Posted on 12/02/2007 2:38:58 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
If the Republican Party really wanted to hold on to the White House in 2009, it's pretty clear what it would do. It would grit its teeth, swallow its doubts and nominate a ticket of John McCain for president and Mike Huckabee for vice president and president-in-waiting.
Those two are far from front-runners. They trail Mitt Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire and lag behind Rudy Giuliani in national surveys of Republican voters. But, in a series of debates, including last week's CNN/YouTube extravaganza. McCain and Huckabee have been notable for their clarity, character and, yes, simple humanity.
From everything I have heard on the campaign trail, it's obvious that they are the pair who have earned the widest respect among the eight Republican candidates themselves. McCain is the eldest and the most honored, not only for what he endured as a Vietnam prisoner of war but as a principled battler for what he considers essential on Iraq and other national-security issues.
Huckabee, who previously was known only to those of us who cover state government and governors, has been the surprise discovery of the campaign season. His combination of religious principle, good humor, tolerance and his clear passion on education and health care complements McCain's muscular foreign policy and aversion to wasteful domestic spending.
The two of them seem often to be operating on a different and higher plane than the quarrelsome Giuliani and Romney, whose mutual contempt is as palpable as it is persuasive.
Fred Thompson appears perpetually grumpy a presence hard to imagine inhabiting the Oval Office.(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Another ticket sure to lose. no liberal could fail to be delighted by the prospect.
Fred!
Zap?
gack, what a horrible thought. McCain/Huckabee. no thank you
Way to go Davey, I see you've been talking to Howard Dean again. Nothing like a McCain v Hillary matchup to ensure that no matter who wins amnesty for millions of new democratic voters will be at the top of the agenda for another four years.
Hillary was BOOOOOed yesterday at one of her own rallies, when she said she was for "a path to citizenship" for illegals.
The 'Rats and the MSM are in a sweat. They have to promote one of the open borders RINOs to run against their 'Rat, in order to nullify this issue.
Yeah. Those were bad. And funny. The guy that published them retired someplace in Hollywood Hills. He used to hang around with John Mayall in Laural Canyon.
“Those two are far from front-runners. They trail Mitt Romney in Iowa”
This is old news now. Huckabee leads Iowa as of today - December 2.
Broder is a senile old fool.
Its gotta be the crack.
The following quote is the best comment Ive seen on McCains run. It pretty well sums up the situation as I see it.
John McCain, you treasonous bastard, . . . How dare you even think that you are qualified to sit in the oval office! Ronald Reagan’s office! President? Hah! You miserable excuse for a two-bit political hack, you’re not even qualified to shine Ronald Reagan’s boots. If you do run, I’m afraid you’re gonna be at least one vote short. It’ll be a cold day in hell before a traitor like you ever receives my vote. And that’s a campaign promise you can take to the bank.
Comments from John’s mom should be taken with a grain of salt ;’}
It would not be smart to dismiss Broder as someone who was unaware, he is not, he does observe, but clearly he misreads what he sees. Consider for example his recounting of the debate and the exchange between Romney and Huckabee over the immigration issue. Huckabee defended appropriating taxpayer money to place illegal aliens in Arkansas universities thus displacing places which otherwise would've been occupied by legal taxpaying Arkansans. Huckabee's defense as quoted by Broder:
"In all due respect, we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did. We're a better country than that."
Romney's retort was absolutely brilliant: it's not your money governor, it's theirs.
Romney, perhaps wisely, did not take another line which was available: in our country we do not reward children because their parents have committed crimes. A crime does not lay the predicate for a new right.
Of course, there was yet another line of argument which Romney could have invoked and which he did allude to: the state treasury is a finite resource and when you divert the money to illegal aliens, you deny it to legal citizens. Romney said that but he might also have broadened its application to observe that Huckabee's formula punishes Americans. It is not compassionate, therefore, but discriminatory.
And it is here that Broder misses the whole point. Broder does not see the damage done by misplaced compassion. A typical liberal, he never anticipates the unintended consequences which inevitably blowback from liberals' unquenchable thirst to shape the world to their liking. Are you high minded? Do you want to see all children well educated and prosper in our society? Of course you do, therefore subsidize all their education with taxpayer funds. Do not consider that the funds are finite, and that you are depriving other children of those opportunities. Forget that these children you would subsidize will shove aside bona fide Americans. You ignore the basic rule of human nature which says that if you subsidize these illegal aliens in our midst you will simply generate more of them and do more harm to more Americans. Your compassion is so misplaced that it is positively harmful.
Why does Broder, the so-called dean of American reporters with nearly half a century to his credit on the campaign trail, persist in this folly?
If one accepts that liberalism is essentially an exercise in hubris, that is the imposition upon humanity of your ideas about how to run things through the force of government, then one accepts that liberalism is ad hoc. It's only standard for judging what is good from evil is one's take on the matter, one' s feelings about a new idea. But that's the whole idea of liberalism: to provide the liberal with a platform upon which to play God.
You see this repeatedly in the Broder column. He judges the candidates by their intentions. Indeed, he concludes his column and applauds Huckabee's wish to be, "a better country than that" with his own lofty and well-intentioned echo:
I think we are that better country. And I hope the Republicans agree.
So the Broders of of this world are always looking for the new idea and the new face to present the idea. They loved Franklin Roosevelt who gave them a new deal, John Kennedy who gave them a new frontier and Lyndon Johnson who gave them a great society. And that is why in their very secret yearning, liberal, bursting with compassion, hearts, the Broder's of the world really want Barak Obama. It would just feel so right to have a man of color in the Oval Office. It would be so new.
It seems that liberals have something in common with homosexual fashion designers, both worship the new, both profit from the new, both seek to impose their ideas on society. But liberals can do even more harm to society than homosexuals who at worst normally can only make women look ridiculous.
So when David Broder judges men on their intentions and their compassion, he inevitably misjudges how conservatives see the world. We want real world feedback. Liberals want to feel good and to do good, no matter what the cost to others. So Broder condemns Romney for the smallness of his vision of America-he would deprive aliens of scholarships merely because they are not citizens. Conservatives say that Huckabee would deprive American students of scholarships and flood our universities with new waves of illegals.
If David Broder stays on the campaign trail for another 50 years, he will never get it straight because his problem is not a matter of geography but of discernment.
LMAO
Good one!
Actually, Broder has a history of spending a lot of time on the hustings on the campaign trail covering various candidates for many decades. He is practically a citizen of Iowa. Yet you are right, he doesn't have a clue about how the conservative mind works and that I find to be the interesting aspect of his column.
It would not be smart to dismiss Broder as someone who was unaware, he is not, he does observe, but clearly he misreads what he sees. Consider for example his recounting of the debate and the exchange between Romney and Huckabee over the immigration issue. Huckabee defended appropriating taxpayer money to place illegal aliens in Arkansas universities thus displacing places which otherwise would've been occupied by legal taxpaying Arkansans. Huckabee's defense as quoted by Broder:
"In all due respect, we're a better country than to punish children for what their parents did. We're a better country than that."
Romney's retort was absolutely brilliant: it's not your money governor, it's theirs.
Romney, perhaps wisely, did not take another line which was available: in our country we do not reward children because their parents have committed crimes. A crime does not lay the predicate for a new right.
Of course, there was yet another line of argument which Romney could have invoked and which he did allude to: the state treasury is a finite resource and when you divert the money to illegal aliens, you deny it to legal citizens. Romney said that but he might also have broadened its application to observe that Huckabee's formula punishes Americans. It is not compassionate, therefore, but discriminatory.
And it is here that Broder misses the whole point. Broder does not see the damage done by misplaced compassion. A typical liberal, he never anticipates the unintended consequences which inevitably blowback from liberals' unquenchable thirst to shape the world to their liking. Are you high minded? Do you want to see all children well educated and prosper in our society? Of course you do, therefore subsidize all their education with taxpayer funds. Do not consider that the funds are finite, and that you are depriving other children of those opportunities. Forget that these children you would subsidize will shove aside bona fide Americans. You ignore the basic rule of human nature which says that if you subsidize these illegal aliens in our midst you will simply generate more of them and do more harm to more Americans. Your compassion is so misplaced that it is positively harmful.
Why does Broder, the so-called dean of American reporters with nearly half a century to his credit on the campaign trail, persist in this folly?
If one accepts that liberalism is essentially an exercise in hubris, that is the imposition upon humanity of your ideas about how to run things through the force of government, then one accepts that liberalism is ad hoc. It's only standard for judging what is good from evil is one's take on the matter, one' s feelings about a new idea. But that's the whole idea of liberalism: to provide the liberal with a platform upon which to play God.
You see this repeatedly in the Broder column. He judges the candidates by their intentions. Indeed, he concludes his column and applauds Huckabee's wish to be, "a better country than that" with his own lofty and well-intentioned echo:
I think we are that better country. And I hope the Republicans agree.
So the Broders of of this world are always looking for the new idea and the new face to present the idea. They loved Franklin Roosevelt who gave them a new deal, John Kennedy who gave them a new frontier and Lyndon Johnson who gave them a great society. And that is why in their very secret yearning, liberal, bursting with compassion, hearts, the Broder's of the world really want Barak Obama. It would just feel so right to have a man of color in the Oval Office. It would be so new.
It seems that liberals have something in common with homosexual fashion designers, both worship the new, both profit from the new, both seek to impose their ideas on society. But liberals can do even more harm to society than homosexuals who at worst normally can only make women look ridiculous.
So when David Broder judges men on their intentions and their compassion, he inevitably misjudges how conservatives see the world. We want real world feedback. Liberals want to feel good and to do good, no matter what the cost to others. So Broder condemns Romney for the smallness of his vision of America-he would deprive aliens of scholarships merely because they are not citizens. Conservatives say that Huckabee would deprive American students of scholarships and flood our universities with new waves of illegals.
If David Broder stays on the campaign trail for another 50 years, he will never get it straight because his problem is not a matter of geography but of discernment.
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Thank you very much for that.
Broder also thinks that Mary McGrory was among the finest examples of American womanhood that ever lived.
Poor old things needs to be mercifully put down.
So the important message in this article is that Both McCain and Huckabee should be pressured to step out of the race.
Great post, exceptional analysis.
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