Posted on 08/27/2008 10:00:02 AM PDT by calcowgirl
Reports of strong support within John McCain's presidential campaign for Independent Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman as the Republican candidate for vice president are not a fairy tale. Influential McCain backers, plus McCain himself, would pick the pro-choice liberal from Connecticut if they thought they could get away with it.
But they can't get away with it -- and this has been made clear to McCain by none other than Joe Lieberman himself.
Lieberman surely doesn't know that much about Republican politics, but he has close Republican friends. One of them prevailed on Lieberman to tell McCain that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would be a disaster for all concerned, and especially for the GOP.
Actually, Lieberman is a heroic figure among Republicans for having risked his Senate seat to support President George W. Bush's war policy. But aside from the war, he votes the straight liberal line, including pro-choice on abortion. Lieberman's Republican friend told him that the Republicans would leave Minnesota in a state of disarray with a McCain-Lieberman ticket, alienating social conservatives who now make up the core of Republican voters.
At the heart of the desire for Lieberman as running mate is a basic strategic disagreement between the Bush and McCain high commands.
McCain's top strategists argue that the Bush coalition that won the last two presidential elections is dead and must be replaced by a new one that extends to the left, as Lieberman would.
Bush strategists disagree, asserting that McCain is getting around 90 percent of the old Bush vote and can win the election with a few moderates added in.
The Republican operative who urged Lieberman to dissuade McCain from picking him believes that there is still a very useful role for the maverick Democrat in this campaign: as McCain's secretary of state. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
Wild Thing finished off the Braves in the NLCS, so it wasn’t a total gamble.
>Lieberman would destroy McCain’s chances. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sarah Palin would guarantee victory.
It’s not Leiberman and never was. Leiberman would never accept because he understands what would happen to Republican support, and McCain wouldn’t ask for the same reason.
Look for a conervative VP. Cantor is a good possibility.
Okay. But should we elect him on the basis that he is pretending to be something he isn’t, and we are pretending he is something he isn’t? We will be so lucky that Obama is not president when McCain reforms the GOP in his and Lieberman’s image.
I think your analysis is right on target. If there's a motive for bringing up Liberman's name it to show how bi-partisan McCain is to all the squishy independents and to make conservatives happy when he doesn't pick him.
I will observe that IMO Cheney has been one of the best VPs we've had in a very long time and I don't see him having had much influence. Of course that could vary from president to president, but at least I can easily see Cheney being president and I can't remember the last time I felt that way. Given McCain's age I think it's important for the pick to not only be conservative but "instant president" material.
But I'll be doggone if I know who that is...
Zell Miller thinks he is to old. He retired for good.
I should have said from politics for good. He is still busy as H311 Zell!
IMHO a craven opportunist who adjusts his views to whatever is "popular" at that given moment in time. Let's not forget the "true conservative" Zig Zag Zell voted for Tom Daschle to be Majority Leader when the Senate was divided 50-50 and Jeffords switched sides. Let's not forget Zig Zag Zell was a lifelong pro-abortion politician and only "discovered" the pro-life cause when he was retiring from office and didn't have an abortion legislation to actually VOTE on that could have made a difference. Let's not forget Zig Zag supported the likes of far-left George McGovern, but claims the RAT party "left him" when they nominated John Kerry. Let's not forget Zig Zag endorsed Mike Gravel in the 2008 primaries.
> Cantor is a good possibility <
Cantor is a very smart and attractive young man. But he’s too young and has no executive experience. Let him serve as Governor of Virginia or in a cabinet office for a term, then he’ll be a dynamite choice for the ‘Pubs POTUS nominee in 2012 or 2016.
No no no no no
One other thing to consider, we'll still have to deal with the threat of filibusters - whether or not we have the Senate. We may want Bolton, or even Lieberman as SoS or SecDef, but if they get filibustered like the judges did...we may not get them...
And if McCain wins but the Senate is still RAT-controlled, we can forget about recess appointments. All the more reason to support the Republican ticket, top to bottom. Granted, many of them aren't as conservative as we'd like, and frankly some of them piss us off. But if a vote for a "conservative" Democrat is a vote for Reid and Pelosi (and we see how well THAT turned out), then a vote for a less than conservative Republican, given the choice between two main options, is a vote for McConnell and Boehner (plus whomever would replace Bela Pelosi as speaker).
The fact that McCain would even consider Lieberman should disturb people.....hmmm guess it doesn’t.
Shows where McCain is taking the party.
If only we could get Zell.....
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/convention2004/zellmiller2004rnc.htm
It might have worked out. In fact, I have irrefutable proof that it was the right decision in the Series.
McCain can get conservatives back with a solid conservative
VP. If he wins conservatives, he'll get the independents back by continuing his Obama is unthinkable as President
ad strategy
Picking Lieberman for VP would all but guarantee an obama presidency. Too many see only his support for the war, on most other issues he is far left. The high and mighty also want us to forget that he was part and parcel of the attempted theft of the 2000 election and actively participated in the effort to keep military votes from being counted.
“... Kay Bailey Hutchison...would guarantee victory.”
She would?
Kay Bailey Hutchinson: Roe was rightly decided (Abortion is a Constitutional Right)
Senate Roll Call Vote ^ | 3-12-03 | Hutchinson herself
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2069086/posts
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