’d say let’s wait and see (hey, they’ve lied to us before for political reasons). If that is indeed what happens, then Romney might — MIGHT — be in trouble.

Given what we’ve heard and seen about the so-called “closed primary” yesterday, I don’t think yesterday was indicative of much of anything. Independents were evidently allowed to vote and, if that was the case, then the results are tainted, because Independents go for McCain more than anyone else on the Republican side. While that’s a good thing in the general election, it doesn’t really give you a good idea of who’s the most popular among Republican voters. Given the results of some of the exit polls, I think it’s clear that man is Romney:

Nearly four in 10 conservatives were supporting Romney, while McCain finished with a respectable three in ten. Underscoring Romney’s appeal to the party’s right wing, he doubled McCain’s and Mike Huckabee’s support from the very conservative. Conservatives dominate Florida’s GOP, comprising six in 10 voters.

McCain’s support came from the elderly, moderates, and Hispanics. He also captured people who think the economy is in serious trouble, while people who believe the economy is just fine (I’m not fully convinced it’s headed south just yet) went for Romney. There’s also the Huckabee factor, in that Huck’s staying in the race, despite falling as much as he has, is basically splitting the vote. I think it’s safe to say at this point that Huckabee is staying in not so much to win, or even try to get a Veep slot (that may be a factor, make no mistake), but to drain a lot of support from Romney. The same could very well be true of Giuliani. If you take those two out of the picture, I think a majority of their supporters would go to Romney, or at least enough to tip the race in Mitt’s favor.

Yes, it looks like McCain may be building momentum and he very well may be the nominee, but I’d say wait let’s wait until that particular fat lady starts singing before we do anything rash. I’m not willing to concede, and neither is Mitt. To all of my fellow conservative bloggers and pundits, and those who read them, I’d say “it ain’t over yet”, so don’t give up and don’t give in (I may be a hopeless optimist, but it’s better than going through life as a Debbie Downer). Super Tuesday is less than a week away, and a lot of things can happen by the time it’s all said and done. If February 5th comes and McCain bests Romney, then we can officially hand in our Republican voter cards or whatever it is we want to do, but not before.

Update: Michelle points out some numbers that show this was indeed not a “closed” primary.

Captain’s Quarters points out that exit polling shows voter inclination, not actual registration. But I think he misses the point:

Republicans need to look elsewhere for answers. No one robbed us of a closed primary in Florida. Even among self-identified Republicans in this exit poll split equally between McCain and Romney, so it isn’t as if Republicans didn’t significantly support the winner of this contest.

Republicans split evenly, as he says, but that’s a win for McCain? I don’t think it is, because the conservative Republican vote went mostly to Romney. Having a monkey wrench thrown into the mix by allowing independent voters to vote gave McCain a win that he probably wouldn’t have had. That’s the point of a closed primary, to see who has the most support within the Party, not who can attract the most independent votes. As I said above, it’s great that a politician can attract the indy vote in a general election, don’t get me wrong, but in contests like this, not so much.

In other news, since I wrote this post earlier this morning, Rudy has indeed dropped out and endorsed McCain. That is a problem for Romney, as I said earlier.

AllahPundit at Hot Air also has some interesting thoughts, especially about how conservatism relates to being a Republican. I’ve said it a couple of times on this blog, but you can be a conservative without being a Republican, and you can be a Republican without being a conservative. The same holds true with Democrats and liberals. I have a ton of friends who are Democrats, but none of them are liberals.

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