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Posted on 04/28/2008 6:30:09 PM PDT by attiladhun2
John McCain reminds me a lot of a friend I once had as a young man. Let's call him "Jerry." Since Jerry's family was dirt poor, he was something of an outcast. Since I was quite a bit younger than he, I did not look down on him because his pants and shirts had holes in them. My family had recently relocated to the same town, and I felt like something of an outsider myself. The two of us naturally gravitated toward one another, inspite of our age difference.
We spent a lot of time fishing, hiking, and just hanging out together. I was a constant fixture at Jerry's home. I may have spent as much time there as I did my own place. We even went into business together, washing, waxing, and detailing cars. Soon, I had money and an older pal. Everything was cool in the early days of our friendship. However, Jerry had a mean streak. He'd lord it over me and some of the younger guys who would also hang out with us. He got a kick out of pointing a BB-gun at you and telling you to run. Sometimes he'd shoot over or around you, but like I said, he had a mean streak, and he might just pop a BB twixt your shoulder blades, just for haw-haws.
Seeing how hard Jerry and I worked at our little car wash-and-wash business, the owner of the only supermarket in town, hired Jerry as an after-school stock clerk, and put me on sorting and washing soda pop bottles on the weekends. (Some of you might still remember the days when soda came in returnable-glass bottles).
Jerry's status began to change markedly. He exchanged his worn out hand-me-downs for a set of new duds. He could now afford to buy the necessary insurance required to go out for sports. He really shined in his junior year as a member of the varsity football team. He could afford now to rent a tux and take a young lady to the Junior prom. Jerry bought himself a used car. I guess it could be said that Jerry had reached the apex of all there was to being a teenager in the America of the early 1960s.
When in the summer going into his senior year, Jerry's family suddenly moved away, a local family took him in, and even put him up in a little apartment they had behind their house. After all, why should the football team lose such a star player!
Other than a couple guys who knocked up their girlfriends, and were made to cohabit after a shotgun wedding, I never knew someone in high school with their own digs. I was deeply impressed by Jerry's new situation as football star and bon vivant. But it was right around then that things began to really sour between Jerry and I.
Jerry would come over my place, and we'd cruise the boondocks, but if some of his new clique of older pals would be with him, I'd get shoved in the backseat. Then I'd have to endure being the butt of everyone's jokes. One time I got left off some miles from town. Jerry came back to get me awhile later, sure. However, I hid in some bushes as I saw his car coming from down the road, and I walked back to town.
As Jerry became more and more of an arrogant smart aleck, I went out of my way to avoid him. I even began to take delight in his misfortune. When he wore his tires bald, by peeling out at every stop sign, and he was forced to park his ride until he could afford to get recaps, I chuckled wickedly.
Pride goes before a fall, and that was certainly exemplified, in Jerry's case. Formerly, an A student and member of the Latin Club, Jerry's grades began to nosedive, as he now began to neglect his studies. He was thrown off the football team for missing practice. Jerry even lost his job, because he quit in protest after demanding a raise, and the store owner refused to hire him back. Every one of Jerry's new difficulties elicited a Curly Howard "nyuk, nyuk, nyuk" out of me. Jerry finally quit high school and went into the service, but by then our relationship had been reduced to a little nod as we passed one another on the street.
John McCain's relationship to the conservative base of the Republican party is a lot like the one I had with Jerry. I never knew whether Jerry and I would be riding around making idle, friendly chatter about chicks and football, or I'd be a foil for his insults and cruel practical jokes. Similary, conservatives never know where they stand with the senator from Arizona. Will he set them up again, as the strawman he can bash, to show Chris Matthews and the rest of his media pals how free of racism he is (you know, unlike those rubes down there in North Carolina)? One the one hand, we get the promise of tax cuts out of Senator McCain, and a strong advocate of national defense. On the other hand, we get someone who'll drop the f-bomb on a solid conservative fellow senator, while making common cause with another (an ultra lib who waddles around the Senate chamber talking to himself), to make sure illegal-alien gangbangers have access to Z-visas.
McCain could have used his recent trip to New Orleans as an occasion to speak out about the principal culprits who failed the victims of hurricane Katrina, to wit, state and local corruption, incompetance, and paternalism. Instead, McCain relfexibly saves his criticism for a fellow Republican, in this case the President.
We could bring out of a litany of other instances of the good senator making nicey-nice with Democrats, while ripping members of his own party a new one. McCain seems to make sure he keeps at least one thumbnail sharp to jab into the eys of fellow Republicans. Well, this conservative hasn't reached the point where he will take delight in Mr. McCain's downfall, as he once did in the case of his former high school friend. After all, the bruised feelings of a 14-year old don't exactly measure up to the security of the nation. But the Senator shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't get anything more out of this conservative than a little nod of the head.
I question the legitimacy of this article. Is this a vanity?
Great post!
I for one will be voting Republican in November but I will not feel happy about voting for McCain.
I did feel real happy last Friday when I sent a donation to the Republican Party of North Carolina! Wonder how many other Florida Freepers did the same!
If the National Republican Commitee would grow a pair like the NC Pubbies have, the dough would flow there, too.
Juan McCain is to conservatism what the FLDS is to proper dating ettiquette.
Here’s a Colorado FReeper that sent the NC GOP a donation.
I will vote Republican but I’m not the biggest McCain fan. I’m just hoping for 8 more years of Conservative judges.
VETS PLEASE ADD YOUR NAME TO OUR ROLL CALL ROSTER AT:
http://Vets4McCain.com
Kentucky Freeper sent money into NC GOP. Have not donated to the RNC nor to McCain, however.
The November 2008 choice will be between McCain and Clinton or McCain and Obama.
Not McCain and YOU.
Not McCain and ME.
And sure as h*ll not McCain and whoever you wanted to get the nomination.
Can we just get on with things? Elections are not wish lists. They are choices and in America on presidential general elections they are choices between TWO people.
I cried the day Ronald Reagan past away. But he ain’t coming back and he won’t be on the ballot.
So, while McCain is certainly not everything I wished he was and there are several problem areas that he has failed us on. The fact is, he is head and shoulders above ANYTHING the democrats have to offer.
There are hundreds of reasons to vote for McCain and push him as opposed to the other candidate. Here are a few:
McCain will tax less...
McCain will hold the line on terror better...
McCain will do better on borders...
McCain doesn’t hate the military...
McCain will do more to protect the unborn...
McCain will spend less...
McCain will have more respect from foreign leaders both friend and foe...
McCain will do more to keep the death tax suspended...
McCain has a more attractive spouse...
McCain will hold the line on communist expansion in South America better...
McCain is LESS succored in re: global warming...
McCain will appoint better judges...
McCain will give more respect to the right to keep and bear arms...
McCain will give more respect to free speech...
Agreed, on everything on your list. But why does he continue to stick it to conservatives at every opportunity? Its like he doesn’t really want our support, or he wants our support, but he wants to keep us around to dump on so he can keep his creds with MSNBC, CNN, et al, and we are supposed to shut up and just take it. I am tired of it.
ROFLMAO!
You are right of course. I don’t, however, have time to worry about it.
I am presented with a simple challenge. The candidate makes it more difficult but not more complex.
I will work hard for John McCain because he is THE MOST CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE IN THE RACE. There may be more conservative candidates on the ballot but they are not in the race. They are vanity spoilers, lapping at the heals of Hillary Clinton for making them relevant.
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