Fresh out of the McCain address here at CPAC - I would have bet that there would be boos and catcalls, and I would have been right.  The negativity was not overwhelming, mind you.  There wasn't a lot of physical space available for dissenters.  The room was jam-packed with McCain supporters - so much so that many of us in the press corps had difficulty getting in the room 20 minutes before the speech - Mara Liasson of NPR, Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO, myself, and many other journalists fought and eventually were allowed in.  I got in the room just as Senator McCain was announced, but to the crowd's befuddlement, Senator Tom Coburn walked on stage and proceeded to spend about 10 minutes warming up the crowd.  Once McCain finally took the stage, the booing started in earnest, but was shouted down by many McCain loyalists.  I'll need to pick his speech apart in much greater detail, but while he seemed contrite from time to time about his "occasional" transgressions from conservatism, at other times, he seemed to say that he would continue to disagree with conservatives on certain things, and that's just the way it is.  This doesn't seem to me to be a very good way to try to re-unite the party, which is very much fractured right now.  Rather than to say to the base, "we'll do it your way," he seemed to repeat the notion that "we'll do it the conservative way."  In my personal estimation, McCain needs to simply and graciously admit that he has been wrong, and on those issues with which he has disagreed, he will bend to the will of the people.  But he's still using dense, nebulous language in order to avoid conceding that the base is right.  And until he stops doing that, the party will not re-unite in a way that can defeat the Democrats in the fall.  As I said, I'll have more once I deconstruct the speech a bit more.  I will also be providing the full audio of the speech later this evening as well.  I will also attempt to get some interview material in the next short while too.

One final note - the loudest booing of the speech occured when McCain alluded to his disagreement with the conservative base regarding the immigration issue, and particularly regarding his McCain-Kennedy legislation of last summer.  At this point (and I hope my recording does it justice) the booing was loud and sustained, and then was overtaken by applause from McCain loyalists.  I stood next to four or five young McCain staffers, and you'll be able to hear when they chime in very loudly in an attempt to start applause to drown out the booing.  Sounded a little nervous and unconfident to my ear - not unlike the numerous McCain staffers who are walking around the conference reminding people to vote for McCain in the straw poll.  Are they maybe a little nervous?