John McCain & the GOP: A Match Made in Heaven?
Ever get the heebie-jeebies from one of those eHarmony commercials on TV? I recently got deja vu from one, just as Campaign 2008 is poised to actually move into 2008.
A man and a woman are lackadaisically standing in front of a camera, arms around each other like limp noodles. The guy proclaims that, with eHarmony’s “29 dimensions of compatibility” matching system, he found a woman who has everything he was looking for: “Pretty … a great smile…,” he trails off as the bouncy music tries to convince us that they’re desperately in love as they dance like fumbling eighth-graders.
It’s like the courtship of low expectations that’s become a hallmark of Campaign 2008.
What’s missing is the passion, the oomph, the can’t-live-without-you factor. The poll swings have shown that each romance with a fresh new face fizzles quickly at best, and can spell a fiery death for the GOP at worst. Candidates try to convince us they’re a perfect fit on their eHarmony-esqe dimensions of conservative street cred, true compatibility that apparently can best be determined by checking off boxes.
And it’s not just the Republican Party: Oprah Winfrey has been like the political version of Dr. Neil Clark Warren, telling the faithful that Barack Obama is the man they’ve been waiting for all their lives. Without, of course, giving anybody good, policy-based, hard-and-fast reasons why the president of her dreams should be the president in America’s current perilous reality. You just apparently have to trust her matching system and you’ll live happily ever after.
Has primary season become like an unsavory, yearlong wade in the dating pool? It’s not as witty or Manolo-rich as an episode of “Sex and the City.” It’s not like the John Hughes films where the teen stars have their hearts unequivocally set on a beloved, hell or high water.
It’s actually more like being wooed by good-on-paper guys who turn out to be so annoying that you excuse yourself to the restaurant’s ladies room during dinner, then try to escape out the window. Along those lines, Ron Paul is like the suitor who keeps bugging you no matter how often you say “sorry, not interested” — and then employs his creepy friends to relentlessly spam you with the hot scoop on what a catch he is.
And not all of these candidates are even making it to first base by being presidential on paper, but cruising by on perfect hair and a sharp suit. When the Des Moines Register’s Republican debate concluded with a Fox News audience panel picking Mitt Romney as the victor because he “looked presidential,” it was like picking a mate based on whether he looks like husband material (followed by putting the divorce lawyer on speed dial).
It’s gotten to the point where a newspaper has published an anti-endorsement, the equivalent of not being quite sure what you want in a mate, but firmly knowing what you don’t want. The Concord Monitor lashed out at Mitt Romney in its Sunday editorial, calling him “a disquieting figure who sure looks like the next president and most surely must be stopped.” (This wording suggesting that there’s a fine editorial line between presidential candidate and serial killer.)
I admit, I had some early Huckalove in this campaign. I thought the former Arkansas governor sounded fresh, hated taxes as much as I do, and slung a lot of witty repartee at his competitors. I thought that when he turned down the notion of being James Dobson’s third-party savior, it meant he wouldn’t bend over backward to be beholden to the evangelical wing.
Now, as the race has seemingly devolved into a Baptist vs. Mormon free-for-all with cross one-upmanship, and Mike Huckabee has demonstrated a shallow grasp of foreign policy, the affair may have fizzled. After all, the tax-code reform talk really just made me long for Steve Forbes, and the foreign policy rhetoric reminded me too much of Democrats.
Yet after all of the Campaign 2008 drama, my heart soared watching the on-air endorsement of John McCain by his BFF Joe Lieberman. It was the first time I’d actually cheered politicospeak in a long time. It was the senator who stood by what he believed, even if it meant losing the Democratic Party’s backing (and who had the last laugh in the end), supporting the senator who stood by what he believed on the Iraq surge (and who was right), even if it meant his presidential dreams would be crushed.
It was a couple of real men, talking real sense, and having the best dimension of compatibility — experience — to back it up, as the next president can’t be anything less than pitch-perfect on foreign policy. It’s the GOP senator who can snag moderates without being so Rudy. Ahh, electoral l’amour!
It just goes to show that no matter how many fresh faces vie for your electoral affection, sometimes your best bet is the tried-and-true stalwart without a lot of the flash or the cash — or perfect hair. And the recent poll bounce for McCain suggests I’m not the only one feeling this way.
Now if only the Paul posse would stop stalking all of us.
Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
Well, Bridget I don’t think you will necessarily have to worry about Ron Paul supporters. Not too many would be willing to court you.
However, in terms of them being persistent, yes, you might have to be worried about that. Here are some suggestions.
1)You could keep writing demeaning posts in and effort to curb their enthusiasm.
2)You could use some quick witty statments with covertly hostile undertones. That just might get under their skin and upset them, it does to everyone else.
3)If that doesn’t work you could use the old standby of parroting derogatory comments from other naysayers. You know like the old itty bitty gossip committee.
4)What I suggest you DON’T do is listen to any reasoning they might offer especially if they back up their positions with historical or statistical data. It will just be too confusing.
Well I guess I can sleep tonight knowing that there are fearless journalists like yourself helping forward those activities that make us all proud to be American.
McCain is just the latest media darling now that people are finding out the truth about Huckabee. Let’s look at his record…McCain-Feingold, working with Sen. Kennedy to get amnesty for illegal immigrants, Keating 5, Gang of 14, etc. He will definitely NOT be getting my vote! Notice how the media refuses to positively cover any candidate who would actually govern as a conservative, like Mitt or Fred?!?
Cory and bgodley (PaulBot and Anti-McCainBot) — listen,
No-one cares about McCain/feingold, statistically it’s a wash. As for the Keating 5? Again, no-one cares, it’s thin gruel. What probably bothers you most about McCain, is that he’s willing to leave the bunker every once and a while and work with the opposition. You will never forgive him for that, which is why anti-McCainBots breathlessly scream: “He worked with Kennedy on immigration!” Yeah? So did Bush. Their positions were virtually identical.
What you cannot deny, is McCain “gets it” on the international front. In this day and age, I’ll take that over some wonky squabble over his “gang of 14″ days. (yet another example of a guy crossing the aisle TO GET THINGS FRIGGIN DONE!)
With that said, I do like Fred. I’ll be happy with either.
as for Heir Paul, I think David Duke is probably listed under “probable match” in the E-harmony database.
GGH, don’t trust someone who restricts free speech in the pursuit of ethics and instead creates the arena where ‘move on’ and ‘media matters’ are the highly funded surrogates of the candidates.
I’m also underwhelmed by the tone by which you turn off any that you might need to be in alliance with in case of necessity (bot being a denigrating term). And yes, I realize that you deliberately used the term in that manner.
If put into dating terms, then John McCain is the guy you actually went on a few dates with and passed over.
You found out he had been on the take and cheated on others before… but you could forgive him that so long as he didn’t try it again. – Keating 5
He has been trying to reform himself and you found all the statements saying so, repeatedly, for years. – Post-Keating 5
When putting on music he didn’t want to hear about the music you liked.- McCain/Feingold.
He thought those being sqauatters on other people’s property should get partial title because ‘they were there’ and deserved part ownership for being squatters.- Illegal Alien Amnesty.
He quipped about the unemployed that they wouldn’t take $50/hour jobs and that they were lazy.-As part of the Amnesty imbroglio.
He railed against those gambling in their sovereign homes, and tried to make out that the law he knew ought to apply even to foreigners, in their own homes.-Indian casinos problem, which requires some knowledge of foreign policy.
He decided that actual engineering knowledge for how water is best drained didn’t matter and told engineers to just do what the landscapers wanted. – Feingold/McCain Rivers bill, with regard to USACE and the States.
He told you how he didn’t like one preacher and then turned around to kiss up to him soon after. – Jerry Falwell 2001 dislike, 2006 like.
And really, he has reformed! He tells you so. Over and over.
I do admire his service to the Nation and his standing by it during his captivity. His political record I find wanting as: authoritarian, restrictive, expanding the role of the government and I find it disheartening that he has reformed so much that we don’t know what shape he is now forming in *to*. He is the second of two people I will not vote for, for anything. When he complains that the Armed Forces do not have a ‘large enough footprint’ he has obvioiusly forgotten that the Armed Forces work with what Congress gives them as Congress controls: manpower, staffing, armament, supplies, consumables, and medical care after they return. Congress is the only body to enact law for that and he has forgotten this in his decades of service in the Senate.
If he can’t figure out his current job, then the Peter Principle now has him at the limits of his incompetence and it shows.
If the two parties give me HRC and JM, then I will vote for Cthulhu… if we are going to Hell, then we need experienced leadership.
To Jacksonian, I couldn’t have said it better my self.
JM says trust me, I’m the only one with the knowledge and wisdom to deal with foreign policy issues like Pakistan. I wonder is this the same knowledge and wisdom he used to tell Americans to take a hike, that he knows whats best for us on illegal immigration.
No Thanks !
Awesome how the Paulbot bitches that Bridget isn’t listening to them because they’re ‘backing up their positions with historical or statistical data’..
..And then fails to actually do that. Credit where credit’s due to the other posters for at least bothering to fill in that part of their argument(s)
If the Republican’s nominate McCain I won’t be voting in the presidential contest. If we’re going to have leftism like McCain-Feingold and all the rot that comes with that then let it come from Democrats not Republicans.
Reaps: How about this for a stat
The military supports Ron Paul!
Just look at the number and amount of donations from active members for Ron Paul vs McCain aka “Our War Hero” or even any other candidate.
Ron Paul donations blow them all out of the water.
I guess our brave soldiers are just Paulbot bitches too, right?
I’m from Tucson, Arizona and we DON’T LIKE MCCAIN. He’s become a liberal.