Conservatives for Obama? (Thomas Sowell)

Jewish World Review ^ | July 8, 2008 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

A number of friends of mine have commented on an odd phenomenon that they have observed — conservative Republicans they know who are saying that they are going to vote for Barack Obama. It seemed at first to be an isolated fluke, perhaps signifying only that my friends know some strange conservatives. But apparently columnist Robert Novak has encountered the same phenomenon and has coined the term "Obamacons" to describe the conservatives for Senator Obama.

Now the San Francisco Chronicle has run a feature article, titled "Some Influential Conservatives Spurn GOP and Endorse Obama." In it they quote various conservatives on why they are ready to take a chance on Barack Obama, rather than on John McCain.

What is going on?

Partly what is going on is that, in recent years, the Congressional Republicans in general — and Senator John McCain in particular — have so alienated so many conservatives that some of these conservatives are like a drowning man grasping at a straw.

[1035rep]

Thanks for posting that. I need to send another donation to McCain.

[jazusamo]

That is some real troubling stuff, Doll, thanks for posting it.

[aggie21]

I don't see any true conservative voting for Obama. They would rather shoot themselves in the foot than do forget their ideals.
I think that one possibility is that they want to show the American public what socialism really means, and teach them to appreciate our free market system of economics and current freedoms. Sometimes it takes getting your finger burned on the stove to know it's hot. In this case, to much is at stake for us to just hand bho the election. We could recover, but not for a quarter of a century or more.

[Gene Eric]

>> some of these conservatives are like a drowning man grasping at a straw

and they’re acting like victims, so they’ll be in good company when they join with the Left.

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

You are wrong. We can refuse to vote for John McCain. We can refuse to vote for the top of the ticket. We can stay home. I don't need the lecture about the future of the country. It's the same lecture many of us have ourselves been giving for a long time.

John McCain does not represent my values. He mocks Christians and embraces trespassing illegal immigrants. He slaps the faces of conservatives and you say vote for him.

Screw John McCain.

[rrrod]

Sowell nails it. But the rage felt by a lot of the conservative base towards the GOP/RNC runs deep. In the 2006 election an estimated 16 to 20% of the normal voting GOP base stayed home. has the GOP/RNC woke up? Are they listening?

[padre35]

Thank you for educating me on that jan, had not heard it.

I knew WW loved his wife very much, I thought his stories were mostly tongue in cheek.

[Vigilanteman]

You are correct and, as usual, Dr. Sowell speaks to our brains and not our emotions. That being said, while I could never bring myself to vote for Obama, neither can I currently bring myself to vote for McCain.

[LouD]

That is what they told us about "W", to scare us with Gore and Lurch, but look at what we got ANYWAY. Talk about crippling taxes to begin with. You tell me, which party was in the White House and did not stand up to Congressional Spending over the last 7 years and submitted back-breaking, nanny-state budgets?

Crippling taxes? Bush undid much of the Clinton tax increases, and after 9/11 had to increase defense spending. Did discretionary spending increase too? Undoubtedly. Could he have pressured congress to rein in spending, and kill earmarks? Maybe, but he was somewhat hamstrung in the rest of his agenda by the necessity of fighting a war; You only get so much political capital, and the most important thing for him to spend it on was the GWOT.

But tell me, do you think Gore or Kerry would have increased spending more, or less than Bush? What do you think they would have spent it on? Killing terrorists, or capping carbon emissions and expanding the welfare state?

Would Gore or Kerry have given us two solidly conservative justices on the Supreme Court? Or would we now be facing an insurmountable bias towards the judicial activism in support of the liberal agenda in that body?

Not even Ronald Reagan, God bless his soul, was perfect. John McCain would be orders of magnitude better for this country and the conservative agenda than an extremist like Barack Obama.

[mc5cents]

That was an excellent post LouD. I have copied it and sent to my email list. Thanks.

[mc5cents]

Not even Ronald Reagan, God bless his soul, was perfect. John McCain would be orders of magnitude better for this country and the conservative agenda than an extremist like Barack Obama.

As you so correctly pointed out in an earlier post, perfect is the enemy of the good. Some people just do not get it.

[Cacique]

btt

[TomGuy]

The one problem with these models is the same problem that the Dems had in the primaries:

Obama is brining in millions of new, young voters and they do not show up in the historical statistics.

In many of the Dem primaries, Obama won by numbers that were equal to the total Dem primary vote in those states in 04. In other words, Clinton was claiming the number who voted in 04, and Obama was getting an equal number of new votes. Dem primary counts literally doubled over 04 numbers; whereas GOP primary counts remained static.

[Across the aisle, McCain was NOT wow-ing and energizing millions of new, young voters to vote for him. Most of the primary votes McCain got were from the standard Republicans and Dem cross-overs who helped him in certain states. McCain consistently lost 22-27% of the Republican vote, even after his nomination was certain. McCain cannot win in November unless he gets 90-95% of the Republican vote, and currently the polls show he is only getting 80% of that vote.]

If Obama continues that trend, he could bring in upwards of 60 million new, young voters over the total number of voters in 04.

That is the great unknown which could throw this election into a tailspin.

==

The second factor, for McCain (not so important for Obama) is the VP selection. McCain’s age + VP selection will be influential in bringing in or repelling the conservative vote.

[Retired COB]

Some names rumored include Colin Powell, J.C. Watts, Armstrong Williams.

Colin Powell's a conservative???? You could've fooled me!

[death2tyrants]

Then you let others choose your POTUS for you.

[MeSpikeLibs]

I agree, this seems like a phony story to me.

[LadyNavyVet]

Exit polls are notoriously unscientific, since they are face-to-face interviews and interviewers, by nature, tend to interview people like themselves, while interviewees, by nature, tend to respond in ways they believe their interviewers would wish.

However, well-designed scientific predictive polls from reputable pollsters are another matter, and they showed no Bradley-Wilder effect in the primaries. Overall, good polls like Rasmussen predicted Obama’s eventual vote totals every bit as accurately as they predicted Hillary’s or the white male Republicans, for that matter.

Evidence suggests that those Freepers who are counting on a huge Bradley-Wilder effect in November are going to be disappointed. Both race relations and polling methodology have come a long way in the almost twenty years since the Wilder vote and almost 30 years since the Bradley vote.

[TomGuy]

I see your still working for Obama well into the night.

I am not for Obama nor for McCain. I just see McCain to be more problematic than Obama, at this point, because McCain has 25 years of Washington.

McCain wrote the law to assault the First Amendment (Campaign Finance Reform). Obama has never written such as law.

McCain wrote the law to assault the American culture by giving amnesty to 12-60 million illegals (Comprehensive Immigration Reform). Obama has never written such as law.

There are additional examples, if you care to google.

Notice that whenever McCain writes a 'reform' law, it turns in to an assault on some aspect of American culture.

One thing is sure: a President McCain will continue to push his agenda of open borders, amnesty, assaults on Free Speech, etc. He has said as much in various speeches/interviews in the last 6 months.

The one advantage, however, to McCain is that he would face a Democrat Congress, so we may be 4 years of gridlock and then get a decent new president in 2012 -- that or Providence allowing McCain's VP to move up are about the only two way American will benefit from this election.

Many times I disagree with him, but Rush was correct a few weeks ago when he concluded "We are sooooo screwed." Limbaugh made that in reference to McCain's nomination, but I see it in regard to either McCain or Obama. So don't accuse me of being an Obama supporter based on a few posts. I have made many posts regarding McCain, many regarding Obama, and will probably make many more, including some about Barr and Baldwin. You don't know me and you don't know whom I do support.

[liberallarry]

Indeed. Very, very well said.

[TomGuy]

Colin Powell's a conservative???? You could've fooled me!

Of the Compassionate Conservative variety, probably.