CNS News brings a story that'll definitely get the Republican base fired up for John McCain...wait, that story didn't happen. Here's one that did, though.
CNS News reports McCain is living in Al Gore's global warming fantasy land:
Republican John McCain, reaching out to both independents and green-minded social conservatives, argues that global warming is undeniable and the country must take steps to bring it under control while adhering to free-market principles.
Gee, Senator McCain, that'll get the conservative and other pro-business interests in the Republican Party stirred up...in the wrong direction.
And while Bush wasn't exact Mr. Conservative, apparently even George W. Bush was too conservative for McCain:
He also took a swipe at President Bush, who balked at the beginning of its term at signing the Kyoto global warming protocols. McCain said he would return to the negotiating table.
"I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. The United States will lead and will lead with a different approach -- an approach that speaks to the interests and obligations of every nation," he said.
One of the ironies of Kyoto is that we're doing better to keep things clean than the European countries who did sign it.
Kyoto, giving a pass to the worst polluting countries in the world, is nothing but a cheap attempt to hamstring the Western nations. And all for Al Gore's pseudo-science-based fantasy that our SUVs and power plants are heating up the planet.
This is going to be a, ah, unique election in 2008, to be sure.
John McCain has campaign circumstances that many would envy, yet he seems determined to make the least of them.
His competitor Barack Obama is a relatively inexperienced candidate with a lot of unsavory baggage. The Democrat Party has been through an intense war just to decide their nominee, and many diehard Hillary-supporting Democrats are considering not voting or going over to the other side with Obama's victory.
Yet McCain seems intent on alienating his base. Many of us find it hard enough just to hold our nose and vote for the guy, much less contribute money and time and energy to the campaign.
I'd really like to be able to say a good word about my party's nominee, but McCain is making that a tough row to hoe. In fact, he's making it hard to even keep my mouth shut.
Apparently McCain is more interested in appealing to Democrats than he is to his own party's base. Maybe he thinks he can get enough Democrats to cross the aisle and vote for him so that it won't matter if he alienates conservatives.
The kicker is, when Democrats are presented with a choice between a pandering imitation Democrat and a true-blue Democrat, they'll choose the true-blue almost every time.
2 comments:
There's another way to look at this, Bob.
It looks like it's going to be a tough year for Republicans. The Republican brand is hurting right now. A lot of people seem fed up with the way Republicans have been handling the governement over the last 8 years and want a change. There's been several polls showing the public would support a general Democrat over a general Republican by a wide margin. And I've read several articles recently that young evengelicals are siding with Democrats on issues like the economy and the enviroment even though they disagree with them on issues like abortion. And though it seems the Democrats are tearing each other apart, just look at the turn out they've been getting in these primaries. There's just a lot going against the Republican Party this year.
That's why I'm surprised more Republicans aren't happy with John McCain. You guys stumbled onto the one Republican who could possibly let you keep the White House this year. McCain is known for going against his party if he believes they're wrong. That's something that has won him a lot of support with moderates and independents. Gosh, Bob, I'm a liberal independent and I would've happily voted for McCain if I didn't like the Dem nominee. If it would've been McCain vs. crazy Mike Gravel, I would've voted McCain. I disagree with him on things, but I generally like the guy.
I remember you champoining Duncan Hunter because he most closely matched your conservative beliefs. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think he could win in this political environment. So I truely think Republicans lucked out by getting McCain.
The one problem I see McCain causing for your party is that he doesn't excite the base enough to raise as much money as he'll need to win. That could be trouble.
Your last paragraph, Haggs, hits on the McCain problem: he's too liberal to excite the base.
If power were the ultimate goal, then yes, McCain would look like a pretty good choice. But power isn't the goal for conservatives--conservative policies are the goal. If your party's guy won't advance your party's ideology, then he's useless to someone who cares about the ideas. All the folks on the Right who ignored a solid conservative like Hunter and went for "the one who can win" ignored the idea-people...and it's awful hard to win on a power-over-principle ticket when you're poking the idea-people in the eye.
And to elaborate a little bit and partially agree with something else you said, a lot of people are definitely fed up with "the Republican brand right now." The thing is, it's more than Dems and independents that are fed up with it.
Conservatives are fed up with the Republican brand because it hasn't represented the core conservative values of the Republican party for many years. Unfortunately, McCain isn't going to fix any of that.
As I've said many times before, liberals aren't going to pick a pale imitation over the genuine article, so he's not going to pick up more than a few disgruntled souls from the Left, and he's going to run off even more from the Right...so the "brand" is going to continue to blow chunks.
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