"Sirhan Sirhan, is that you? Stand up, and come up here and take your place of honor
right between Caroline and Ted Kennedy."
Posted on 11/01/2008 3:09:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We've sometimes wished for a different choice.
The never-ending campaign that has been the 2008 election will soon - and mercifully - be coming to an end. The race for the White House that began, it seems fair to say, just a couple of minutes after the results of the 2006 congressional elections were known, will conclude on Tuesday. For the first time since 1960, when the nation elected to send John F. Kennedy to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., voters will decide that a member of the U.S. Senate should become the nation's chief executive officer.
The next president will be either John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, or Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois. Both are good men. Both have been, in very different ways, good candidates. With clear and obvious flaws.
But the voters do not get to throw up their hands. They have to pick.
And they have a real choice. No one can reasonably suggest that McCain and Obama offer more of the same, an indistinguishable non-choice to voters. They offer, despite the frequent foolishness of a modern American presidential campaign, two distinctly different visions of how the nation should be governed.
It is possible to find serious fault with each, but we have a preference.
For all the talk of the need to bring the nation together, to find consensus and govern from the center, only one candidate has a record of actually having done just that. On immigration, on campaign finance reform, on judicial nominees - to name but three areas - John McCain has been the candidate to buck his party and work for consensus. His opponent has talked a good ballgame - and little else.
We do not agree with McCain on everything. In fact, there are many areas where we disagree with McCain.
But an election is not an academic quest for the perfect candidate. It is a choice between two human beings - with their flaws and assets on display - in the very real world.
We understand well that most voters cast their ballots after much consideration. Which is how we make this endorsement.
So much of the talk in recent weeks has been about the economy. The Wall Street meltdown and its implications on the greater financial health of the nation and its citizens has made that the central fact of this campaign.
While that is completely understandable, there has got to be one overriding caveat: We are still a nation at war. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, may have receded in the memories of most of the citizens on most days, but we have no doubt that those who were behind the planning of that terrible day remember their goal: the destruction of this nation and its critical institutions.
If they are successful, few among us will be chatting about the best way to reform our health care system, the most logical course to pursue on Social Security, the best path on education. We'll be trying to survive.
The next president of the United States will be a war president. And he will be tested. Terrorists detonated a truck bomb in a garage beneath the World Trade Center in February 1993, Bill Clinton's second month in the White House. The 9/11 attacks came in George W. Bush's first year on the job.
We hope that the next president is on guard when he takes the reins.
And we trust that John McCain will better serve the nation in that most-essential regard.
Anyone who heard Barack Obama's address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004 had to be impressed. It was a stirring call to unity, and it remains so today. But the Obama who has been running for president is not the Obama who gave that speech.
He is, rather, an unreconstructed liberal, and if he is elected president, with Nancy Pelosi speaker of the House and Harry Reid Senate majority leader, the political left will have a stranglehold on all the sources of power in Washington.
One can easily imagine that Democrats, with increased majorities in both houses of Congress, will be legislating like it's 1933, and that is not what this nation needs at this time. (Whether the nation needed it in 1933 is a topic for another day.)
McCain will keep us safe, not only from al-Qaida and its sympathizers, but also from the excesses of some of the most liberal members of the Congress.
A divided government, with a Republican in the White House keeping the tax-and-spend crowd on Capitol Hill in check, would be best for everyone at this time.
This election offers a clear choice, and John McCain is our preferred candidate.
We urge voters to back McCain on Tuesday.
Well, this paper is called “The Republican” :)
Wow... as someone who went to undergrad at UMASS Amherst, I am surprised to see the Republican making this endorsement but am glad they did
Since we live in a Republic, not a Democracy, it’s an apt name, don’t you agree?
Not necessarily; this is a Western Mass paper that typically leans right, as does much of that part of the state. Western MA is like a totally different state.
Soon to be thrown off da’ plane!
Maybe some Massachusetts folk don’t like the fact that Obama buddies with a guy who dedicated his book to Sirhan Sirhan?
Only because of it’s past, not it’s present!
I am SHOCKED! SHOCKED!
Our paper is called The Arizona Republic. Most non-DemocRATS call it the Arizona People’s Republic.
Why should Massachusetts folk dislike the guy that killed a Senator from New York?
/sarcasm
The Boston Herald endorsed McCain, too.
This election is going to nothing similiar to any other election. For example, you could be right Massachussets and Pennsylvania could go red, but then Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina could go blue. This will be the most shocking and strange election to date. Damn it. Just sitting here watching Cold Play which has a few good songs and what did he say at the end??? Barack Obama....Ugh!!! Sorry I went off topic. Anyway, I will be up all night Tuesday night to watch the election. I am curious as to how it will turn out. I leave for London at 9 a.m. the 5th so staying up will do me some good so I can sleep on the plane.
I know, I posted it. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2095580/posts
"Sirhan Sirhan, is that you? Stand up, and come up here and take your place of honor
right between Caroline and Ted Kennedy."
Robert Kennedy was a native son of Massachusetts.
What town or city is this paper out of? I didn’t see it in the article.
Thank you for that Zeddicus!
Holyoke, Chicopee, Southwick, Westfield area.
I live in Western MA and this is a paper from Springfield,MA - 3rd largest city in MA. It is a very liberal paper and in my lifetime (certainly recent history)I don’t recall them ever supporting a Republican for President. I’m in shock.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.