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You are right about McCain getting the independent votes, but Romney, Thompson and Giuliani all got very low percentages.

The independent vote wasn't enough — there was plenty of baggage with Romney, such as never coming clean about his religion, which many conservatives were skeptical about. Also, he was too slick -- the other Republican candidates ALL disliked him very much. It must have impressed Republican voters the same way.

Thompson didn't get a grassroots machinery started, he never gave himself a chance.

Giulani ran a incredibly stupid campaign.

I'm a conservative, not a big McCain fan, but he ran hard, and I give him credit. I don't think the Democrats put him there — the other candidates weak campaigns did...

If there had not been indies and dems crossing over, we may have had a chance to work our way toward unifying behind one candidate. The splintering of the base behind all of these different candidates opened the way for McCain to be pushed over the top by people who had no intention of voting for him in the general election. I remember being a little antsy about this back when everyone was backing any candidate that came down the pike.

That's why I felt like it was absolutely appropriate for a conservative to meddle with the Democrat primary if they so chose. OTOH, if there's an effort to close the primaries in Texas, I wouldn't really have a problem with it, but I know that any such effort would probably be led by Dems who would have themselves crossed over had the primary been earlier.