The Myth That McCain Wasn't Conservative Enough

Pajamas Media ^ | November 11, 2008 | John Avalon

[AJKauf]

After a losing presidential campaign, the candidate quickly (and often cruelly) is painted as an object lesson in what not to do — but that should not happen in 2008.

In order to truly revive itself, the GOP should be more like the real John McCain in the future, and less like the conservative cast of the past decade: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tom Delay. And it certainly should not look to the likes of Mitt Romney or Sarah Palin to lead a restoration.

You do the math: America has a moderate majority — 50% of Americans are centrists, compared to 20% who are liberal and 30% who call themselves conservative. ,,,

[Yo-Yo]

He lost. A) because he’s a liberal. B) because he always looks like he’s about to yell at you. C) because he’s a liberal.

Another factor was that he was 71 years old.

[Mr. Mojo]

the GOP should be more like the real John McCain in the future

You mean they should do things like reject tax cuts, co-author amnesty bills, bail out criminals with taxpayer dollars, support unreasonable restrictions on the 1st amendment (CFR), oppose a Federal ban on gay marriage (2005...before he flip-flopped), support Roe v. Wade (he flip-flopped on that one too)....

Avalon should just join the Democrat party if he likes McCain types. Plenty of 'em over on that side of the aisle.

[buckleyconservative]

“In order to truly revive itself, the GOP should be more like the real John McCain in the future, and less like the conservative cast of the past decade: George W. Bush”

I have come to the conclusion that pundits can write whatever drivel they want and get away with it.

Bush is not a conservative: He never met a spending bill he didn't like. The size of government did not shrink one iota under Bush.

McCain is not a conservative. A majority of Americans are against government bailouts. What did McCain do: suspended his campaign and went to DC to support the bailout.

Sarah Palin had nothing to do with McCain's loss. The election became a referendum on Bush, and McCain, in attempting to distance himself from Bush, aligned himself with him on economic issues. Bad Timing. Also, McCain never had the guts to ram home the cause of the Fannie and Freddie debacle. McCain has only himself to blame. One could write a book on the reasons McCain killed his campaign, and never mention Sarah Palin.

The energy the Republicans had coming out of the convention was due to Palin. They lost the energy, and the election, with McCain's dimwitted response to the economic crisis.

What true conservatives know, and what Republicans need to learn, is to listen to your constituents. If 70% of Americans opposed the bailout, then don't go back to Washington and support the goddam thing, stupid.

[ChessExpert]

“In order to truly revive itself, the GOP should be more like the real John McCain in the future, and less like the conservative cast of the past decade: George W. Bush” ...

Two objections:

1) Was George W. Bush too conservative? Liberals think so, but I do not.

2) “Conservative” Bush got elected (twice). “Centrist” John McCain did not.

Case closed.

[Unlikely Hero]

Most “independent voters (ie those who do not vote according to party IDs) vote on personality, not on the issues. You just have to have a guy who is more likeable than the other guy to win.

[noname07718]

As far as I’m concerned, McCain lost ANY chance he ever had when he instituted the “Gang of 16” in 2005. I know he said it was to get things done in the Senate, but it was primarily to undermine the President. He was all pi$$ed off in losing to BUSH in his first attempt at the Oval Office. He spent too much of his time sabotageing the President and not supporting him. McCain was a brave war hero, but he is a spineless cry-baby in politics.

[GloriaJane]

I’d say that after McCain called on Gov Palin to be his VP he did extremely well. Lets not forget that McCain was out spent by millions and millions and millions of dollars. So with that against them they did extremely well. IMHO

obama along with the black vote, bought his way into the white house.

[Ouderkirk]

It’s not a myth...McCain is a Vichy Republican. Proven time and again.

[Dead Corpse]

Please, can we dispense with the mushy-middle “moderates” trying to convince Republicans that the last best hope for their political salvation is to dispense with the one brand of conservatism that has a winning record, even in bad years?

Yeah... we've been trying to get them to knock off the RINO crap since Bush first handed McCain his Left-leaning head in the 99-00 election Primaries. They use the same logic on us that is used to keep people from looking at Third Parties seriously. "If you don't elect our RINO, it'll ensure a Dem win..."

Well.. they got their RINO. What happened? The Dem won. Why? Because they stuck to principles.

Stick to conservative principles and we'll have ANOTHER Reagan Revolution. Palin, Jindal, Steele, et al... They are the only real hope for our Country now.

[samtheman]

He [McCain] lost from there for two reasons, the economic crash and his anemic response to that crash.

Absolutely right.

[St. Louis Conservative]

McCain lost because:

1. A slavish media that Bill Clinton 92 would be jealous of.

2. Obama’s $600 million war chest that allowed him to outspend McCain by 5-1.

3. An economic meltdown that McCain did not provide conservative leadership on, and Obama became the primary beneficiary of the chaos.

4. McCain’s inability to speak articulately and communicate ideas.

[E=MC2]

5. He dissed his based and told them that Obama was a decent person and [Obama] would make a fine president.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

Who to F are these jerks.

Have heard of PM but never checked them out and now I know I WON'T

WHY EVEN BOTHER POSTING WHAT THESE JERKS ARE SUGGESTING?

Does anyone regularly post what they say at Dummy Underground or Daily Kossaks?

THEY ARE IRRELEVANT!!!

[nathanbedford]

Here is a portion of a post which I published before the election in response to a politico article calling for Republicans and conservatives to move left to fill the big tent:

As we conservatives drag the remnants of our movement into the wilderness with no idea how we will emerge or whether we will ever emerge as an electoral force in America which is recognizable by my generation, we must inevitably engage ourselves in the most soul- searing inquiry of what went wrong. This will be an agony but equally it will be effective only to the degree that it hurts. It will not succeed without bloodshed. There must be finger-pointing and bloodletting. We must carve to the bone. The process must be Darwinian. Those whose ideas are false must be bayoneted on the trial.

The object is to find our soul - nothing less. In a come to Jesus sense we must get absolutely clear what it means to be a conservative. Only at this point do we look to the tent flaps and open them. Those who cannot subscribe to the hard-won consensus, to a confession of faith as to what is a conservative, should walk out through that flap. Those who are attracted from the outside to the core message of conservatism should be encouraged to walk through the flap and enlarge the tent. What the left wants us to do is to expand the census in the tent prematurely and thus turn a movement into a menagerie. The Soul-searching must be conducted by conservatives without the earnest ministrations from liberals like those of Politico. This article, of course, has nothing whatever to do with explaining why Republicans lost 2008 election across the board, it has everything to do with first efforts by the left to sabotage the rebuilding process on the right which must be done exclusively by the right.

We have not lost the 2008 election because we were excessively partisan while Obama was enlightened and transcendental. We actually lost the election because George Bush and Karl Rove betrayed the soul of conservatism. A party without its soul is like an army which does not believe in itself, it cannot win the next contest. A party which had abandoned its principles and so lost the last two elections and frittered away both its power as the ruling coalition and its status as the majority philosophy of the nation, cannot expect to swell its ranks by recruiting to a lost cause. The party must first know what the cause is and only then can it recruit. To again borrow the military analogy, a party like an army disintegrates without a mission. Armies are assigned missions but a political party finds its mission only through soul-searching.

As this process occurs we will be told by the left that only a big tent party can win and that to become a big tent one must move to co-opt the center. That is not how it works. That is the reverse of the way it works. The center is not peopled by voters with fixed notions about the exercise of power who wait for one of the great political parties to surrender their values and embrace the tempered and resolute opinions of the middle. That happens with splinter parties but not with the mushy middle. When an unaffiliated voter bestirs himself to enter the polling booth he is confronted with one of two options: right or left. He does not consider who has moved the farthest geographically from right to the left or left to right any more than he commits because of his own long held political beliefs. He votes for the fella who best tickles his fancy at the moment. Put more charitably, he votes for the candidate who persuades that he is the best, and has the best to offer.

If we as conservatives do not believe that we have the best to offer we should get out of the business. A candidate, like a party, who is centered on his philosophy has integrity and is persuasive. And that philosophy must first have a vertical spiritual component which finds expression and out working in a horizontal governing philosophy.

Because of his race, Obama was asked only to demonstrate that he could walk and talk like a president. Obama has won the middle, not because he pandered to them, which he did, but because he had the wind at his back.

As John McCain reverts from titular head of the Republican Party to United States Senator, it falls to the rest of us to contrive a governing philosophy which he, unfortunately, did not own and therefore could not bequeath to us. We had such a legacy from Ronald Reagan but we squandered it. We must construct our own. We must do it in the wilderness. We must do it unaided by intermeddling liberals. Their's is the serpent's way, the easy way, a pander to the superficially popular, the accommodation to the middle. The bed of birth has always been a bed of pain. The pain must be embraced if we are to receive a new life.

[albie]

I remember about 2 years ago how much I utterly despised McCain because of McCain/Feingold. Then, he was nominated and I detested him even more. Then, a breath of fresh air came along named Sarah Palin! I went to 2 of her rallies and waited for hours with thousands of others with no complaints. McCain/Palin lost and I was devestated. Until just about 2 days ago.

My dislike for McCain is stronger now than ever. Throwing Palin under the bus is part of it. The other part is, I’ll never forget how he started “naming names” in Ohio after the “I’m angry” guy spoke up. McCain named Frank and Schumer and said he “will start naming names”. He didn’t name them ever again. He has/had as much to hide as BO. He’s almost as much of a liar.

[SmokingJoe]

“In other words the GOP should become Democrat Lite.”

Yup.
Unbelievable!
And this is from a conservative site, Townhall?
Sounds like this article from the Comrade Hussein propaganda depetment at Salon doesn't it?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2129905/posts

[iopscusa]

Another Chris Buckley Conservative, bleh...just go away tool.

[Lilpug15]

I’ve been wanting to say this for a while - this is how I feel about Sarah Palin and the republican ticket.

The fact of the matter is that she will always have critics because she doesn’t fit the mold of what some elitists and others consider (intelligent and in the Washington KNOW) She has an accent - something that New Englanders abhor - even though I think the New York New Jersey accent is not all that pleasing to the ear, she can lock and load, she is religious and she is a mother of FIVE children - ONE child is bad enough for some of these feminists. I think it’s great that she continues to fight and continues to try and just be herself and eventually I’m hoping that it will win over some people. I guess I would never consider myself super conservative by any means - but that doesn’t stop me from voting for someone who is. I vote because, I too, do believe in a God, and I vote for the person that I think best represents the country (the heart and soul of this country). She has never forced her views on anyone else, so I don’t understand why people are so afraid of her. It is heart, character and integrity that I value most when electing somebody. If they believe in actually representing the people and aren’t egomaniacs, hell bent on their own agenda and not the will of God or the people then they just hurt this country even more. For once in my life I finally felt like there was a truly caring candidate that represented what America was all about in the first place...

[libbylu]

this dude is full of something.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Who to F are these jerks. Have heard of PM but never checked them out and now I know I WON'T

Pajamas Media. Brainchild of several non-conservative-except-on-the-War bloggers such as Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs. Basically moderate/liberal media-friendly Coastal types who have a disdain for the little people in flyover country, and who blame us for keeping the GOP from appealing to all of their moderate/liberal Coastal type friends at the cocktail parties. Sorta like Politico, you might say.