I hope you don't mind me using your graphic, Old Sarge.
Posted on 02/10/2008 8:53:14 AM PST by K-oneTexas
There's Nothing Conservative or Principled About Helping a Democrat Beat John McCain By John Hawkins
I keep hearing conservatives say that if John McCain is the nominee--and barring a miracle at this point, he will be--that they're going to sit out the election or even vote for the Democratic nominee because of "conservative principles."
As one conservative--and not as a "John McCain conservative," but as a "I supported Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson, oppose amnesty and abortion, fought to get Samuel Alito instead of Harriet Miers, believe in small government, term limits, tax cuts, and balancing the budget" conservative--to another, let me tell you that I very respectfully, but also very strongly disagree with that definition of "conservative principles."
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 vs. 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 that winning in Iraq is better than losing, if you believe that 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.
Some might argue that having Hillary Clinton in office would be better for the country and conservatism because she would screw things up so badly that it would actually help conservatives in the long run. But, if people haven't seen through Hillary Clinton after 16 years in the public eye, what makes you think another four to eight years in the White House would do it? How many Americans saw through FDR? Even as his government policies extended the depression for years after it should have ended, he was voted back into office. Yes, he was a capable war president, but he also did more damage to this country domestically than any other president in history, short-term and long-term, and he's still considered by many people to be one of our greatest presidents.
But, we don't have to go all the way back to Roosevelt: just think back to 2006. What did we hear then? "We should stay home and teach the Republicans a lesson. They'll take a big beating and it'll be great for conservatism." How did that turn out? From where I am sitting, we have a lot less Republicans in Congress, more squabbling than ever, and we're going to have Republican nominee John McCain. Why? Because sometimes a loss leads to better things, but in politics, as often as not, losing just begets more losing and it can sometimes take a very, very long time for a movement to learn from its mistakes. Think back to Roosevelt, whose victories started a 40 year-long dominant cycle for the Democrats and that party's shift to the left in 1972 that started a long slow slide for them that may have finally ended in 2006.
Along those same lines, it's also worth noting that after Barry Goldwater was destroyed in 1964, Richard Nixon, who was even less conservative than McCain, was elected to two terms in the White House. Then, in 1980, Reagan became president. So, there is absolutely no reason to think that if a moderate Republican gets into the White House that it will prevent a conservative Republican from getting in later. And since I mentioned Reagan, I have heard his name invoked many times in the past few weeks to justify not supporting McCain in the general election.
If Ronald Reagan had been alive and had chosen to endorse a candidate in the primaries, even McCain fans should be honest enough to admit that candidate probably wouldn't have been John McCain. But, McCain's most ardent opponents should also be honest enough to note that Ronald Reagan campaigned for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, both of whom were to the left of John McCain. So, were he still alive, Ronald Reagan would almost certainly campaign for McCain against Hillary or Barack and you can be sure that he would not approve of conservatives who say that they'd rather have a liberal Democrat in the White House than a far-from-perfect Republican.
So, whether the question is "What would Reagan do" or "what would a principled conservative do" in November, the answer would be the same: vote for John McCain.
John Hawkins is a blogger who runs Right Wing News and Conservative Grapevine, and writes a regular column for http://Townhall.com.
It does. It starts with you pulling the brake in your car (local) and getting others to do the same in their cars. Next thing you know the train is slowing down and we can start looking for ways to switch tracks.
Huh? I'm not at all sure how that's supposed to be a response to my previous comment, but thanks for your attempt at literacy.
The role of homeland security.
Hold on. Are people here really jamming McCain down your throat? McCain has almost won the GOP nomination but it is without much support from FReepers. This thread is discussing whether to support him over Ho-bama in the general election.
Isn't that what occurred in regards to McCain's position regarding the border fence? That said, it's disheartening that it took that much effort. McCain was veritably snowed under with a blizzard of emails, phone calls, letters, "pundits" tearing into him, etc. Finally, he "got the message."
At least he did "get it", finally...
Did Jorge?
The primary system was not created by FReepers.
Have conservatives been ignored rather than defeated?
How have you been disenfranchised? Weren't you allowed participation equal to that of any other individual?
How is it a "sham"?
You’re making a fair point on this thread. There isn’t some grand conspiracy at work here, although the order of primaries combined with an open primary structure almost guaranteed this result. But people’s motivation shouldn’t be to strike back against some unseen force; it should be to decide whether they can in good conscience vote for a man like McCain.
It is not about votes, it is about delegates. McCain has a solid majority of those.
In the past, I agreed with your position but I can’t blame any Republican who does not vote for McCain this November because McCain can’t win. Even if some of the base turns out to vote for him, it won’t be enough to propel him into the White House because no matter what arguments you put forward, many conservatives will not vote for him, period. Moreover, McCain will lose the support of many of the moderates and independents who voted for him in the primaries. They are going to flock to Obama or Clinton.
When McCain loses this November, don’t blame the conservatives. Blame the Republican Party, which allowed the primary race to be decided 9 months before the general election and before many of us even had a chance to vote in the primaries. I’m not going to lose any sleep if he loses. He doesn’t deserve to be president.
” Maybe what really happened is that your first choice simply lost and you just don’t much like the guy who won? Aren’t there always people who wind up in this situation? ...Just because it happened to you this time, that’s not evidence that somebody did something unfair to you.”
Exactly, so when that happens to the RepublicanParty in November...it will also be totally fair since nobody owes a vote to the GOP either.
My Friends!! This a very difficult time for Conservatives and our great country. We will have open borders and de facto Socialism in the near future. We must hope to regain our footing with Conservative leaders.
My friends.. lets try to hold fast to our ideals that made and shall once again make us the greatest country that ever was. We must stand fast and steady and we shall return this country to the greatness it wore after this assault of Socialism. Stand fast and hold your nose for four or six years.
I agree with you. Hillary and Obama have ACU ratings of 12 and 8. Thats not even close to McCain’s 82.
“You forgot the war on terror and Iraq/Afghanistan.”
Both mclame and hill voted yes to the Iraq War as well as the surge.
“And repealing Bush’s tax cuts.”
Both hill and mclame wanted to repeal
“And not giving us national health care.”....
Correct, mclame did not want JUST national healthcare, but INTERNATIONAL HEALTHCARE
“Unbelievable as it may seem, the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005 contained a provision giving insurance companies the right to help devise a plan for extending US health care to Mexico (Sec. 1004. BINATIONAL PUBLIC HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE AND HEALTH INSURANCE).”
http://opensourceactivist.org/content/legislation/S1033/text.php#sec1004
That is the mclamers argument about “no differences” between mclame and hill?
No thanks, I’ll focus on the House and Senate and give my presidental vote to a 3rd party.
I agree. I do remember those bad election years in the 90’s and I am not repeating it.
Deserves a repeat.
If we need to change the primary process then let's work to get that done. But the process did not suddenly go bad on us. We just got a singularly bad result from a process that in the past has given us better results.
I am not a supporter of McCain, I am a conservative.
However I am extremely anti democrat, I will vote for micky mouse before I will do anything that helps the democrat party to win again.
Beginning in local school boards, planning commisions, city councils, county gov., on up through State level gov., to Federal level, is very much the way to pull the e-brake. On that I whole heartedly agree.
It's just that right now, we've got to get over that high bridge first...
Would it be more do-able, to build up conservaticve values in these lower (but arguably just as important, if not more important) levels of government under a Clinton machine (with children making the decisions) or the Obama dreamer, than it would the only apparent real adult?
I mean, this thread did originate as a discussion of the currently upcoming U.S. presidential election, didn't it?
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