Other things that would have been

The Post runs a story about something that I have been saying for a while about how the GOP race would have turned out if it wasn't for one dumb mistake:

As Virginia voters prepare to go to the polls Tuesday to help choose the Republican nominee for president, state and national party leaders are left wondering: What if former senator George Allen had never uttered the word "macaca"?

After years of preparing for a 2008 presidential run, including trips to Iowa and New Hampshire and formation of a national network of donors, Allen's use of the word on Aug. 11, 2006, changed the landscape of the GOP nominating contest.

"The most important word uttered in the Republican presidential primary has not been terrorism or taxes, not faith or family, " GOP strategist Dan Schnur wrote recently in the Los Angeles Times. "Rather it was macaca."...

Allen's subsequent decision not to run for president left GOP activists searching for their next leader. For the first time in a generation, there is no presidential candidate who inspires all elements -- economic, social and national security conservatives -- of the modern Republican Party.

If Allen had not made that mistake, and if Allen had not lost the election, George Allen probably would have locked up the Republican nomination yesterday.

It's hard to say if the current process is going to help or harm the GOP nationally in the long run, however in the short term it would have been fantastic to have a telegenic, charismatic conservative nominee in this point in the process with the Democrats about to go into hand-to-hand combat for delegates for the next three months...