McCain Reaches 1,191

After last night's blowout victories, John McCain officially became the Republican presidential nominee by reaching the 1,191 delegates needed to clinch it.

Soon after this was confirmed, Mike Huckabee finally ended his campaign for the presidency and offered to support McCain. But don't expect him to do too much before November--he has the 2012 election to prepare for.

Now, this is not huge news. We all knew that McCain clinched the nomination after Mitt Romney dropped out after Super Tuesday. But now, conservatives have no other choice. It's either vote for McCain or stay home.

I am curious to see whether they will embrace him or continue to shun him. And conservative voices like Rush Limbaugh have a large stake in that.

In an attempt to help conservatives transition to McCain, President Bush endorsed him at the White House today. The pundits are trying to figure out whether this will help him or hurt him--and they are pretty divided on the issue.

Well my friends, here's some straight talk for ya. McCain was going to be associated with Bush no matter what. The Democrats were going to paint his campaign as Bush's 3rd term no matter what.

Even though he is vastly unpopular with the general electorate, President Bush still has a large following among conservatives--the same group that McCain is struggling with.

This endorsement can only help him in the long-run. McCain will take advantage of the tight Democratic race to try and unify his deeply divided party, and Bush's endorsement will cause some conservatives to bite the bullet and support McCain, even if it is passive support.

But now that McCain is official nominee, the conversation now turns to who his #2 will be. Here's some advice John McCain: get a young conservative southern governor who knows the economy inside and out. I don't know if such a person exists, but try and include as many of those adjectives in your choice as you can.

I will take a closer look at the contenders for McCain's running-mate over the next few weeks. Besides that speculation, the Republican side is pretty uneventful, if not boring, for the time being.