The conservatives. The “Republican party” is made up of whatever people decide they’d like to be called “Republican”.
Look at the Democratic Party. Look at the liberal rankings of their last 4 candidates. There were some who suggested that picking Clinton in 1992 would kill the party by alienating the liberals.
But instead, the liberals just worked harder to take back the party, and they have won more and more liberal candidates.
That is a much better model than the one the conservatives suggest — deliberately throwing elections and stabbing our fellow republicans in the back for not picking “our candidate”. This is something we scream at the moderates for pulling on us when we DO pick a conservative candidate.
If we pull out, the republicans will simply attract more moderates and independents, and move more to the left, to try to make up for our votes.
When you are ready to abandon your party’s presidential candidate, the only sane thing is to form a new party. Your never coming back to the party you abandoned. The lesson you want to teach won’t be the lesson they learn. Maybe you’ll form a new party, and over time more conservatives and moderates will wander over to your party and away from the party you left.
But probably not.
If we had just picked Olympia Snowe to be our nominee, I’d consider the party lost.
McCain has a passable position on two of the three legs of conservatism. It’s unfortunate he has so much baggage, but he’s hardly a liberal, hardly socialist, hardly a RINO.
He’s a fiscal conservative, a limited-government pork-busting conservative, who largely supports tax cuts. He opposed bush’s tax cuts, but personally I think that was somewhat colored by his arguments with Bush over the election. Vindictive, maybe, but he didn’t cast a deciding vote against the tax cuts, and he supports them now.
His McCain/Feingold is horrible. But at least he doesn’t support the Fairness doctrine, and has shown that he wants an FCC that is limited in its scope, not overbearing like the democrats.
His position on amnesty has no redeeming features. But both democrats are worse, McCain has at least embraced the idea of taking care of the borders first, and it’s unlikely his replacement in the senate could be as pro-amnesty as he was. Plus, he was a strong voice in the senate for his position, and so maybe next time those pushing amnesty will miss that voice. And maybe when he has to study the issue from the executive branch he might come somewhat more to the conclusion that his policies would have been bad. But in any case, even in this he’s better than the democrat.
He is largely pro-life, and has adopted stronger pro-life positions that are good ones, EXCEPT for his position on embryonic stem cells. I’m dissappointed, because without a president who opposes it, we will have federal funding.
However, virtual NO child who would otherwise have lived on this earth will end up dead because of what McCain does on embryonic stem cell research. I know this is a practical argument, but abortion kills a child who would otherwise be born. Embryos are sitting frozen, to live out their “lives” until the freezer breaks or they are otherwise discarded. Testing on them is inhumane, and cheapens life, but it’s not practically the same as ending a life that otherwise was going to be born and grow up and die.
So I don’t think pro-lifers should reject him on that basis, even though we had every right to support a candidate who held the correct position on that issue when there WERE such candidates that were viable.
His gun position is likewise adequate. He had some weird “gun-show-loophole” legislation that was actually WORSE than the typical “close the gun-show loophole” tripe, because it would have required every attendee at a gun show to get a criminal background check for entrance.
On the other hand, if we acknowledge that people who are felons should be restricted from buying weapons, it’s not all that big a stretch to accept a candidate who simply thinks that background checks can be extended to purchasers in the private market, even though we disapprove of that position. It’s a matter of degree.
It pains me to have to think about McCain’s positions on issues, especially coming from the Romney camp where on virtually every issue, I could proudly quote from his position papers and policy speeches to show him as a solid conservative.
But in the real world, McCain, while no “conservative”, is no flaming liberal either. I know I’ve left out some liberal things he has done. But most people leave out a lot of conservative things he has done. He’s maybe more of a pragmatist than an ideologue, except that he doesn’t change his positions as much as a pragmatist would be expected to.
He is largely pro-life, and has adopted stronger pro-life positions that are good ones, EXCEPT for his position on embryonic stem cells. I’m dissappointed, because without a president who opposes it, we will have federal funding.
He has sued pro-life groups in federal court.
My major issue with the man, and it covers most of the issues that I hate him over is that whenever you see McCain working WITH another Senator, it is a liberal Senator.
Whenever you see him attacking (usually from behind) any cause, issue or politician, it is a conservative one.
I will not vote for someone that I hate on a deeply personal level.