Patrick J. Buchanan, Syndicated Columnist and Founding Editor, The American Conservative Magazine, On Campaign Trail Invocations of John F. Kennedy and Ronald W. Reagan:

"Perhaps the candidates are hearkening back to yesterday because they know the American people are unhappy with today, and Barack's followers aside, are not looking forward to tomorrow with any anticipation of great days ahead under either party."

On the Results of Super Tuesday:

"Conservatives can't catch a break. Taxes, judges, the culture — somewhere a conservative is always getting shafted. The party broke up on the rocks of the 2006 election. Its 2008 presidential nomination has been contested by men claiming the mantle of Ronald Reagan but who in fact are: John McMaverick, a New York City mayor on his third marriage, the moderate governor of liberal Massachusetts, and the funniest governor ever from Hope, Ark."

— Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Deputy Editor

"Forewarned, Democrats now are forearmed — not that they will necessarily make sensible use of the gift. Tuesday's voting armed Democratic voters with the name of the candidate that their nominee will face in the fall. Will their purblind party now nominate the most polarizing person in contemporary politics, knowing that Republicans will nominate the person who tries to compensate for his weakness among conservatives with his strength among independent voters who are crucial to winning the White House?

"Perhaps. The Republican Party's not-so-secret weapon always is the Democratic Party, with its entertaining thirst for living dangerously."

— George F. Will, Nationally Syndicated Columnist

Michelle Malkin, Author, Syndicated Columnist, Regarding the USMC and the Berkeley (CA) City Council:

"The troop-bashers in Berkeley are at it once more. But this time, the rest of America lashed back. Message to the Left Coast: It's not the 1960s anymore.

"On Jan. 29, the Berkeley city council passed several measures targeting the lone Marine recruitment office in town. ...

"In another decade, Berkeley would have gotten away with this intolerant, illiberal, un-American power trip. But in the age of the Internet, talk radio and YouTube, word of the siege at Berkeley spread like lightning. And citizens across the country weren't willing to look the other way. The San Francisco-based Move America Forward, led by talk show host/conservative activist Melanie Morgan, launched an online petition protesting the city council measures. Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina moved to strip Berkeley of pork barrel spending worth $2 million.

"The American Legion mobilized as well. National Commander Marty Conatser lambasted the votes: 'The American Legion not only strongly condemns this action by the City Council but also believes that a sincere apology is in order to all Marines, past and present. What these recruiters do is essential to our national security. Without recruiters we have no military. And I don't think we can count on the flower children from Berkeley to protect this nation when it comes under attack. They have to remember that Marines are not the enemy; the terrorists are.'"

This Week On the Trail:

"There's one little three-syllable word that has been left out of most of the Democratic primary coverage on the TV: 'liberal.' We're constantly told by anchors and reporters how the Republican contenders are fighting over the 'conservative' vote and who's more 'conservative,' and that's true. But exactly the same fight is taking place on the left side, with the Clintons trying to suggest Barack Obama's not sufficiently liberal (he praised Ronald Reagan!) and Obama trying to take Hillary's Iraq war vote and turn her into Rumsfeld in a black pantsuit. ...

"In every election cycle, the allegedly professional media elite deny the obvious truth before the electorate's eyes: that the Democrats are nominating a doctrinaire liberal. To in any way dissent from this media distortion is, in turn, reported as a 'ferocious' partisan attack. It's going to be a long and frustrating year for conservatives. We're not only going to have to weather constant accusations of racism or sexism (or both) for opposing the Democratic nominee, we're going to be described as vicious for simply telling the truth about their ideology."

— Brent Bozell, Author, Syndicated Columnist, Founder and President, Media Research Center

"That MoveOn.org and Sen. Edward Kennedy have endorsed Obama ought to be enough for any conservative - even moderate - to pause before heading toward the electoral altar. But Obama has offered more cause for alarm by heralding his left-wing economic philosophy in a recent interview with The New York Times.

"Obama told the newspaper the top priority of the next president should be the creation of a more lasting and equitable prosperity than achieved under Presidents Bush and Clinton. Obama apparently missed the class that teaches government doesn't create prosperity; people do."

— Cal Thomas, Syndicated Columnist

"Hillary Clinton might be losing Democratic voters to Barack Obama, but she has a stalwart cheering section that won't abandon her even as she slips in the polls: Republicans nearly everywhere.

"Bill's relationship to Hillary is blissfully straightforward compared with that of Republicans. They hate her, and they love hating her. They have wanted her to lose the nomination for the mere sport of it, and they have wanted her to win because they think she's the weakest potential Democratic nominee. Lately, the entire party seems united in its quiet pleading: 'Please, Hillary, you're in it, now win it — for us.'"

— Rich Lowry, National Review Editor

"Whether in Arkansas or in Washington, Hillary Clinton has spent decades parlaying her husband's political clout into both money and power. How did that benefit anybody but the Clintons?"

— Thomas Sowell, Economist, Author and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow

"The overall results Tuesday showed that McCain had not sold himself to critical conservatives after his definitive victory in Florida."

— Robert D. Novak, Syndicated Columnist

"Anger towards McCain, despite the spin of his supporters, isn't exactly irrational. McCain has shown an elastic sense of principle. To conservatives, it seems like temperamental predilections are just as likely to determine his positions as poll numbers. He's a man they have trouble trusting."

— David Harsanyi, Denver Post Columnist

"Getting 50 endorsements from well-placed Republican officials or even respected conservatives doesn't make McCain conservative. Being a conservative makes one a conservative. I bet, truth be told, McCain can't even stand the word."

— David Limbaugh, Author, Syndicated Columnist and Political Opinion Writer

"The mystery is why anyone would think the foreign-affairs part of Sen. McCain's brain is not in sync with the part that produced: McCain/Feingold legislation that eviscerates core free-speech rights on which a functioning democratic republic depends; or proposals for massive, unregulated immigration (from someone claiming the mantle of national security paragon, no less); or global-warming legislation, the latest iteration of the senator's Big Government regulatory penchant (we are talking, after all, about someone who has suggested federal government intervention in everything from professional boxing to major league baseball); or opposition to the Bush tax cuts in class-warfare rhetoric so strident it would make Hillary Clinton blush (including a swipe just last week against 'greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished'); or the Gang of 14 deal, which undermined a conservative effort to end Democrat filibusters against the Bush judicial nominees.

"The surge can only camouflage so much. Sen. McCain's readiness to be the commander-in-chief fit for today's perils is the grand hope his supporters offer to overcome substantial conservative doubts. It's a mirage."

— Andrew C.McCarthy, NRO Contributing Editor

"[I]f history is any guide, the McCain we've seen of late on the campaign trail is the most conservative McCain we'll ever see.

"He has taken a commanding lead in the GOP primary by packaging himself as the 'true conservative' committed to limited government, to slashed federal spending and to an avowedly conservative Supreme Court.

"He claims the mantle of Ronald Reagan. He even claims the mantle of Barry Goldwater, conservatism's crack version of Reagan. But as McCain clinches the GOP nomination, he will begin his usual leftward lurch.

"He will return to his lifelong positions as soft on illegal immigration, skeptical of tax cuts and favoring strong federal control over things like campaign financing."

— Charles Hurt, New York Post Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief

"McCain must argue convincingly that he really did learn the lessons conservatives taught him at great pains to both sides.  He has said that he knows border security must come first, but his answers to questions both on Meet the Press and in the CNN debate before the Florida primary were evasive.  Will he sign legislation that establishes a path to citizenship for the 12 to 20 million illegals already here?  If he doesn't commit to rejecting that idea, he will not win over the conservative community he needs to win in November."

— Jed Babbin, Human Events Editor and Former George W. Bush Administration Official

"Assuming John McCain gets the GOP nomination, it will show how whimsical history can be. It would be the first time in living memory that a Republican presidential nomination went to a candidate who was not merely opposed by a majority of the party but was actively despised by about half its rank-and-file voters across the country — and by many, if not most, of its congressional officeholders. After all, the McCain electoral surge was barely able to deliver a plurality of one-third of the Republican vote in a three-, four- or five-way split field. He has won fair and square, but he has driven the nomination process askew."

— Tony Blankley, Author, Former Washington Times Editorial Page Editor

"I must now stand aside, for our party and our country. If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror. .... If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America."

— Mitt Romney (R-MA), departing the GOP presidential field