Dr. Strained Love Or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love McCain

I recently had a conversation with a young friend who expressed his displeasure at the lack of conservative candidates in this presidential election cycle. His feeling, shared my many on the right, is obviously that John McCain is not a “real” conservative. I’ve heard this sentiment from many conservatives in the past few months - from high profile squawkers like Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson to rank and file folks in my everyday life. I’m more than a little sympathetic to their complaints. I myself have spent no small amount of mental energy since the New Hampshire primary trying to come to terms with the reality that John McCain will be the Republican (and by extension, conservative) standard bearer for 2008.

The list of conservative grievances against McCain is long, but I think the least forgivable are McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform (I challenge you to find a bigger legislative travesty), his vote against the Bush tax cuts, and his participation in the so-called Gang of 14.

>We need McCain if only to keep the country intact until we can get a real conservative in office.<

Do we desperately buy time? How much damage can the other two really do in four years? I would like to see a serious hypothetical worst case scenario for each one of the Three Stooges. I am not knowledgable enough to seriously outline a study like that.

I don’t believe McCain will keep our country intact either. The destruction might be more incremental and subtle.

I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do. The more I hear him spew globull warming nonsense the more I feel I just can’t suck it up and give him my vote. McCain pi**es me off no end, but the other two are deeply nauseating(Clinton)and potentially terrifying(Barack Hussein Stealth Osama).

I don’t want to enable the RNC or our worst enemies.

To me, they are ALL bad. McCain is just not quite as obvious as the others.

I’m still mad at the RNC and MSM for propping up and breathing life back into McCain.

When you really think about it, how much choice did we have?

The whole farce was carefully and methodically engineered for exactly the result we got.

There is not enough jail space for all the treasonous people in power now, whether they be presidents, senators, congressmen, mayors or media talking heads.

Maybe there has to be some kind of megadisastrous natural event or attack to pull our collective heads out of our butts! Armed rebellion would be impossible and out of the question anyway.

I’ll be obsessing until November. When that time comes, I might just have to flip a coin and be done with it like Anton Cheguhr or whatever his name was.

Our whole country is getting to be No Country For Old Men.
It’s not age though. It’s lack of old school values.

The last time I was registered with any party was probably in 1984 ~ one of the few Dem's voting against Reagan out of party loyalty!
I remember thinking to myself, 'I know this is stupid', when the lever clicked for the obvious loser... Mondale.
This whole "Operation Chaos" stuff cracks me up. It's supposed to be fun and it is but come on! Nobody tells me who to vote for. That's a very personal and fundamental right and duty I am privileged to enjoy in this wonderful and sometimes wacky country.
It is a sad thing that the best two Democrats are Hillary & Obama, how many people I know from their same racial/sexual party/demographic that are far more qualified, baffles my mind. And it's equally sad that the best the Republican party offers is John McCain.
Nevertheless, I am very experienced in voting for the wrong person. I sat in front of the TV seeing everything go right, while thinking this is all going wrong before I realized things were going well and it was me that was wrong.

If these were my only choices today, McCain by a landslide. I don't hold my nose anymore ~ lesser evils? No. You ask for my opinion, here it is! God Bless America!

I don’t believe McCain will keep our country intact either. The destruction might be more incremental and subtle.

You're right on that. He'll also further fracture the GOP and further alienate conservatives. Voters that don't pay much attention will attribute his failings to conservatism, ensuring a Dem victory the next time around. If we think the party - and conservatives - are fractured now after Bush, just wait. Bush and Rove villified the conservatives in the House that opposed McCain-Kennedy, and they're rather mild-mannered people compared to McCain. He'll be downright nasty.

Oh I understand. This whole mess was a manipulated mess. It is a shame our country has come to this.

The elites and the MSM have chosen for us so I guess our vote doesn’t mean a whole lot.

Sure takes the fun out of it. Our primary here is in May. I won’t even bother to participate in that. Its like we can have a choice of Saddam, or Saddam. Thats how his elections worked.

I guess I am going to not get upset from here on out. I have resigned myself to whomever wins. I will vote in the general election for GOP candidates, then I will leave it up to others to choose POTUS. None of them are people I would or could support.

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