Posted on 05/11/2008 4:13:06 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON (AFP) - While John McCain is practically assured the Republican presidential nomination, many party members are having a hard time accepting him -- and showing it with symbolic votes against him in primary contests.
The Republican nomination battle has been all but decided for over two months. Still, some Republicans used the April 22 Pennsylvania primary and last week's votes in Indiana and North Carolina to register their unhappiness with the de facto victor.
Some vote for libertarian Texan Ron Paul, who has refused to quit the race and has racked up more than one million votes, according to his campaign.
Other Republicans keep voting for former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and former governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas -- both markedly more conservative than McCain -- although both have long since dropped out of the race and endorsed him.
As many as 25 percent of Republican voters want a different candidate to represent their party in the November 4 presidential election. In Pennsylvania, 27 percent opted for Huckabee or Paul; in North Carolina and Indiana on May 6, McCain opponents earned 23 percent of the vote.
The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper, calculated that McCain had garnered no more than 45 percent of the Republican vote since January.
McCain's reputation as a party maverick and a compromising moderate has left the party's most conservative and ideological members disgruntled.
He focused this week on winning their backing, delivering a major speech on legal issues and promising to nominate conservative justices to any possible new Supreme Court vacancies, as President George W. Bush has done.
"I have my own standards of judicial ability, experience, philosophy, and temperament," McCain said.
"And Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito meet those standards in every respect. They would serve as the model for my own nominees if that responsibility falls to me," he said, pointing to Bush appointees.
Even so, McCain carefully avoided mentioning thorny subjects like abortion and homosexual unions, on which he has staked out much more moderate positions than members of the party's religious right.
On Thursday, McCain vigorously denied voting in the 2000 presidential elections against Bush, his main rival during the Republican primaries that year.
Popular liberal pundit and Internet blogger Ariana Huffington had published a report that shortly after the election, McCain revealed during a dinner that he did not vote for his party's nominee.
"I voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004," the Republican candidate insisted on Fox News. "And not only that, far more important than a vote, I campaigned everywhere in America for him."
While such defenses might help the Arizona senator woo the most conservative Republicans, it carries great risks.
A Wall Street Journal opinion poll last week showed only 27 percent of Americans approved of Bush's performance. And 43 percent said they worried that McCain "will be too closely aligned with the Bush agenda" -- a worry Democrats are already moving to exploit.
That spells trouble for McCain with the potential swing centrist voters McCain needs to defeat his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama or Senator Hillary Clinton.
Are you off your meds again?
Child I agree. The young and Black don’t care anything about Bambi’s negatives, and all those new voters are going to vote him in.
The appearance is stark... old and pasty versus young and vibrant. Policy differences? not much.
jimmy carter lite will clean mccains clock.
Thank you, this country will not survive a Obama presidency. Mark my words. A no vote is a vote for Obama the closet mooslim.
Actually, any person who calls themself a conservative, that can accept McCain with open arms, is not a conservative.
They are extremely liberal republicans. Yet here they are, trying to shove the old goat down the conservative throat.
No, but I would suggest you get some meds. I do not believe we have ever posted to each other newer newbie.
You are destined to go back to DU or wherever you spawned.
You are not even clever.
It’s not a trap, at this point it is nothing but a grim reality. I am just as disenchanged with the GOP as anyone but I will be GD’d if I am going to vote for a democrat, McCain is a pure stinker but the alternative is unthinkable. But like so many republicans that stayed home in 2004, I will still not let my disenchantment prevent me from voting.
“It’s either McCain or a Democrat. What side of the fence are you on?”
Baldwin
Go back to the DU? Kiss my a$$. You are right, I am not a conservative. I am a GD ultra conservative. And just because you have tenure over me on this forum still does not mean you don’t have your head up your ass, which you most certainly do.
ROTFLMAO! Not even YOu could believe a lie like that.
I know, you are a comedian.
Go ahead and waste your vote then. But don’t piss and moan when Obama takes over the helm because you would have helped put him there.
How about loose cannon, hot dog, RINO? He's considered a maverick only to his very good 'rat friends in the US senate and liberal MSM. Republican conservatives, which now he claims to be, know him for who he really is ... see my earlier assessment.
An Thas a Fac Jack!!! ..... Childofthe60’s ... I couldn’t have stated it better.
Personally I’m writing in Duncan Hunter. I see no point in encouraging the leftward run of the GOP.
“But don’t piss and moan when Obama takes over the helm”
I wasn’t planning on it.
“because you would have helped put him there.”
No, the utter dipsh*ts that nominated that backstabbing POS put ALL of us in this situation.
Gee! Ya think?!!!
“Personally I’m writing in Duncan Hunter.”
An excellent choice, but I feel I ought to give my vote to someone that is running. God if only Hunter had been better known....
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