Weigel

A radio show was calling me to talk CPAC; I had to head outside. The noted blogger and commentator Robert "Stacy" McCain was walking out as I walked in. "Are you going to Mark Block's office?" he asked.

This was what he meant.

"I'm surprised to see you smoking!" I said.

"The cigarette is smoking," he said. "I'm just here."

His old candidate was still in the hotel, making himself available for photos, inspiring a line that stretched all around the mezzanine. It's quite hard to find CPACers who didn't once like Cain, and now have to settle for a candidate.

"The candidates I've liked have been knocked out basically in the order I liked them," grumbled Nate Schultz, an engineer from Huntsville, Alabama. "Cain did well, and then that dirt got dropped on him."