Enough About McCain’s ‘Graciousness’ — It’s the Reason He Lost
We conservatives and libertarians focused on Obama’s various gaffes and misstatements (57 states, redistribute Joe the Plumber’s wealth, etc.) as a window to his soul. And the gaffes provided an unflattering and somewhat scary picture. But really, we should have focused on McCain’s gaffe in which he admitted to being a liberal Republican during a primary campaign stop. Certainly, his record is solidly liberal in many ways. He pulled an inside straight by having the social conservatives behind Huckster and the fiscal conservatives behind Romney bash each other while appealing to the squishes and party switchers looking to influence the Republican primaries. In hindsight, who can argue that Romney would have been the much better candidate? His economic mastery would have sliced and diced the green Obama.
We need to make sure that the McCains and Doles are put out to pasture rather than given the future task of corralling fresh-faced Democrat. We need to charismatic and smart young candidates for public service who believe in limited government and social conservatism and can articulate it in compelling fashion. And we need to have the courage to be unpopular in the Beltway and with a callow media whose practitioners have little real world experience and even less policy expertise. Let’s hope that Palin, Jindal, or Romney can be that person in 2012.
