Free Republic

WASHINGTON The Reverend Jerry Falwell has thrown his support -- but not quite his endorsement -- behind Senator John McCain if he runs for president in 2008. Falwell calls McCain "the kind of conservative candidate whom I would have little trouble supporting" and "one of America's most profound heroes." Still, he says that's not an endorsement of a McCain candidacy. Falwell wrote in a column in Sunday's The New York Times that McCain hasn't asked for an endorsement and he hasn't offered one.

Last October, J. David Woodard, a Clemson University political scientist who doubles as a strategist for conservative Republican candidates, polled 450 South Carolina GOP voters, asking: "When it comes to politics, do you consider yourself closer to George W. Bush or John McCain?" Sixty-three percent picked Bush. Twenty-one percent said it made no difference. And just 16 percent chose McCain. The message? "I think McCain has a lot of work to do if he's going to win here," Woodard told me recently. "There is a long-term memory, especially with Christian conservatives, about his comments after the 2000 race." Last September,...