First, there is this story, about how McCain considered switching parties in 2001. I was a supporter and contributer to his 2000 primary campaign but some of his rhetoric, about tax cuts for the “rich” for example, were just gratuitously insulting and economically illiterate. Then he attacks Romney for making a profit in business. McCain has been a government employee all his life. He has never run a business or met a payroll. A medical practice is not exactly a big business but I have had the experience of not being able to pay myself a salary so I could pay my employees. I wonder if McCain knows what that feels like?
Peggy Noonan has been writing excellent columns lately, after a bit of a slump, and has this one today recommending that conservatives make their peace with McCain.
If you go by the Florida returns, maybe this year positions aren’t everything. Republicans on the ground think the conservative is the one who suffered 5½ years in the Hanoi Hilton. Republicans on the ground think the conservative is the one who has endured a lifetime in the rounds in Washington and survived as antispending, antiabortion and pro-military. Republicans on the ground think the conservative is the old fighter jock who’ll keep the country safe in a rocky time ahead. And maybe Republicans on the ground are saying: He earned it.
There is a definite place for the “He earned it” concept in the Republican Party. Nothing else can explain the nomination of Bob Dole in 1996. There may also have been a feeling that, once Clinton had outmaneuvered the Republicans on the government shutdown in 1995, the nomination wasn’t worth that much. The same sort of feeling in 1992 probably led to the nomination of Clinton when Democrats believed that Bush I was unbeatable after Gulf War I. Then along came Ross Perot and made Clinton president.
I don’t buy the rhetoric, popular on the right just now, that McCain is not a conservative. His record on that score has been pretty solid until 2000. Then he seems to have had his feelings hurt by the defeat in the primaries. The politics of John McCain has always been very personal and idiosyncratic.
Mark Levin has an opinion about the Keating Five scandal. I think McCain’s sins in the scandal were venial sins and he was dragged in by the Democratic majority to deflect criticism of clear violations of ethics and law. McCain was the only Republican and the least culpable of those involved. The result, unfortunately, has been his crusade against campaign finances which has resulted in the terrible McCain-Finegold legislation.
While Chairman of the Commerce Committee of the Senate, he learned that tobacco executives had lied before his committee. Infuriated, he began another crusade, this time against tobacco, an industry that makes a legal product. He rails against US pharmaceutical manufacturers with little insight into that industry with its huge investments in R&D.
His biggest area of concern now is illegal immigration and the probability that he has decided on total amnesty and open borders in spite of all arguments that illegal immigration is producing disproportionate costs to communities that far outweigh the theoretical benefits in cheap labor. I have speculated about his motivation. The fact remains that he is no longer to be trusted on that subject.
Is he worse than Obama or Hillary ? Probably not. He was a true conservative until the failed 2000 election campaign and he has been steady on the Iraq War. That may have to be enough but I have no enthusiasm for him as a candidate. I have already voted for Rudy as an absentee voter so I have no role to play other than this.
You make an interesting case that his deviations are recent and based in resentment and hurt. That’s the trouble when they’ve been there so long, there is just so much baggage. He seems vengeful and unpredictable. He could go any which way because he’s still hacked at old colleagues and political rivals.
I have a *very exclusive* caucus vote Tuesday and I’m still undecided since FT dropped out.
When you voted for Rudy you made the McCain nomination more likely. Why didn’t you vote for Romney? Had you sent in your ballot before Rudy quit or in your opinion is Romney a worse candidate then McCain?
I have never bonded with Romney. I went from a Rudy supporter to Thompson back to Rudy. I’ll vote for the nominee in November but Romney has just never done much for me.
Mike K, read Thomas Sowell on McCain. He makes solid points in clarifying McCain’s less than credible statements and accusations re Romney.
He concludes, “Being a war hero is not a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card. And becoming president of the United States is not a matter of rewarding an individual for past services.”
I tend to believe that no one earns the right to be POTUS. This doesn’t make me happy with the Romney choice (reasonably, who else is there?) Yet if McCain’s recent reactions are based in resentment, it concerns me how he will react when dealing with other contrarian or dictatorial regimes and leaders don’t come around to his pov.
oops.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDY2Nzg1NmJhNmYyYWRjZGY3N2E4OGM5NDZhYmI2ZGM=
Dana, I cannot disagree with your points. But to go from there to “I will sit out the general election” or even, as Ann Coulter stated and Michelle Malkin hinted “I will vote for Hillary” is very strange to me. No, I don’t believe you have stated that, but a lot of conservatives are doing so now.
The thing that bugs me is that every single concern that irritates people about McCain is far, far worse for Clinton II. And Obama is still more liberal.
Or they will actually claim that they believe that McCain will appoint liberal judges (they love mentioning GHW Bush’s nomination of Souter). McCain voted for both Alito and Roberts—Clinton II and Obama voted “no” to BOTH. But that doesn’t matter. McCain is a “traitor” and they just turn their heads from the cold hard fact that we know what kinds of judges the Clintons appoint (Ginsberg, Breyer), and Obama will be even less”middle of the road,” based on ACU ratings.
It’s as if they focus on McCain (and the anti-Romney folk do this too) in the most negative light, and refuse to apply the same criteria to Clinton or Obama.
Many of the folks who want to sit out the election or vote the other way are just not being rational. Life is usually about making choices between two bad alternatives—one is “less bad” than the other. Some of the “sitter outers” seem to have this “I’ll show you” attitude, where they honestly say that a Democratic victory will get the base working hard to “perfect” their conservatism.
Like the folks voting for Perot in ’92. That didn’t work out. And we all know how incredibly true to conservative ideals GW Bush has been.
For me, the only issues that are important are dealing with the islamofascists and Supreme Court appointments. Care about the border? So do I, but don’t talk to me about Republicans betraying conservative ideals in this area…at least, given Reagan’s amnesty.
No, if you don’t like the candidates, the place to make a difference is in the primaries, or even before. I’m guessing that most of the McCain haters have…ah…done very little in grassroots politics. What they want is to create a problem because they don’t like the candidate, and then complain about it for years afterward.
It’s like the people who don’t vote, who still carry on about politics in a snide and superior fashion. If a person votes, I respect their choices even when I disagree. The other is just kvetching.
Anyway, I’m getting tempery about this, and I shouldn’t. People can vote however they please—or not vote, I suppose. What I do NOT get is how it benefits conservatives to do things that make Clinton II or Obama happy. Historically, that approach of “sending a message” simply does not work.
It won’t in November, especially after there are some Supreme Court appointments.
I really respect Sowell in more ways that I can explain, having read his essays and books for many years. But I would point to this column, in answer:
http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnHawkins/2008/02/01/why_youre_going_to_vote_for_john_mccain_in_november_and_like_it!
Anyway, I hope everyone has a good Saturday. For me, time to grade!