Last weeks CPAC conference in Washington, D.C., was notable for Mitt Romneys speech as he dropped of out of the presidential race, and for John McCains good-natured groveling before its membership.

A bigger, unreported headline surely ran through the head of the man who introduced John McCain - George Allen Wraps-Up Republican Nomination. The former Virginia Senator could have easily been standing there as the partys presumptive nominee.

It had to be a gut-wrenching moment for Allen, realizing that were it not for his macaca moment, he might very well have been the Republican Partys nominee.

He is exactly the kind of conservative the party faithful wanted. Thats why there was such a clamor for Fred Thompson. The conservative base wanted a true conservative not John McCain. They were even will to take a long look at a nouveau conservative from Massachusetts, and a former Baptist preacher from Arkansas.

George Allen had to be thinking he could have easily handled that bunch.

He was the most conservative, and the most Reaganesque. He was even the most Bush-like, which still counts for something, as 61% of Republicans still approve of the job that outgoing the President is doing.

People used to compare Allen to President Bush all the time, citing that same the easy-going, likeable, cowboy kind of thing. Stylistically and philosophically, he resembled Bush, but still, he had some policy differences, and was always careful to maintain some distance on difficult issues such as the war in Iraq. Though he was comfortable with the Bush comparisons, he actually preferred to think of himself more in the mold of Reagan. And the GOP has been yammering about Reagan all year.

But when George Allen narrowly lost his Senate seat to Democrat Jim Webb in 2006, he also lost the opportunity to compete in a race that would have favored him at every turn. He was exactly what the base wanted.

How painful must it have been for Allen to stand up there last week, assigned to do a verbal extreme makeover on John McCain? To try to make McCain seem more like him.

He could only have been thinking about macaca. And what might have been.