Naw, there were a lot of FReepers who called him a Manchurian Candidate and Michael Savage called him a Manchurian Candidate. The only people who actually believed that McCain was a real candidate were the country club republicans.
We had no real choice! We had Romneycare, Rudy, Ron Paul, and Huckabee!!! I will sadly admit that I voted for Romney in the IL Primary because I believed that he (and I still do) had the best chance of beating Obama.
I KNEW how dangerous Obama was. I met him in 2005 at a GWB event. Everyone was talking to Blago, no one was by Obama so I got about 10 minutes of one on one time with him. Got his autograph. I was honest and told him I did not vote for him for Senate, he said "That's fine, my job is to convince you that I am the right guy for the job." <--- marxist propaganda.
Remember folks we had a good candidate named Jack Ryan (husband of Jeri Ryan the actress). He won the primary and then suddenly a bunch of sex files were released on him so the repubs tossed him out. Then they got a carpetbagger named Alan Keyes. I respect Alan Keyes but he had no business running in our Senate Election, if I said otherwise I'd be a hypocrite because I said Hillary had no business running in New York.
There were plenty of people we could have replaced Jack Ryan with but they chose a carpetbagger from Maryland who had zero name recognition in Illinois. Hell, even ex-Governor Jim Edgar could have easily beaten Obama!!!
But no, the repubs put in Alan Keyes and Obama won with over 70% of the vote!!! I know there are a few Keyes worshipers on this website, but he gave us Obama. And you want to know what I told Obama? "I didn't vote for your opponent either, I voted for Mike Ditka."
After my meeting with Obama I called my mom who is now deceased and told her that I met the next President... This was August 2005.
The Republicans didn’t “put” Keyes in that race. Nobody else wanted to run.
And it certainly isn’t Alan Keyes’ fault that Jack Ryan liked watching other men have sex with his wife. That’s what gave us Obama.
Keyes was set up to lose, pick a guy from out of state with a “hard right” reputation, don’t support him, and then watch him lose huge. (69.97% to 27.05%)
Then claim this as proof that “a conservative can’t win”. Keyes should have been smart enough to refuse their invitation to run but he wasn’t.
I voted for Romney too. It was before I learned out how hard he sucked.
But like you say there were no choices. Fred Thompson was the only decent candidate on the ballot, and he’d already dropped out of the race.