The key thing to remember about John Carlson is that he's a Republican first, and an ideological conservative second. In addition, he is a very useful indicator of the strategy and desires of the older non-theocratic Republican establishment. John has often been out in front in his early picks of Republican candidates that have eventually become the consensus party choice.

That is why it was so interesting to hear his discussion with Kirby Wilbur about their current favorites in the 2008 Republican presidential race, where John began the sales process for John McCain:

JOHN CARLSON: I like John McCain for 3 reasons. Number 1, John McCain will be a superb Commander in Chief. He has been right about national security. And ladies and gentlemen, John McCain's approach to how to fight the Iraq war was vindicated, I believe, by what has happened since. It was John McCain who said flood the zone with half a million troops and destroy the guerrillas before they can start an insurgency. I believe McCain was right. Second, ... I also think he has bailed out the President, literally saved his career twice.

He did it in 2000, when after an embittered loss in South Carolina, the primary, ended his campaign, he could have sat on the sidelines. Instead, he barnstormed the country with Bush. And Bush, barely by the skin of his teeth, won that race...

Third, I believe that he has been carrying the President's water on National Security in the United States Congress and before the national media, and I give him credit for that.

My final reason for supporting McCain is cultural. John McCain is an outsider to what I call the creeping corporate Republicanism. The relationship between the culture of the Republican congress and the lobbyists on K Street. We need someone who wants to slay that dragon, I mean a bombthrower, an outsider who really does want to end that. And I think John McCain is exactly the kind of guy who will do that.

A great one term, short term President, because you're right, he'd be 72 years old.

The thing most surprising about this is that McCain has always been one of talk radio's biggest Republican bogeymen. The main reason is due to his work in campaign finance reform. But it is also a consequence of McCain not properly falling in line with the mindless Bushism of the last 5 years. Since the start of the war in Iraq, McCain has been going on the Sunday talkshows and openly criticizing Rumsfeld and the other civilian leaders at the pentagon. This obviously didn't work for the typical right-wing radio listener who can't abide anything but sunny stay-the-course talk about Iraq.

In fact, this is the first time I've heard Carlson admit that many of Bush's Iraq critics are correct: the administration has screwed up the war from the beginning by committing too few troops and without a workable strategy to win. John has been especially protective of Rumsfeld in the past, vocally supporting the defense transformation theories that directly spawned the flawed Iraq strategy.

This appears to be more than the usual case of a talk radio host conveniently changing his deeply held beliefs. It appears to be the first local indication of the party establishment buying into a McCain ticket in 2008.