By george, you're right! ;-)
Posted on 02/10/2008 4:38:36 PM PST by pissant
So-called conservatives’ hysterical overreaction to the likelihood that U.S. Sen. John McCain will be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee shows what is wrong with ideologues of all stripes.
They prefer purity to practicality.
Following the crash-and-burn campaign of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, the never-got-off-the-ground run of actor and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson and the suspended-but-still-there presence of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican Party has three candidates left — U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and McCain.
After Tuesday’s primary and caucus results, McCain is virtually unstoppable. Barring some unforeseen turn of events, he should be the party’s presidential candidate in November.
That has the ideologues who call themselves conservatives positively apoplectic. They have convinced themselves that McCain is somehow not a conservative.
But that says more about the unrealistic worlds that ideologues inhabit than it does the United States of America in 2008.
Have no doubt. McCain is a conservative. As McClatchy Newspapers has reported, the senator has an 83 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union. That somehow makes him unclean — dare one say, unholy — in so-called conservative circles.
McCain does have a reputation of being a maverick and for being willing to work with Democrats on legislation such as campaign finance reform, climate change, immigration and other issues.
That has made him popular with moderate Republicans, independent voters and some Democrats. But at his core, McCain is a conservative.
But among movement conservatives, 83 percent isn’t good enough. Only 100 percent pure is acceptable.
It’s not just the right. Ideologues on the left likewise covet purity over practicality. This mindset has dominated American politics and government at the federal level for the last decade, and look where it has gotten us.
The problem with ideologues is that their shrink-wrapped worlds do not reflect America. The United States is a diverse country in terms of geography, race, faith, income, etc., and its people have views and beliefs that don’t fit neatly into ideologues’ conservative and liberal camps.
James Madison recognized this diversity via his famous “factions” in The Federalist Papers No. 10, and our Constitution fashioned a government that took into consideration the need to accommodate diverse points of view.
It’s an inclusive, not an exclusive process, and compromise, moderation and centrism, which hardliners so abhor, are absolutely essential for it to function properly. Americans don’t have to like the results, but they are more likely to accept them if they believe their point of view got a fair hearing.
The next president of the United States must be a healer, someone who understands that binding up the nation’s wounds is more important than continually picking at political scabs for ideological gain. It would be a welcome and much needed change.
The problem is greater. They have been successful in replacing news with propaganda.
Hardly a trait to make one ashamed.
Until recently history the Republican party never asked us to vote for thier political power but to always consider country first. Oh, well, that’s over.
Too late. He already tried doing that, back in '04... remember? ;)
McCain Fiendold,
McCain Kennedy,
McCain Lieberman.
McCAin Edwards
Kerry-McCain proposal
Dr. Juan Hernandez, McCain’s radical Hispanic outreach director
Opposed overturning Roe v. Wade, Would not have nominated Ailto,
NO WAY, NO HOW will I vote for the Male Hillary !!!!!!!
By george, you're right! ;-)
McCAIN 2008
"Because Fiscal Cons Will Settle For Pretty Much Anything, Ultimately."
Sounds like a great way to drive home the point that we’ve had it with their liberal bullshit...go ahead and support it.
How’s that tactic work with your children?
And I am impressed by your excellent data, stats and research. You remind me of Backhoe, and that IS a compliment.
He would have run on the ticket with John F.ing Kerry, who served in Vietnam, you know.
You're a zealot.
Just for your information.
:-D
Oh, absolutely. Because that's precisely the sort of thing stolid, unswervingly principled conservatives unfailingly DO, don'cha know. ;)
WOOHOO!!! Now I can apply for minority status and federal aid!
Claiming Granny as a New Dealer won't help.
If I had the Zealot rating, I'd tell 'em mommy and absent daddy shacked up in a microbus at Woodstock, between SDS rallies, and conceived me. That'd up the funds ratio.
I’ve got a feeling this guy wouldn’t be saying the same thing if it was some dem candidate that had 5-6 issues that he was conservative on.
Thanks! I'm kind of a "primary source" buff so I usually check out everything the media tries to feed me. A couple years ago, I got sick of looking the same thing up, over and over again and started saving the data. Now I need a bigger hard-drive! LOL.
Confession: I couldn't figure out how to chart a linear regression with my software, so that line is drawn freehand. ;-)
You forgot the Barf Alert!
“How’s that tactic work with your children?”
Actually, whenever my children become ruled by emotion, I isolate them and tell them they can come out as soon as they are able to think clearly again.
There’s a fine line between ‘principled’ and ‘stupid’. We’re at war, with troops in the field. Some of them raised by me, with young children waiting their return.
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