The new message from the Republican Establishment is that a long Primary Battle is not in the best interests of “the Party”.

Well…duh.  However, it is in the best interest of the American people…especially the Conservative ones.

Politico.com has the story:

Republican strategist Karl Rove argued Monday that the long GOP nomination process has switched from an asset to a burden for the party, calling recent weeks some of the “worst moments for the Republicans.”

“I think, overall, you’d have to say that the scales have moved from the long process being a positive to being a negative,” he said on Fox News.

Rove joined former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman, in that assessment.

“I don’t think anybody in their right mind thinks that this way the primaries have played out has been good for the Republican chances,” Barbour said on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.

Rove also agreed with Barbour’s point that Republican infighting should have given President Barack Obama a boost in the polls, which hasn’t materialized.

“Hayley made [an argument] in addition that I thought was very much on point, which is: given the fact that the Republicans are cutting each other up and it’s an unpleasant picture to look at, the president ought to be, as Hayley said, soaring in the polls and he’s not,” said Rove.

“We had ABC/Washington Post and CBS News/New York Times [polls] last week showing the president is in terrible shape, even at one of the worst moments for the Republicans,” the strategist added.

The GOP Elite should be as fine as frog hair split four ways, shouldn’t they?  I mean, their candidate, Mitt “The Legacy” Romney, just captured all the delegates in Puerto Rico (Si. Si puede.).

So, why are they upset about how long this coronation…errr…Republican Primary is taking?

Perhaps, they are starting to think ahead to the General Election.

Dr. Thomas Sowell explains:

The biggest single reason why Governor Romney is the front runner is that he has had the overwhelming advantage in money spent and in “boots on the ground” running his campaign in states across the country.

Romney has outspent each of his rivals — and all of his rivals put together. His campaign organization has been operating for years, and it has put his name on the ballot everywhere, while neither Santorum nor Gingrich had a big enough organization to get on the ballot in an important state like Virginia.

In the general election, President Obama will have all the advantages against Romney that Romney currently has against his Republican rivals. Barack Obama will have boots on the ground everywhere — not just members of the Democratic Party organization but thousands of labor union members as well.

Incumbency alone guarantees the president plenty of money to finance his campaign, not only from enthusiastic supporters but also from businesses regulated by the government, who know that holders of political power demand tribute. And the mainstream media will give Obama more publicity than Romney can buy.

How does anyone ever defeat a sitting president then? They do it because they have a message that rings and resonates. The last Republican to defeat a sitting president was Ronald Reagan. He was the only Republican to do so in the 20th century.

He didn’t do it with polls. At one point during the election campaign, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan with 58 percent to 40 percent in the polls. So much for the polls that so many are relying on so heavily today.

The question is not which Republican looks better against Barack Obama in the polls today, before the general election campaign begins. The question is which Republican can take the fight to Barack Obama, as Reagan took the fight to Carter, and win the poll that ultimately matters, the vote on election day.

The biggest fighting issue for Republicans is ObamaCare. Can the author of RomneyCare as governor of Massachusetts make that an effective issue by splitting hairs over state versus federal mandates? Can a man who has been defensive about his own wealth fight off the standard class warfare of Barack Obama, who can push all the demagogic buttons against Mitt Romney as one of the one-percenters?

Rick Santorum, and especially Newt Gingrich, are fighters — and this election is going to be a fight to the finish, with the fate of this country in the balance. Mitt Romney has depended on massive character assassination advertising campaigns to undermine his rivals. That will not work against Barack Obama.

Even a truthful account of the Obama administration’s many disastrous failures, at home and abroad, will be automatically countered by the mainstream media, 90 percent of whom voted for Obama in the 2008 election.

It is truer in this election than in most that “it takes a candidate to beat a candidate.” And that candidate has to offer both himself and his vision. Massive ad campaigns against rivals is not a vision.

Some, like President Bush 41, disdained “the vision thing” — and he lost the presidency that he had inherited from Ronald Reagan, lost it to a virtual unknown from Arkansas.

The vision matters, more than the polls and even more than incumbency in the White House.

As of right now, the only vision that Romney and the GOP Establishment seem to be relating is “You HAVE to vote for Romney.  He’s inevitable! …And let’s end this Primary quickly before Republicans figure out that he’s not a Conservative.”

Whatever happened to “May the best man win?”