There's Nothing Conservative Or Principled About Helping A Democrat Beat John McCain In November

TownHall.com ^ | February 8, 2008 | John Hawkins

[84rules]

There is NOTHING conservative about working with the Democratic nominee against most of your fellow conservatives in order to grow government, socialize medicine, lose the war in Iraq, tilt the Supreme Court to the Left, and make Roe v. Wade the permanent law of the land. If you are conservative and vote for the Democratic nominee or even just refuse to vote for McCain, who is by any and every objective standard, considerably more conservative than either of them, let me tell you what you are NOT doing,

* You are NOT doing the logical thing. When faced with a choice between a moderate who holds some conservative positions and some non-conservative positions and a liberal who holds no conservative positions, the logical decision is to take the moderate. After all, half a loaf is better than none.

* You are NOT helping conservatism or your fellow conservatives. To the contrary, you are helping liberals defeat conservative ideas. Isn't that what conservatives are saying that they're furious at McCain over? Well, who's less of a conservative: John McCain, who, if he were in the White House, would help conservatives win some battles and would help liberals win others or the conservatives who want to help a Democrat get into the office who will go against conservative ideas every time?

* You are NOT looking out for the best interests of the country. If you believe winning in Iraq is better than losing, if you believe balancing the budget is better than higher deficit spending, if you believe that having a Supreme Court that is tilted to the right is better than having a Supreme Court tilted to the left, and if you believe that Roe v. Wade is leading to the immoral murder of millions of children -- and the overwhelming majority of people reading this column certainly believe all those things -- then you are certainly not putting the good of the country first if you oppose John McCain in November.

[SoldierDad]

Time will tell.

[Sloth]

I’m sick of being lectured to like a child by party hacks who will apparently toss the U.S. Constitution in the trash at the drop of a hat.

YOU feel free to go vote for those who would destroy this nation (whatever letters they have next to their names). I am ashamed of having been manipulated into voting for Bush; I have to live with that for the rest of my life. Never again!

[AnnGora]

“Here, however, it does NOT make sense because damage in only 4 years, by a HillObama with a Dem Congress, to the courts (judges) and foreign/military policy of this country may be irreparable, or take 40+ years (SCOTUS justices’ tenure) to correct.”

This does not seem to matter to a lot of people here. Their feelings matter much more than the future of this country.

[Politicalmom]

I’m about ready to drive to VA (or TN) and shake him silly. :)

Actually, if he got one look at my 12 year old daughter’s eyes pooled with tears, he’d probably get back in. She is STILL really upset.

[rightinthemiddle]

I’ll help.

I host the Hannity thread. You’re welcome to come by. Nice people there, almost all FredHeads.

[AnnGora]

“No one backing McCain has the authority to tell me what “is” or “is not” conservative”

Neither does anyone backing a socialist Democrat like Hillary or Obama.

[Yaelle]

What you are saying makes sense. With a gun to my head to vote today, I’d have to vote crazy RINO over Hill or Obama.

However, it’s too soon. Emotions are too high. So many of us well-read, principled conservatives fought with all we had to try and help the more conservative candidates win, and now we are nursing our wounds. It really hurts. We DID NOT WANT McCain.

Now we’ve got him and we don’t need to rush to his side that fast. We’ve got many months to sit back and watch. I don’t think anyone here wants Obama or Clinton in the Oval Office. Just give us a little more time.

[RBurke]

With a gun to my head to vote today"

Wrestle that gun away and do what YOU think is right. You have to live with it in the end.

[workerbee]

There’s an argument (that certainly has merit worth considering!) that the time is not now to make that choice, not when Hillary is the alternative. On the other side of the coin, it’s NEVER going to be the “perfect time” to allow the Democrat an easy victory.

It’s also worth noting that we conservatives can go ahead and compromise one more time, put one more rubber stamp on the liberalization of the GOP, and with McCain as the candidate, we’ll probably lose the election anyway.

I have not yet decided what I’ll do, but neither the author of the article nor anyone on this board has one bit of right to question the motives and patriotism of conservatives who refuse to support the insidious incrementalism that is in play here. Not one bit.

*STANDING OVATION*

You express my sentiments very well, MM.

It's ugly here already, very ugly. I don't know if I've seen such civil war on FR as I have these last few days.

[The Toll]

You think their backers are different people? I don’t.

[Norman Bates]

The McCain List.
Common sense conservatism

[niteowl77]

The dems only opposed the war because of their hatred of bush and will probably escalate it if they get in office.

Yes, that’s what I said, they’ll probably escalate it once in office.

It is very possible. The people at the top of the 'rat food chain really have no qualms about projecting power when they have charge of the sword. That's not saying they do well with it, but they can/do use it.

Mr. niteowl77

[RacerX1128]

Voted for Romney in CA primary. That’s where the party argues and fights for their candidate and the people vote, remember?

Romney lost, McCain won. And I am not an insane person so I, along with my wife who just “earned” her US Citizenship, will vote for McCain in November unless he is not the nominee for some reason.

[Steve Schulin]

I respectfully disagree with your comment “the core problem this year, none of the candidates deserve the office, none of them will protect America, none of them can be proudly voted for.” Alan Keyes is a candidate for the GOP nomination and the convention is still a long way off. If informed folks talk to those they encounter during the course of the day, Keyes could yet win the nomination. All this talk about McCain having won already is akin to the recent inevitability displayed in Super Bowl office pools around the nation. I hope you’ll check out http://www.alankeyes.com and consider voting for him.

[pnh102]

he [McCain] will not retreat from the War on Terror.

He wants to shut down Club Gitmo and grant the detainees there civil rights.

If that's not a sign of retreat, I don't know what is? If most of McCain's backing comes from the anti-USA left, then he is more beholden to them to lose the war than he would be to conservatives to win the war.

[org.whodat]

but it won't change the current state of things.

It will not change the fact that I will never vote for Mclame either. Actually all these vote for mclame, are I'm going to have a melt down, tells everyone how bad scared the republican party is, and how bad they are going to get beat.

[Argus]

I don’t have to agree with everything a politician has done for whatever reasons in order to vote for the guy as the lesser of two evils. Personally, I’ve always voted defensively. The first President Bush was a country club liberal but he was better than Dukakis or Clinton. Bob Dole was no great conservative but better than Clinton. I had no use for George W. Bush’s bloating of the federal budget to please Ted Kennedy and a bunch of the other stuff he did and proposed. But he was better than Gore or Kerry. I voted for all of them without great enthusiasm and, in some cases, no hope at all. But they were better than the available alternative. So’s McCain.

[Polybius]

This FReepMail to me said it well:

***

"We are in a war. Obama supports defeat and retreat in Iraq. To provide any support for him for any reason, while it may not legally be treason, constructively it is.

Should Obama get a compliant Democrat Congress and Senate, the damage done to this country and to liberty as we have known it,would be incalculable. He is the most dangerous presidential candidate since Henry Wallace."

***

The climate on FR is not very receptive to those ideas right now which is probably why that FReeper sent his thoughts by FReepMail instead of posting them to the Forim.

Maybe we just need to let our fellow FReepers vent and, after the rage has dissapateed, we can discuss things in a logical manner.

We CANNOT afford to lose the War in Iraq and the Persian Gulf with 70% of the World's known oil reserves to Iranian Islamist nutjobs seeking nuclear weapons and the ICBM's to deliver them to U.S. soil.

[READINABLUESTATE]

Sorry, No vote for John “Traitor to the Conservative Cause” McAmnesty!

IMHO: If you are not with us, then you are against us. Go ahead stay home but don’t bitch when things go badly. If you can’t vote FOR McCain, then vote AGAINST Clinton/Obama. Thank you for your support. :)

[donna]

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may
cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
— John Quincy Adams —