Posted on 02/09/2008 3:47:21 AM PST by StatenIsland
On Thursday, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Sen. John McCain stood before thousands of conservatives he has done his level best to anger and alienate for a decade -- to ask for their support.
And he made a not unconvincing case.
What he said essentially was this. We have fought each other in the past, and we have fought side by side. And I admit to having made my share of mistakes. But if we do not work together, we lose the presidency. And if we lose the presidency, your causes will be lost, as well as my last chance to be president.
But if you will work with me, many of the causes for which you have fought -- one more justice like Roberts and Alito, retention of the Bush tax cuts, further reductions in tax rates, a more secure border -- will be taken up as the causes of my presidency.
Moreover, my door will be open and your voices heard. And none of this will happen if Hillary or Barack Obama wins, which will happen if we do not join forces and fight together.
Bottom line: If we don't hang together, we all hang separately. If my end of the dinghy sinks, yours will not stay afloat. And if I lose, you get your pound of flesh, but we will both be out in the cold as a Democratic Congress and president undo what was right about the Bush presidency as well as what was wrong about the Bush presidency.
So it is your call.
McCain is no orator. But the speech had humility and humor -- and put the ball back squarely in the court of the conservatives. For John McCain had just taken the first step toward a rapprochement with the right, by asking for an armistice and offering an alliance.
In 1964, as an even more acrimonious battle for the GOP ended at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, where the right hooted and booed Nelson Rockefeller, another Arizonan was far less compromising than John McCain. Barry Goldwater told that convention of conservatives that had just nominated him: "Anyone who joins us in all sincerity, we welcome. Those who do not care for our cause, we don't expect to enter our ranks in any case."
Conservatives now have a decision to make......
A study of Australian POWs after WWII found that they had 30 times the chance of compatriots of the same age of heart attack or stroke.
McCain is pretty much the same ethnotype as those Australians, so it's highly likely he has that same level of risk.
Since he's over 70 years of age the odds are very good that he will possibly not survive to inauguration day in January.
“There have been moans and groans that McCain was getting too many independent votes in the primary process. To me, this is EXACTLY the kind of indicator that he has enough appeal to chase these votes in the general, whereas someone like Fred would probably have had to write them off.”
This has been our dilemma from day one - it seems that any and all of our candidates had to either kiss off the SoCons (Rudy) or the Moderates (Fred).
The Moderates would never vote for someone too far right on social issues (I think religion scares them), so the only path to the White House involves the SoCons and immigration hawks holding their noses to vote for McCain.
But this doesn’t shape up to be a “hold-your-nose” kind of election. To win this, Republicans need to pull out all the stops the way they did for Bush - and, of course, McCain does NOT inspire that kind of dedication.
Looks bad, bad, bad right now. But who knows? Maybe McCain starts saying all the right things and can excite the Conservative base. We’ll see. But its SO hard to forget his betrayals, the list of which is staggering in it’s length.
Anyway, none of this is rocket science and we’ll all have to make up our own minds. I do feel that grudging support won’t put McCain over the top, though - it has to be whole-hearted, and I just don’t see that happening.
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