McCain and the Bitter Conservatives

American Thinker ^ | June 15, 2008 | Andrew Sumereau

[neverdem]

John McCain is clearly the preferable option for conservative voters come November. Although liberal in his views toward immigration, government intrusion in free speech, environmental issues, campaign finance reform, health care, education mandates, and a host of other issues that run contrary to conservative orthodoxy, McCain is solid on two (alas, two) vital issues that make the difference; spending and judges. From the frustration of eight years of a Republican Administration that began with so much hope and promise it pains one to say it, but there it is.

Against the prospects of a President Obama, McCain wins.

A victim of circumstances and timing in many ways, Senator McCain carries the sins of Bush and the free-spending Republicans into the 2008 election minus any counter balancing virtues. The coming election has an eerie deja-vu feeling. The Democrat nominee is young, glib, dare one say it, slick; beloved by a media most happy to shield him from criticism. He is facing a cranky old Republican Senator with visible war wounds, famous for his temper, and viewed with apprehension by the religious right.

In addition, John McCain is detested, and deservedly so, by many Republicans of all types. Beyond issue and policy differences, and they are legion, his personality grates. His conceit of "straight-talk" and "maverick"-like independence so superficially applauded (up until now) by the mainstream media is almost Clintonesque in its narcissism. If only other politicians had his courage, he implies, things would be fixed straightaway. The big special interests have all the other elected officials in their pockets. Only Maverick-John tells it like it is! Yet the truth is that McCain could serve well as poster boy of the arrogant elitist beltway insider, friend of Hillary and Ted, foe of the unwashed. The party habit of selecting the next in line (e.g. Dole) has rarely produced such an unappealing candidate at such a critical time. In many ways he reminds one of Adlai Stevenson, who famously frustrated his supporters with his holier-than-thou ways during two failed contests against the popular broad-smiling Ike.

Despite what will surely be the focus of McCain's campaign, foreign policy and experience will not decide this election for conservative voters. One may point to the war in Iraq as the defining issue come November and see a big advantage for McCain. Not necessarily so. History will decide the wisdom of our foreign policy over the last seven years, whether the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions were a legitimate response to the threat of organized terror, or the overreaction of predisposed warriors intent on using the events of 9/11 to democratize the Middle East.

It is clear, in the short term that a McCain administration will cling to the ongoing military effort. He is a very sure bet on a continuation of aggressive and largely unilateral foreign policy. But unlike domestic issues, Presidents, as Truman said, "ride the Tiger" in foreign affairs.  They are controlled by events and often forced into moves at odds with their original intentions. Bush came into office as a critic of nation building and yet leaves committed to the rebuilding of Iraq. Johnson's Great Society fell victim to his own escalation of the Vietnam War. Clinton sent troops to Haiti. As Chief Executive of the federal branch they must protect our borders and command the military by constitutional decree. Democrats, even Carter, have found that once in office the requirements and prerogatives of military power seldom are resisted.

On domestic issues it is no better. He is with Kennedy on education and immigration, with Fiengold on campaign finance, with Gore on the environment. For the committed conservative, he speaks and acts as Bush-lite without the few rhetorical bones thrown in for appearance's sake. Each day, it seems, he appears to make a pronouncement, or suggest a policy, or chastise an enthusiastic supporter, in order to please the main-stream media and send conservatives off wailing and gnashing their teeth.   

So the question of the day is how can a candidate that turns off a large portion of his base, who will most certainly be put on the defensive by a biased media, who appears old and uncool to the great unlettered new generation of voters, succeed?

"Front Porch" campaigns put several Republicans in the White House starting with Abraham Lincoln. In the good old days Presidential candidates found it undignified and unbecoming to campaign for votes all over the country. They let their surrogates and followers go through the unending exercises so necessary yet so unseemly in the election process. Incessant bragging, boasting, and cajoling, voicing hypocritical platitudes, and bribing voters with empty promises and spending sprees in search of Utopia was not the stuff of our Founding Fathers. McCain would benefit from a restoration of this practice but in the age of 24/7 cable news and Internet blogs this is not practical.

McCain must recognize that he has some substantial advantages, chiefly his opponent's weaknesses. Also, conservatives, though unhappy, will do the right thing for the country if only through a sense of duty. Further, experience and genuine heroism are good to have on your resume.

But McCain also must recognize the depth of conservative despondency. He will not win by giving his base a reason to stay home. Unlike liberals, conservatives have lives and interests outside politics that serve as outlets for the impulse to do good and improve the world. And they are angry and demoralized, make no mistake.

For many voters and activists, thirty years of hard work in the conservative fields has produced a bitter harvest of uncontrolled spending, judicial legislation, preposterous congressional pork barrel earmarks, uncontrolled borders, and arrogance.

McCain is in a fight against the manufactured illusions of "hope" and history.  He needs every vote he can manage. Before he once again decides to berate conservatives, propose liberal policies, befriend the political opposition and (why?) laud the Clintons, he should perhaps better find a nice photogenic porch. Sit on the porch. Do this and conservatives on November 5^th will surely hold their noses and pull the lever for what is best for the country.

[Bean Counter]

[Smokin' Joe]

Allow market forces to propel us into a post-oil world.

I'll take market forces over government mandate any day.

[kabar]

Needing oil and wanting ANWR and everything else is fine but ignoring alternatives is silly. I WANT off oil dependence, now. If we have to hold it together for 10 years, ok, so be it.

Ten years? LOL. We are not ignoring alternatives. We don't need the USG picking winners and losers. Look at the ethanol debacle and its unintended consequences. Let the marketplace decide, not government.

We are not going to wean ourselves off of oil and gasoline anytime soon. There is a vast infrastructure out there that supports the use of oil and gasoline to fuel our economy, including the internal combusion engine. Millions of cars, planes, trucks, buses, etc. will be around longer than 10 years.

And then there is the matter of population growth. We have added 100 million people since 1970 and will add another 167 million by 2060, most of it due to immigration, legal and illegal. So, in a space of 90 years we will have added 267 million people going from a nation of 200 million to one of 467 million. If we have an amnesty, those figures will go much higher, i.e., by at least 100 million more. We will have to run to stand still.

High oil prices spur innovation. I didn't ask for high oil prices or a depressed dollar but it is what I have to work with. I celebrate because we have a chance to finally kill the domination of oil.

Cheap energy is the lifeblood of an economy. An economy in the doldrums will hurt inovation. The high energy costs is really a regressive tax hurting those at the bottom far more. It also consumes discretionary income, which has a ripple effect throughout the economy hurting almost all businesses. Less consumption will send the economy into a downward spiral that will be hard to recover from, especially with an aging population that will place our faltering entitlement systems into bankruptcy. The entitlement programs represent an unfunded liability of more than $60 trillion. The perfect storm is coming. Rising energy costs are just part of it.

Dominion Power of VA just announced that its rates will be going up 18% in July and more increases will follow next year and the year after. Those increases will affect businesses and the consumer. You may celebrate it, but the reality is that this economy is going into a steep, downward spiral.

[Beagle8U]

OK, not your plan but it will fail terribly in finding a new form of cheap energy.

Obama will just tax you more and tell you to move to an urban ghetto and ride a bus!

[DieHard the Hunter]

> That was, pretty much, my reservation, too. For a country as large, and varied, as the U.S., I think it would be very difficult indeed.

Shillary tried to do something with healthcare and failed. Granted, she was and is incompetent with no previous experience doing major social healthcare reform, so her chances were at best zero. But if it were easy, it would have been attempted by others in the US long ago.

So from my perspective, sitting in New Zealand, two things come out of this:

First, the US would be genuinely fortunate to have a great Socialized Healthcare system in place, like what we have — so “Conservatives” who moan and complain about the mere *idea* sound shrill and ill-informed. At best. You should be so lucky!

And second, to a large extent the prospect of Socialized Medicine in the US is moot, and will be moot unless you get many decades of bilateral support for the concept, both at the State (all 50+DC of them) and at the Federal level. Because it will take that long to build properly, and it will fail miserably and permanently if it’s done wrong. That just ain’t likely to happen anytime this side of the Second Coming in the US: too many people have to agree, all at once, for too long a timeframe.

So it is a really silly thing for you Yanks to be worried about, no matter how you look at it. Socialized Medicine a good thing that you cannot have, even if you wanted it.

So you are safe from Socialized Medicine. Take it to the bank: that risk will not materialize.

[wireplay]

And that is the negative view. Be optimistic: alternative enrgy sources will spur growth, eliminate dependence on foreign sources, and create a whole economy on replacing existing infrastructure.

You can view everything as half-empty or half-full. It is your choice on the mindset but I prefer looking at the world as a positive place. We are in the greatest times in the history of humanity and fuel prices going up will do nothing but propel us forward.

[nina0113]

Bring on $10 gas and let’s see where it leads. People get creative...

My cynical side tells me that the first thing they'll get creative with is ways to steal gas.

[wireplay]

OK, not your plan but it will fail terribly in finding a new form of cheap energy. Obama will just tax you more and tell you to move to an urban ghetto and ride a bus!

Obama is not the POTUS and the POTUS does not make law.

Look at how much this will change our habits. If suddenly water was an issue (and it is in the western US where I live), people will change. My water bill runs $800/mo in the summer on the house I just bought. Guess what? I am going to have a landscaping firm change things.

People move on market forces and that is great. Fuel prices spur change and that change will be good.

[raybbr]

RAMM

Thanks for the link. It's a very well done site.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> You can view everything as half-empty or half-full. It is your choice on the mindset but I prefer looking at the world as a positive place. We are in the greatest times in the history of humanity and fuel prices going up will do nothing but propel us forward.

I suggest watch what happens in New Zealand. We are a small country with terrible public transit and even worse highway infrastructure, entirely dependent upon our automobiles.

Gasoline is over NZ$2.00 per liter and going up daily, with no respite in sight. Almost all of it is imported pre-refined.

We are seeing these trends already:

1) More people moving to bikes
2) More motorscooters
3) More motorbikes
4) Lots of hybrids
5) Fewer SUVs and large cars
6) Huge spends in rail and bus infrastructure
7) Huge spends in highway infrastructure (go figure!)
8) Increasing instances of work-from-home and telecommuting
9) Less domestic air travel
10) Huge spends in telecommunications infrastructure
11) Fascinating innovations in battery technologies
12) More solar panels
13) Electricity shortages
14) Pressure to reform tax on fuels
15) Fascinating innovations on alternative diesel-like fuels

And to cap it all off, Kyoto is going to start to bite really hard.

We are a small country and we can therefore adapt really quickly. That is why we are often used for market tests by major multi-national companies.

What is going to happen in America will be tested and perfected here, first.

[PzLdr]

How can the author claim McCain is conservative on judges. Didn’t he found the “Gang of 14”?

[raybbr]

If we have to hold it together for 10 years, ok...

Substitue "till November" with "ten years" and "Pelosi-Reid Congress" with "McCain presidency".

Innovation should not be forced. It should come as a natural replacement. While we are in the death throes of innovating a new way to provide energy China will bury us by using the "old" ways.

[PzLdr]

Since most of our technical, industrial and societal infrastructure is based on fossil fuels, particularly petroleum; and since no large scale [except nuclear] FEASABLE alternative exists to fill any of those functions, that’s an interesting opinion.

[kabar]

And that is the negative view. Be optimistic: alternative enrgy sources will spur growth, eliminate dependence on foreign sources, and create a whole economy on replacing existing infrastructure.

LOL. No, that is the realistic view. You represent the pollyanish viewpoint ignoring the facts and what is really involved. You are spouting the liberal view that somehow the "Green Economy" is going to create new jobs and a new prosperity. The devil is always in the details. The windmill and solar crowd fails to comprehend how much energy we need and why this technology can't meet it for the foreseeable future. I assume by alternative you mean no coal and probably no new nuclear plants.

You can view everything as half-empty or half-full. It is your choice on the mindset but I prefer looking at the world as a positive place. We are in the greatest times in the history of humanity and fuel prices going up will do nothing but propel us forward.

If the increase in fuel prices is such a good thing, let's raise the price of gas to $20 a gallon. You have no understanding of ecomomics. Inflation is a killer to any economy and so is expensive energy.

I prefer to approach complex problems with an understanding of the facts. There is no simple solution. There will be some very difficult choices ahead. Our political class seems incapable of making them. You and Obama can operate on Hope and emotion.

[raybbr]

Look at how much this will change our habits. If suddenly water was an issue (and it is in the western US where I live), people will change. My water bill runs $800/mo in the summer on the house I just bought. Guess what? I am going to have a landscaping firm change things.

That's a pretty immature analogy. Water is a natural resource that you literally cannot live without. Gas and oil are products of a process.

If you had said "I'm going to drill my own well so I don't have to rely on the water company." the analogy would have fit. But, to pay someone else to do your "innovation" is exactly the way we are doing things in the U.S. vis-a-vis petroleum energy.

[Beagle8U]

“Obama is not the POTUS and the POTUS does not make law.”

True, but the POTUS does sign or veto laws and everything out of the RAT controlled congress will be very bad for your wallet.

We will just have to disagree on what the outcome of these high fuel prices will be. I don't think your idea is reality based for most of the nation when a Marxist is in charge.

[wireplay]

A personal analogy:

On my new house, the toilets had a problem flushing. Ok, long and short of it is that I had to replace all of my external sewage pipes. Rather than a new car, I had no choice but to fix an infrastructure issue. We don’t choose our choices sometimes, they merely happen.

How will we cope with $5/gal gas? We will cope. No one asked that this happen but it is now in our laps and we have no choice but to adapt/pay the price and move on. It will get fixed, we will be better, and we will move on.

[maine-iac7]

two (alas, two) vital issues that make the difference; spending and judges.

Ahh - and the most crucial issue, the war/military.

If they fall, all else goes with it

[kabar]

How will we cope with $5/gal gas? We will cope. No one asked that this happen but it is now in our laps and we have no choice but to adapt/pay the price and move on. It will get fixed, we will be better, and we will move on.

Of course we will "cope." How and what effect will this have on the economy, business and the consumer? Who is going to fix it and how are the real questions.

[wireplay]

You are heavy on the slurs: let it go. Let us have a reasoned discussion without the personal smears.

I am in favor of nuclear and want plants built ASAP. So much of that invective.

Amazing that you state I have no insight into economics and yet you know nothing about my education or experience.

You approach complex problems like you approach arguments: charge and shoot, and hope for the best.