Ok all you McCain haters, now that Romney's officially out of the race you're gonna have to put down your knives and support McCain. Face it, he's the only hope the Republicans have of keeping the White House. Even if you have to hold you nose to support the senator from Arizona you have to support him. The good of the nation depends on it.
Please don't give me that line that McCain's not a real conservative. We don't need him to be a "real" conservative, we just need him to be more conservative than his Democratic rivals. And what is a "real" conservative anyway? Someone who's strong on border security? Ronald Reagan signed an amnesty bill in the '80's. Guess he's not a "real" conservative, then. Is a "real" conservative someone who's tough on terrorism? Reagan pulled out of Lebanon after the bombing of the Marines' barracks, and he traded arms for hostages after saying he wouldn't negotiate with terrorists. Reagan rarely attended church while in office but Nancy, his wife, did consult astrologers, in violation of Biblical doctrine. So just how conservative was dear Ronny?
Yes, Reagan stood up to the tyranny of communism and won the Cold War. He also cut taxes and paved the way for the welfare reform that Bill Clinton reluctantly signed into law in the '90's. But, as I pointed out above, Reagan's conservative credentials weren't infallible. He did things that some people could use to call his conservatism into question. Would McCain trade arms for hostages? Would he cut and run from a fight after the first attack? I don't think so. Reagan did both, yet he's admired almost like a god by today's conservative faithful.
I say we should give McCain a chance. Some of his views are not to our liking but there's no telling how he might distinguish himself in the national and international crises that are sure to come. Who knows. Ten or twenty years after McCain's presidency conservatives might be worshipping him as the epitome of "real" conservatism, and forgetting all about his amnesty for illegal aliens. Just like they now do with Reagan.
5 comments:
Excellent post.
There is no "perfect candidate."
If McCain is unacceptable for supporting McCain-Kennedy (the SHAMnesty Bill), then so is G W Bush, who fought hard to get that Bill passed.
McCain has said he's come around on the border issue (who knows?)...Bush certainly hasn't.
McCain says he now regrets not voting against the Bush tax cuts and has promised to make them permanent. (Again, who knows?)
One thing we do know is that as of January of 2009, 6 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices will be over 70 y/o.
If we allow a Democrat to take the WH, we could have another Burger or Warren Court in short order.
Those two activist courts did a lot of harm to this country.
We NEED to elect "the most Conservative" candidate available.
McCain is far from perfect, but he's not nearly as bad as some make him out to be.
TYPO:
"McCain says he now regrets voting against the Bush tax cuts and has promised to make them permanent. (Again, who knows?)"
There was an inadvertent "not" in the first take.
Rather than make a comment now I dont' think I will commit myself........we'll see....stay well....
McCain has been receiving some unfair criticism of late. Some conservatives have been acting as if they would prefer to lose, unfortunately the electorate, as a whole is not as conservative as conservatives would like to hope, and I may venture to suggest, it’s happening across the globe. Not that this pleases me; it does not! Sure, McCain sits on the left side of the Republican Party on some issues, but we need to see the whole picture, the new ever-changing electorate at large and contemplate the consequences of the alternative. Republicans need to put the comments of the attention seeking Ann Coulters aside for a moment and rally behind the chosen GOP nominee, for country and world.
The political system, worldwide, is in a period of recalibration, politics is generally getting more liberal let us not make it easier for them.
Finally, the Arizona Senator is/was the closest thing to a neocon amongst the field. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-heilbrunn/john-mccain-neocon_b_82530.html and while the author warns that a McCain presidency may "ramp up" America's international intervention, ultimately destroying the imperial project the neocons themselves seek, the current success in Iraq indicates U.S. hegemony and primacy will not suffer under a McCain administration. The latter is what draws me to McCain, but then again I am not a U.S. citizen. Good luck over there...
"Some conservatives have been acting as if they would prefer to lose, unfortunately the electorate, as a whole is not as conservative as conservatives would like to hope, and I may venture to suggest, it’s happening across the globe." (American Interests)
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That's very well put.
Liberals who've reviled Anne Coulter are now in the midst of a veritable love fest over her inane threat to "vote for Hillary if McCain is the GOP nominee." I've heard others say that they'd rather see Hillary push through amnesty and tax hikes, because "At least then, the Republicans and Conservative Dems in Congress would fight to block those things."
It's idiocy.
Conservatives on both sides will always fight against those things.
On the larger issue ("the electorate not being as Conservative as Conservatives would hope"), I think Margaret Thatcher was right when she said something along the lines that "The facts of life are Conservative."
I think the vast majority of people (Americans and everyone else) are apolitical and hold to no fast internal ideological mandate.
Ironically enough, the prosperity that Conservative principles and market-based economic policies create, is often that ideology's own worst enemy.
When people are "fat, dumb abd happy," they feel more secure, they desire more leisure time, rather than more productivity and they feel more charitable - both charitable to those who fail and more kind toward screw-ups.
After the enormous post-WW II prosperity of the 1950s, America went through one of its worst fits of socialistic mischief. Violent crime was seen as "the natural reaction of the poor to deprivation," drug use was regaled not reviled and an expensive and doomed "war on poverty" was alunched under tha banner that "Everyone deserved a good life regardless of their ability to produce."
Those Keynesian policies imploded in STAGFLATION during the star-crossed Carter presidency and since then, we've had about a quarter century of unprecedented prosperity, thanks in large measure to Supply Side economic policies and Conservative principles on the domestic front.
The people have once again become too "fat, dumb abd happy."
There are dolts on the Left who openly rail against the FISA laws that have allowed the government to listen in on calls between Americans both TO & FROM various "suspect foreign portals." Others have compared the militant Muslim terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq to our own "Minutemen."
And the idiotic idea of "giving people commodities" (like healthcare and housing) has become more popular than at any time over the last half century.
The thing is that Thatcher was right. Idiotic economic policies inevitably lead to economic dislocation and a self-correction BACK to Conservative ideals and market-based economic policies.
Conservatism has yet to figure out how not to be it's own worst enemy...at least in the eyes of the gullible....and those who become too "fat, dumb and happy."
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