After spending $1.16MM per delegate, one would think Republican voters would be enamored of Mitt Romney. After all, they’re the taxcut and spend, spend, spend party. Look at those deficits, and they keep electing folks who run up even more debt. But they’re not enamored of the slick Mitt Romney, and the New York Times has Romney facing reality today and quitting his VERY expensive run at the Republican nomination for President. (There’s a headline without story at Time, too.)

Mitt Romney is quitting his campaign for president, having made the final decision last night, according to a campaign source who asked to remain anonymous.

He made the final decision last night, as he was preparing his speech for Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, the source said.

“The speech will speak for itself,” the source said.

This has got to have Rush Limbaugh and the other Republican pundits all sad and everything. They’ve lost their main guy willing to pander to anything they wanted, switch positions at the drop of a delegate. So, some of the so-called conservative Republicans who were pushing Romney just a day or so ago are asking John McCain to change some of his positions so that he’ll be more palatable to them. These folks like Tony Perkins are inviting McCain to pander to them because now they know that Mitt Romney is a lost cause. Their meeting is today, where McCain will speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Yeah, he’s going to tell a bunch of lobbyists that he’s conservative, but I don’t think they’ll get all they want. Here’s the New York Times story:

The editors of National Review wrote on the magazine’s Web site on Wednesday that “aside from his opposition to pork-barrel spending, there is no domestic conservative cause that McCain has taken up.” They added: “McCain can win over most conservatives, but their support is not his by right.”

Another column on National Review’s Web site specifically warned him not to “spend the bulk of the speech burnishing his conservative credentials,” noting that “he has tried doing that, and a lot of conservatives are still left cold.” Instead, the column argued that conservatives would want to hear “that he will fight for conservative ideas.”

Others caution that any hint of concession could appear to be pandering and jeopardize the reputation for independence that is at the heart of Mr. McCain’s appeal.

“Throwing people bones is not really the John McCain style,” said Jim Dyke, a veteran Republican consultant who had worked for the Giuliani campaign. “That is not why people like him.”

Mr. McCain, for his part, has already begun stepping up his efforts to remind his party’s faithful that he truly belongs among them. “I am a Republican,” he said in his victory speech on Tuesday night, repeating the phrase six times.

No, McCain may artfully note how much of a concservative he is on facing down porkbarrell spending, but he’s not going to embrace these folks more than he has already, and Rush, at least, is still pretty livid. Remember, he and Ann Coulter have promised to campaign for Democrats if McCain wins. That sounds like a horror story in itself.

Meanwhile, McCain’s best friend Joe Lieberman has been stripped of his position as a Democratic Super delegate. Seems his backing of McCain for President isn’t compatible with voting for a Democrat at the convention. Bye, Joe! Maybe they’ll let you speak at the Republican shindig.