Edwards now out, McCain wins Florida. As per Edwards, he was always and always going to be overshadowed by Hillary and Obama. Will be very, very interesting to see who he endorses - and it could make all the difference in the world.

As for McCain, I’m sort of intrigued that the Republican Party might go for him. Perhaps the GOP on the whole isn’t as extremist as I thought, or is making a conscious effort to walk back from the ledge. Well, times have changed - though you won’t hear anything about that on Limbaugh’s program or Fox News, of course, which must be taking Rudy’s fizzle pretty hard.

But Time has a  suggesting that Romney has lost momentum specifically because he’s tried to cater to “the movement” at a time when the movement is cratering:

His failures have many causes, which will be raked over by historians. But they also suggest a broader shift: Romney may be running to lead a Republican Party that no longer exists.

As has become increasingly clear, the ideological coalition Romney so eagerly courted no longer controls the fate of the GOP, at least in the early voting states - which have favored Mike Huckabee, a populist who trumpets the occasional role of larger government, and John McCain, a legislative maverick who does not always play by the Republican rulebook. Romney tried to run as the establishment candidate, only to find that the establishment no longer held the power.

All this may change come next week, of course. But it strikes me that the usual conservative organs like Rush and Fox have been consistently trumpeting the virtues of their favorite candidates, none of whom have been named McCain. Yet those candidates are falling behind - and McCain is gaining strength.

We don’t need to wait until November to see the Bush era finally buried. If McCain comes out on top Feb. 5, the dirt will already be falling on the coffin.