Posted on 02/08/2008 6:29:14 AM PST by cgk
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February 08, 2008, 0:00 a.m.
McCain Disdain
Why some Republicans won't vote for the senator.
By Mona Charen
I posted a squib on National Review Online about a robo call I received from John McCain (Virginias primary is Tuesday). The call stressed that he would, if elected, be a down-the-line limited-government conservative who would never raise taxes, would defend life, would enforce immigration laws, and would win the war on terror. The candidate is trying, I said, to meet conservatives more than halfway.
The response of readers was, shall we say, emphatic. One lady wrote that she would never vote for him as he is the most disloyal, ill-tempered man and he brings out the worse [sic] in all of us. Several readers made the point that after decades of suffering abuse at McCains hands, conservatives are not going to fall into line for him now no matter what blandishments he offers.
I know how they feel. The problem with John McCain is not just that he strays. George Bush has strayed from conservatism too. So has Fred Thompson, and certainly, Mitt Romney has as well. But Senator McCain has a knack for saying things in just the tones and accents that liberals prefer.
In 2000, he condemned the late Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as agents of intolerance. In 2004, when Sen. John Kerry was getting his comeuppance from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, vets whom he had known during the war and who couldnt remain silent as the Democratic nominee distorted his war record, John McCain weighed in by calling them dishonorable and dishonest. When the Bush Administration was being vilified as a nest of Torquemadas for using waterboarding on three occasions, McCain came forward to condemn waterboarding as torture.
Senator McCain was a Vietnam hero. Conservatives, in particular, revere him for this. Indeed, his return from the political grave can probably be traced to the moment (October 22) when he joshingly referred to having missed the Woodstock music festival in 1969 because I was tied up at the time. In that instant he came to personify (for many) the conservative side of the great 1960s chasm that (Obamas irenic rhetoric notwithstanding) continues to divide our society. Not only was he not smoking pot and lolling in the mud with his girlfriend, you could almost hear Republicans telling themselves that he was standing up to torture at the hands of Americas enemies.
And yet, a better man would not stoop to suggesting that military service is the only way to show love of country and sneer that unlike Mitt Romney he served for patriotism not profit. Profit is a four letter word in the McCain vocabulary, whether applied to Big Pharma or other businesses.
McCain reaches too hard and too transparently to turn everything into a contest about military service. When Romney observed that Bob Dole wouldnt necessarily be the one hed want an endorsement from, McCain pronounced himself very sad and disappointed to see that kind of comment about a person who was an American war hero and demanded that Romney apologize.
There is a strutting self-righteousness about McCain that goes hand-in-hand with a nitroglycerin temper. He flatters himself that his colleagues in the Senate dislike him because he stands up for principle, while they sell their souls for pork. Not exactly. He is disliked because on many, many occasions he has been disrespectful, belligerent, and vulgar to those who differ with him.
Bradley Smith, former commissioner of the Federal Election Commission and the leading legal scholar on campaign-finance issues, experienced the McCain treatment firsthand. Because Smith opposed limits on political speech, he was denounced as corrupt by the senator (as was Commissioner Ellen Weintraub). Smith, who lives modestly, jokes that his wife has complained about the absence of jewels and furs. Though he served on the commission for five years and made several attempts to meet with McCain to discuss the issues, Smith was rebuffed.
The two did accidentally meet outside a hearing room in 2004 when they were both scheduled to testify before the Senate rules committee. At first, McCain grasped Smiths outstretched hand (Smith was in a wheelchair recovering from surgery), but when he recognized his campaign finance opponent he snatched his hand back, snarling Im not going to shake your hand. Youre a bully. You have no regard for the Constitution. Youre corrupt.
Smith, a soft-spoken scholar, ardent patriot, and lifelong conservative Republican, cannot pull the lever for McCain. He is far from alone, and that is the Republican Partys heartbreak in 2008.
Mona Charen is a syndicated columnist and political commentator.
” How ‘bout this for a drastic idea: Instead of seeing the economic pie as fix and the only way to make one group better is to take something away from another group, why not create a business environment (cut taxes on business and consumers, less regulation, etc.) where the size of the pie gets bigger. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Hillary, by her own words, takes the Marxist view of income redistribution, as evidenced by her own words.”
You are referring to the “trickle down theory” which became known as Reaganomics. Reagan was not only a communicator, he was an educator. Newt has some of that quality, too, but not the populist appeal to the common man/woman that Reagan did. Huck has populist appeal but Romney doesn’t, neither does McCain or Hillary. Obama has charm that inspires the common man. Reagan could do that. We have to put those pieces together with our ideology like Reagan did to develop conservative leadership in this country.
>given the stark difference in the choices.
I’m trying to look at this situation clearly.
It’s hard for me to understand how the difference is “stark”. The media will try to portary it as stark, simply because the only thing the media knows how to do is portray every matter of public controversy as a Manichaean struggle, devoid of subtlety or contingencies. I agree that by November, more people will regard the choice as “stark” simply because the election will be framed as such.
Nonetheless, in both policy matters and temperament it is difficult to distinguish between McCain and McClinton. A centrist authoritarian and a leftist authoritarian, who appear to agree more than they disagree.
A McCain presidency would accelerate the slide into welfare-state corporatism with conservatives divided and disaffected; under a McClinton or Obama presidency, the Right would be united, and would fight every battle vigorously.
The question is, how to we come to a decision as to which person will do the lesser long term damage?
I can't help but feeling that when McAmnestyTM gets done shoving 50 million Mexicans down our throats any differences in the end result will be nothing more than academic. We are going to get them regardless of who is elected, now.
Probably, the best we can hope for is that when they start the amnesty bill up again we can [essentially] shut down the federal government. Because that is what it is going to take. Literally jam up all communications in DC next time, not just calls to legislators.
Facts can be pesky things - especially when they prove a point we don't like.
WE who?
I didn't vote for McCain. I don't get to vote until March and I promise I'll not be voting for him in the primary!
Something has to be done about the primary voting schedule --Texas and Ohio have no VOICE in choosing the GOP prsidential candidate and New Hampshire DOES!
That is the root of this whole MESS, IMO.
Perhaps while we are regrouping in the desert for at least the next four years, which seems inevitable, we can come up a better plan.
I don’t know. Actually, to be honest, after 8 years of Bush making nice all the time to the Dems, the thought of McCain calling Dems ***holes and idiots seems kind of appealing.
I was a Giuliani supporter originally, and I understand he had some of that same toughness. That appealed to me.
George W. Bush is a class act, and I miss him already, but I like the idea of a tougher President, somehow. Aren’t successful businessmen kind of like McCain, angry and swearing all the time?
My husband says the most successful people in business are ***holes.
Maybe that’s what we need. Now if McCain would just head right a little bit. . .
I hear you...I hated that d**n “New Tone” from day one.
I can see not voting for McCain, but for gosh sake’s people shouldn’t stay home. If McCain’s the nominee, the most important thing is regaining the Senate. With the Senate, we can at least limit the damage by whomever gets elected.
How can we possibly vote for somebody with potential mental problems? He wants to force massive amnesty that will destroy this country, including admitting terrorists, and we reward him by making him the GOP nominee who is sure to lose? This is crazy.
... to say nothing of his supporters.
>>I think people who are making these Shermanesk statements at this time are full of hot air and are expressing emotion of the moment.<<
The tone of her article coupled with the facts that she uses to support her position contradict your statement.
If you don’t like what she says and that creates an emotional response in you which causes YOU to be full of hot air, I understand. I may be wrong but, unlike her article, yours makes claims (e.g. “stark difference in the choices”) without offering any support for those claims.
Mona has a long and proven track record for level-headed analysis and even-handed treatment of the issues on which she comments. Hew position is MUCH more convincing than Ann Coulter, although it is interesting they both agree here.
>>My Country is at stake. Can I trust one man that I despise who represents my Party or sit on my hands on 11/8 and allow socialism overtake our society.<<
Good question.
Let me throw out a hypothetical. You are appalled to find that the Democratic (socialist) party is leading in the polls and Stalin is their candidate for the president. You are a republican and have been all your life. The republicans have been “going too socialist” for you the last decade or so, but you stick by them because at least they are better than the democrats/socialists.
But this year the Republicans have gone so crazy as to nominate, as their candidate, a fellow named Adolf Hitler.
Oh, and you are Jewish.
Which one do you vote for?
Or do you move to Thailand/Mexico/South America?
Explain your answer.
And maybe a couple of $100,000 donations from Cablevision coinciding with a letter of support to the FCC for Cablevision's positions were just happenstance.
Duplicity takes on a whole new meaning with this guy.
Please don't do that. Please vote for as many Conservatives as you can find on your ticket at all levels. Don't vote for President if you want but please help us get as many Congress critters and State Legislatures and State Govs etc as possible. WE need as many Conservatives in Govt as we can get. The next 2 to 4 years are going to be ugly and all we got left is damage control.
I never thought about it this way, but you're right!
Bumper sticker: "John McCain - A Party Of One"
Oh, sorry! It always happens when they rename articles between presses.
It will get worse bvefore it gets better.
IF it ever gets better.
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