“Dear Ed,” huh? I’m glad you find me “Dear.” I’m not an ideologue. I just see no end to the spend, spend, spend addiction that has grabbed hold of the Republican party in the Bush era. We had good candidates but they all lost, partly because certain states allowed Democrats to vote in Republican primaries.
1) McCain is an economic ignoramus. The useless quick-fix “gas tax holiday” is but one example. Conservatives know that we need to start drilling in ANWR, like, yesterday — we should have started during the Clinton era, but Clinton vetoed AK drilling in the mid-90s. Gas prices have no hope of going down this year and are going to stay high from now on unless we can strengthen the dollar; but drilling where there is an enormity of proven reserves will also help us down the road; we must think long-term, and rectify past egregious mistakes on energy policy which have bequeathed us today’s gasoline calamity, but McCain has been against ANWR drilling;
2) McCain buys into “Global Warming” (see the McCain-Lieberman Climate Change Legislation) which has the potential to take more money out of Americans’ pockets, based on pure scientific ignorance, than any left-wing proposal on the planet.
3) McCain is just not trustworthy on illegal immigration; he *says* he’s heard us loud and clear on the subject, but his stubbornness on McCain-Kennedy removes any reliability by McCain on this issue. Bottom line: people in this country should not be allowed to ignore American laws without penalty; I wish McCain would learn that, because he was willing to sell American citizenships for $5000 each a year ago.
4) McCain has consistently been a fly in the ointment for years on item after item of the conservative domestic agenda. Example: voting against the Bush Tax Cuts was wrong, period, no matter how much he tries to cover up for it now.
5) McCain is a carefree overregulator, which is also an attitude that mainstream conservatives oppose; McCain-Feingold is an orgy of overregulationan ongoing violation of the First Amendment and limits the ability of groups not associated with the Democrat or Republican parties from participating in the democratic process.
6) McCain’s Gang of 14 deal undercut the promotions of conservative judgments and dismayed conservatives far and wide by McCain’s willingness to cut backroom deals that kneecap Republican initiatives.
Shall I go on?
No, it’s safe to say, Nicolo, that it IS “not enough for me.” McCain is a significant part of the reason why Republicans lost the Senate in ’06; McCain undercut the Republican party on many critical issues and greatly damaged the party’s unity and effectiveness on Capitol Hill. This is not just on one issue but on issue after issue. Once you get past national defense issues, he is not to be trusted by conservatives and indeed is a WEAK Republican. I could name many, many Republicans whom I and countless other conservatives would be much happier with.
One final point, Nicolo — why do you think the Republicans are having such a hard time fundraising with McCain as their standard-bearer in the 08 race? (See above…)
