I am not sure of what to make of McCain's victory. But, I don't see it as a repudiation of talk radio. McCain didn't win the Conservative Republican vote in Florida. Look at the exit polls. Conservatives didn't vote for McCain.
According to the exit polls, 62 percent of primary voters identified themselves as conservative and 37 percent of them voted for Mitt Romney, compared to the 27 percent who went for McCain.
If those exit polls were accurate, who took the other 36% of conservative votes? I can't see Rudy getting Florida conservatives so they must have gone to Huckabee. But, the other GOP candidates took 70K votes and that only accounts for about 6% of the votes cast. But, these other candidates were the more conservative people who had already dropped out like Tancredo, Thompson and Hunter.
The vote tally indicates that 1.7 million votes were cast for all GOP candidates. Another 1.5 million votes were cast for Dems. The votes counted in Florida are about 39% of the registered voters. 20% voted in the GOP primary and 19% voted in the Dem primary. This seems to be a relatively high primary voter turnout.
The four-way nature of the race complicates conclusions. But, I am guessing the race won't be a four-way race much longer. Rudy is on his way out. Huckabee is a big question mark.
Rudy is rumored to be endorsing McCain. That will make it harder for Romney. Again, I don't think this means McCain must win the nomination but he didn't lose it tonight. Rudy and Huckabee probably did. But, I still feel that McCain will have advantages in a two-way race. I am not happy about this but I am not ready to give up.