Mary’s (Matalin) Message to the Right
Social conservatives shouldn’t play into McCain’s hand.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWRlMjkwY2FiOTM5OWIxYjE5N2E5NjU4MzAwMzkyNjc=#more
Conservatives are in a jam of their own making in allowing liberal Republican John McCain to become the party’s frontrunner — and it’s up to them to fix it. That’s the view of Mary Matalin, Republican insider, strategist, and former Fred Thompson supporter.
There’s still a chance for conservatives to rally and make Mitt Romney the GOP nominee — but time is running out.
In an interview with National Review Online, Matalin pulled no punches, arguing that, on Super Tuesday, “A vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain.”
Matalin admits that Romney still faces an uphill battle against McCain for the Republican nomination. But his primary obstacle is the sinking Mike Huckabee, whose presence in the race Matalin finds questionable.
“Rich Lowry has said that Huckabee has a man crush on McCain,” Matalin said. “If Huckabee got out, Romney could win Georgia, Missouri, and probably Tennessee and Alabama. He could pick up a chunk of California, and then it would be a delegate race.”
Huckabee clearly can’t win, so why is he in the race?
“Whether it’s a man crush or the promise of a job — I don’t know what his motive is, but it seems to me that it could be less than pure.”
When asked whether conservative antipathy toward McCain is justified, given that most of his record falls within the GOP mainstream, Matalin explained why she thinks McCain is bad for economic and social conservatives.
“I don’t think he rests comfortably anywhere that conservatives would call home today. If it was true yesterday, it’s not true for tomorrow’s issues. The ones that he has chosen to take a lead on are the ones that conservatives either don’t prioritize or flat-out loathe,” she said.
“We are for tax reform, for aggressive immigration reform, for a traditional reading of the Geneva convention. We’re not for terrorist rights, we’re not against corporations, and we don’t believe that man is melting the earth.”
The prospect of McCain as the Republican nominee highlights a major missed opportunity for conservatives this season, lamented Matalin — who had been supporting Fred Thompson’s ill-fated candidacy.
“You reap what you sow. We like to applaud ourselves as the party of ideas and principle, but we turn out to be the party of performance art.
All we did was gripe about Fred’s performance skills as opposed to his principles and policies — and . . . here we are,” Matalin said. “We let the perfect — as defined by performance — be the enemy of the great.”
Fred Thompson would have been “a great candidate, a great standard bearer for conservatism, and a great president,” Matalin said, and his candidacy’s failure could mean that “we’re going to have to burn down the village.”
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CLICK on “Stream” for the 2/4/08 Mark Levin Show and Mark
and Rush discussing Bob Dole’s letter to Rush:
http://marklevinshow.com/audio.php
His whole rant about McCain is fabulous (Huckabee gets it, too), but when you move the button up to 19:43, you’ll hear Rush call him about the Dole note.
Wait, that can’t be right! Matalin is just a party insider who pushed Thompson as a stalking horse for McCain, right? Right?!
Wow, Mary couldn’t not have been more spot on with that. And, those who thought Fred would endorse McCain may have just had their butts handed to them.
BTTT for FDT:)
I’m pleasantly surprised by Matalin- honestly- I figured she’d go with the political expediency strategy and go for McCain...