Jan
Two Sides of a Possible McCain Nomination
1) First of all, if McCain’s the nominee, there is going to be a strong “rally-round the-flag” effect in the conservative media. That is natural and healthy. You don’t always get what you want in politics and because the GOP and Democrats have gotten so far apart, moderate Republicans are going to be far to the right of the average Democrat. That’s in general. Specifically, all the Republican candidates, including John McCain, are far, far, to the right of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
Because McCain is hawkish, because he is fiscally conservative, and because he will probably appoint originalist judges (He claims he definitely will, but I’m not sure he can be trusted 100%), conservative interests would be much better served with him in the White House than his Democratic counterparts even if they had identical positions on every other issue.
Next he addresses the other side:
#2) The flip side of this message is for people who will become caught up in the “rally-round the-flag” effect that I mentioned earlier and will falsely claim that John McCain is not just a conservative, but that he is a candidate that conservatives should be happy with.
Please, don’t insult people’s intelligence with that sort of argument. Not only is John McCain not a conservative, he’s considerably more hostile to movement conservatives than he is to liberals — that’s his whole shtick. He picks some issue that the right cares about deeply, like illegal immigration, judges, or tax cuts, and he makes a big public show out of opposing the conservative position. Then, the mainstream media slobbers over him, calls him a “maverick,” praises his integrity, yada, yada, yada. It is a pattern that has been repeated over and over again and one that would likely continue to be repeated if he becomes the President. [emphasis mine]
I think this is a very good point. After a nomination, people will rally around the candidate, but don’t tell me that I should be happy voting for him.
I am really starting to get worried now. I can’t stand the thought of being forced to vote for McCain, but since Fred dropped the ball (well he never picked it up actually) the playing field isn’t looking too promising.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:33 am