Judging John/Early Handicapping
Over at Americans For Freedom, JP weighs the pros and cons of John McCain for President. Part of JP’s analysis concerns McCain’s chance for victory, which frankly doesn’t concern me yet. What does interest me is when a true-blue (-red?) conservative asks himself if he could vote for McCain with a clear conscience. JP concludes that
McCain has the best shot right now at winning the GOP nomination in 2008. Independents love him, and he gain win back most of the GOP, if he works consistently & patiently over the next 2.5 years to show that he has both learned that some of his prior positions were incorrect and that he is a more Conservative politician than the GOP grassroots think he is.
Since I’m not what most people would consider a conservative, that last line leaves me cold. I am, however, a First Amendment absolutist. That means that McCain’s CFR sponsorship is anathema to me.
But President Bush signed the damn bill into law, and I still (grudgingly) voted for him in 2004. Weighing that with JP’s other points means I have a lot of thinking to do between now and 2008.
McCain has the best shot right now at winning the GOP nomination in 2008. Independents love him…
Irrelevant.
Independents don’t turn out for the Republican primaries that determine who gets nominated, the ‘big-C’ Conservatives and ‘big-R’ Republicans do. McCain leaves both groups cold.
Yep, the CFR leaves me very cold.
Here’s a thought – make a list of all thhe candidates once considered frontrunners for their party’s nomination, at a time two years before the nominee was actually selected. Not counting incumbent VPs, how many eventually got nominated?
I know when I hear news of a bad piece of legislation, I start looking for McCain’s name on it.
There is no way I’ll vote for McCain in the primary. I’d have a very hard time voting for him in the general election should he win the nomination, even if my not voting contributed to a Hillary win. As much as I dislike Hillary, I despise McCain even more.
The biggest upside to McCain for president is that he’d be unable to write any more hideous legislation. He’d be doomed to watching others rewrite his CFR.
He’d be better on explaining why we fight compared to incoherent Bush. He’d also make the tough decisions on properly funding the military to both deter future state actors, like China, by expanding the F-22 and F-35 while increasing the SOF forces for the WOT. Bush is cutting the future force to fight the current battle. We could do better if we’d cut entitlement spending and get rid of the damned prescription drug program.
Does anyone else think that if we just legalized pot we could feed that to our elderly at a much cheaper cost than full priced prescription drugs?
I would rather vote for a talking dog.
“Giuliani tops poll of most popular US politicians”
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/060307/afp/060307161227people.html
McCain is not as popluar as the media persists.
McCain had zero impact when he came to California to support Arnold in the last special election.
He couldn’t even register on the screen at the GOP straw poll, and was reduced to asking his few backers to write in Bus’s name (and it is a mark of the brains of his few backers that they actually did write in the name of a man who CAN’T RUN AGAIN.
McCain is another media mirage; he knows what to say to get on the BosWash talk shows as their annointed “moderate voice” of the GOP but the voters know better.
I have respect for McCain and his real war hero status. I always will. I will never forget that it was assholes like John F. Kerry whose very words caused John McCain
There are two GOP members who are more popular than John McCain, and more popular with Independents too: Rudy Giuliani and Condoleeza Rice.
Condicize being a great example.
It’s too bad that Kraft’s interview on CNBC re her getting his vote to be NFL President didn’t have him saying he’d rather vote for her as President, but she gets huge exposure and everyone loves her but Spike Lee.
McCain leaves me cold, thanks to his bad history with the savings and loans as well as McCain Feingold (is he going to support the censure motion with his former buddy???). He’s a great man, but not the right person for the country.
Rice-Giuliani 08!
McCain just creeps me out. Am I the only one who thinks this guy looks like this guy?
First amendment reform is the most disturbing trend in Washington lately, and that’s saying a lot.
Independents love him? Are you sure they don’t just recognize him the most because the press loves to cover him?
McCain won’t be the GOP nominee, nor will Rudy. Rice has a lot of appeal. I’d love to see her run if only to see snakes like James Macarville insinuate that she’s a lesbian due to her marital status. Romney will be our next president, rice the next Veep.
Stephen,
CFR is surely one of the worst anti 1st Amendment bills to have ever been put into law.
However, even tho’, outside his POW heroism, McCain is pretty much a venal little prick, he’ll also beat the crap out of anybody the Donks nominate.
Talk about the lesser of two evils?
Well, not really, as McCain is truly a Conservative on the majority of the issues. Orrin Judd, certainly no fan of John’s made note of this as recently as today.
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/2006/03/the_third_term_1.html
“If the press can figure out he’s conservative how far behind can conservatives themselves be?”
Mike Daley
There’s zero chance I would vote for McCain. And I mean zero. I’d probably stay home if the Democrats nominated someone as bad or worse.
The problem I have with McCain is that he has a “great man” complex, and so there’s absolutely no predicting what he would do. It doesn’t matter a whit what he says in the next two years – I don’t believe a word of it.
It was Nixon that introduced wage and price controls – it could easily be McCain that nationlizes healthcare, which is a lot more irreversible. Hillary or any other Democract probably couldn’t to it, because the GOP wouldn’t allow it. But they might very well let McCain, just as they let Bush’s Medicare drug bill go through.
Agree with everyone else.
I respect McCain for what he did in Vietnam. Actually, I am in awe of him for this. The man has real character.
Also, he’s totally reliable on the WOT.
The problems I have with McCain are these three. First, he’s not reliable on any other issue important to conservatives. He’s a total straddler on pro-life issues, for example (this alone will prevent him from getting the GOP nomination.) And any other issue you might think of, from Social Security reform to tax cuts — McCain goes whichever way the wind is blowing, or more accuratel whichever way the media says the wind is blowing.
Second, McCain seems to have, as was so well stated above, a “great man” complex. He is a total populist and does not really believe in the idea of limiited government. He’d be just like Clinton, rushing to the scene of every car accident to promise Federal aid, etc.
Finally, the fact that McCain is a media whore does not bother me, most politicans are, he is just the best at it. What does bother me is that he won’t hesitate to stab fellow Republicans in the back if this will get him air time.
The problems I have with McCain are these three. First, he’s not reliable on any other issue important to conservatives.
Yup. McCain-Feingold demonstrated that he doesn’t give a damn about the 1st Amendment, and just ask a gunnie what McCain’s position on the 2nd is.
Both of those are deal-breakers for me.
The only way I’d vote for the man is if the alternative was Hillary, and that’s only because I know she’d be a front for her husband. Four more years of President Clinton is something we don’t need.
I used to be a Rice-for Prez
supporter. But really, she was a bust as NSA head (WAY outside her field of expertise.) She has been kept virtually silenced (to the public) in her new role. I think she is very smart, but I’m not sure she is presidential material.
I think “we” (the public) has very little input as to who will be the next GOP prez candidate. I, personally, am of the opinion that McCain cut a deal with the GOP during Bush’s elections not to go for the jugular (he & his wife were recipients of GOP slander, and thus told in no uncertain terms to cool it while Bush ran). Guiliani, I think, probably has some ugly skeletons in his closet re: NY politics, and would better serve as a VP candidate — the skeletons would gather dust, and serving as the VP, such tenure would bolster his national/international credentials.
In short, I’m a cynic — I think you can debate the “who should be a candidate” all you want, but I think there is a party machinery that pretty much decided years ago who was going to be the next GOP prez candidate. McCain. With either Guiliani or Rice as VP (probably Rice, with Guiliani as Sec of State).
And you can argue all you want against McCain (i.e., loss of freedom of expression in McCain-Feingold), but the general public is only going to see him as a war hero who attempted to alleviate Washington corruption. Also, given that the GOP has won the last two elections, and the fact that the US generally doesn’t elect the same party three times consecutively, the GOP is well aware that they are going to have to lean LEFT (especially given Bush’s record with Iraq, corporate corruption, tax cuts, the economic pinch felt by the middle class, the increased influence of religious fundamentalism, etc.) to have a chance to garner a win given historical realities.
You can bet your sweet arse the NY Times has a wealth of horded material to use against Guiliani (even if small, they will blow it up, and the GOP is aware of their influence, no matter how decried in the blogosphere). And there’s no way the GOP is going to risk fronting the first woman — let alone the first black woman — as Prez contender (they are in the winning business, not the frontier-opening business).
Finally (sorry for hogging so much bandwidth!), please don’t interpret my comments as saying I *agree* with any of it — I’m just stating the political reality as I currently view it!
This may be another election where you are more concerned with keeping someone out of the White House. I did vote for Bush, but I also voted against John Kerry. Who will I be voting against this time?