More on Senator John McCain, the Boundaries of Conservative Republican Thought Historically Speaking, and Certain Troubling Contemporary Ahistorical So-Called "Conservative" Trends Thereof:
(Part IV of a Dialogue)
This is a continuation from the third part of this series which can be accessed here. To start from the beginning (if you have not read the previous parts) please go here. And though I have noted it in every part of the series so far, a reminder of the colour schemata in this series (to cut down on confusion as to the sequence of arguments) seems to me to be advisable; ergo I reiterate yet again what I noted in the first part of this series:
The orange font is from the emailer's original email while light blue font is my responses to the emailer's original note. The dark green font is from the emailer's follow-up to my first response while the regular blog font colour is my response to the emailer's follow-up note. Any sources I quote in this note will be in dark blue font and possibly smaller type as a result of the format this original text was taken from (I do not have time to change it). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]
Without further ado...
What I am surprised by is that you did not realize this until now or (if you did) you did a good job of hiding it. There is a reason I am not a Republican anymore XXXXXXX -a reason why twelve years ago I told the Republicans to blow it out their pieholes. I was sick of this crap back then and over time my view has not changed. Welcome to the realization I had back then: that the establishment usually wins because they stack the deck against those who are outsiders.
Tell me what good does leaving the GOP do? How does that help advance the conservative cause? This is the very thing the country club establishment wants.
To explain the dynamic I sense is coming will require a history lesson but heck, I am willing to provide it. To start with, there are conservatives in both parties XXXXXXX, not just the Republicans. There are also conservative Independents. Ultimately party loyalty is what is killing this country and frankly I think both major parties need to be obliterated.
Now before you think what I am saying is not possible, it happened in the 1800's on more than one occasion. To start with, the Federalists (party of Washington, Hamilton, Morris, and Adams) was the original party of those who favoured the Constitution and a strong federal government and an energetic executive. However, the Federalists did not come into being as a party strictly speaking until the 1790's after the dispute over the Bank of the United States and Thomas Jefferson founded a party in opposition to it which former Federalist James Madison joined.
The Federalists ruled from 1789-1801 and went into decline after the death of former President George Washington (1799), the loss of President Adams in the second contested presidential election to Thomas Jefferson (1800), and the death of Alexander Hamilton in his duel with Aaron Burr (1804) left the party without a strong leader to coalesce around. The Federalists made matters worse in their opposition to the War of 1812 and as a party they were dead after 1816.{1} It is true that there were still identified Federalists as late as 1830 but there was no party of that name or general principle by that time even if former Federalist and the greatest chief justice in United States history (Chief Justice John Marshall: an Adams appointee) was still running the Supreme Court into the 1830's.{2}
The opposition Republican party (now styled the Democratic-Republican party) was founded in 1792 and took power in 1801. By 1820 they were the only party in the country and thus the 1920 election was won virtually unopposed by incumbent President James Monroe: only the third time in history this happened after General Washington's two unanimous elections to the presidency in 1788 and 1792. However, that party could not sustain itself due to competing interests and it broke apart into factions between 1821 and 1824 which resulted in the election of 1824 having four candidates of the same party (Democratic-Republican or the old Jeffersonian party) with Secretary of State John Quincy Adams winning despite not getting most of the popular vote or even the electoral majority over General Andrew Jackson,{3} Secretary of the Treasury William Crawford, and Speaker of the House Henry Clay. From this election, President Adams and Speaker Clay went on to form the Independent Republican party from the more federalist-minded of the Democrat-Republicans while President Jackson's supporters founded what is the modern Democratic party. Those were the two parties that competed for the presidency in the 1828 election which was a rematch of President Adams and General Jackson -and Andrew Jackson beat President Adams pretty convincingly in that election.
Speaker Clay ran unsuccessfully as the nominee of that party against President Jackson in 1832 and was soundly beaten by Jackson despite there being an Independent candidate and an Anti-Mason party candidate in that election. But between 1832 and 1836 there was another party reconfiguration which resulted in the 1836 election seeing the Democratic party candidate opposed by four members of the Whig party -a party formed out of the Independent Republicans and Democrats who were pissed off at President Jackson. The Whigs tried to run four candidates against Vice President Martin Van Buren{4} to keep a majority and getting it thrown into the House of Representatives where one of four Whigs could be selected. The strategy backfired as Martin Van Buren won enough electoral votes to secure the victory. The election for the Vice Presidency was contested and thrown into the House of Representatives: the first and only time thus far that this has happened in case you did not know.
The newly formed Whigs would go onto win the presidency in 1840{5}, lose in 1844{6}, win in 1848 (with General Zachery Taylor), lose in 1852 (with General Winfield Scott as the nominee), and then come apart at the seams over the issue of slavery shortly afterward. The Republican party was formed in 1854 from the wreckage of the Whigs with the issue of slavery as its main issue running their first presidential candidate in a losing cause in 1856. They would succeed the second time with Abraham Lincoln as their candidate. At that point we had the two major parties we have had to this day.
I see us in the stages (and we have been for some time) of a major implosion of one or more major political parties and a similar recasting required today. Like those days it will require some major issues of convergence. The Federalists and the original "Republicans" were opposed on the principle of federalism. The Jacksonians were aligned against the recharter of the Bank of the United States and against business in general while the Independent Republicans (and the later Whigs) were a more business oriented party which was also less strident on the subject of slavery than the Jeffersonians. The Republican party came out of the wreckage of the Whigs with the signal issue of slavery and its abolition.
We are in a similar situation today where a major issue or two will potentially form another major party and whether it becomes a third party or merely replaces one of the major parties remains to be seen. We may even in the next ten to twenty years see two major parties formed: the situation today in many respects is as chaotic on some major issues as it was in the period from 1824-1854: a thirty year period where major parties were cast and broke apart until we saw the formation of the two parties we have seen as the winners of every presidential election since 1854. Those who were involved in shaping the previous formations did not do so from within the major parties even if they were sympathetic to{7} certain general presuppositions of one major party or the other.
There has been a kind of paradigm shift in the works for a long time -as far back as 1964 actually- and what happened in 1972, in 1980, and in 1992 were all ingredients that go into what we will quite likely be seeing in the not too distant future. (As similarly weighty issues shaped the new configurations along the lines of the way slavery and the approach to federal power shaped party reconfigurations in the nineteenth century.) The Democratic party has been living on borrowed capital for about a generation and I do not view what the Republican party has become in the past twenty years as anything worthy of being saved.
As far as the Republicans go, part of the reason I say that is the absurd and ahistorical mentality of those who ascribe one particular view of things as "THE conservative view" or "THE conservative movement." And yes, one of those I take issue with in this area is Rush Limbaugh but by no means is he the only one who does this. Whatever else a President McCain could accomplish possibly expediting that realignment which has long been in the making is one of them. As far as fiscal discipline goes, he cannot possibly do worse than the current president has done who (unlike his father) does not have the veneer of the excuse that President Reagan had for the deficits that stacked up during his presidency.{8} Even W's daddy can claim he had to fight a Democratically controlled congress in both parties unlike Reagan who at least had a Republican senate for the first six years of his term. (Budgetary matters while input on them can come from both houses and even the president to some extent nonetheless originate in the House which if they do not originate it, the money is not allocated; ergo the importance of having control of the House.)
There are in other words circumstances that mitigate the first six years of Reagan's term{9} and the entire four years of W's daddy's term. We need not bring Clinton into this because the deficits were smaller during his presidency and eventually there were surpluses: one good thing the Republicans did in his administration that he reluctantly went along with. (Another was comprehensive welfare reform.)
Since George H. W. Bush repudiated the Reagan legacy and by that cost himself the election in 1992, this has been what we have had to deal with. Gingrich's congresses promised a lot and delivered very little and the six years we had of a Republican congress and president were shameful in their fiscal lack of discipline.
The 1994 takeover of Congress refutes your implication that a straightforward telling them what was what conservative can't win. It sure did in 1994, irregardless of whether or not it was implemented.
My assertion stands because promises without action are worthless. Furthermore, midterm elections historically are usually of a lower turnout so that factor has to be taken into account as well. And besides, the Republicans in 1994 were hardly as "straight forward" as you claim. The whole "balanced budget in seven years" thing while better than what was seen previously was nonetheless a bit evasive because Gingrich and company did not bother to tell the American people that the reason for the deficits was ballooning federal programs that needed to be cut or eliminated outright in actuality not merely given smaller increases from year to year and trying to grow the economy to a balanced budget situation.
Now I must admit that I do not blame the congressional Republicans of the 1990's for taking the approach they did on the budget because they caught enough flack for it from the idiots in the media who were too stupid to realize that adding more money to a program every year -even if the amount added is less than what was originally scheduled- is an increase in funding not a cut. It was a good move but a lot more was needed. Certainly it is better than the idiots who ran Congress from 2001-2006 and whose 2006 budget was a 3 trillion budget that was growing every year and still running annual deficits of no small significance!!!
To give you some scope of this, the 1987 budget was 1 trillion. So the budget from 1987 to 2007 tripled. And considering the rate of inflation for that period in time, a credible argument cannot be made that those increases were for "cost of living adjustments" or whatever. We are in some serious trouble here when we have two parties which are birds of the same feather on issues such as the budget, so-called "free trade", illegal immigration, and other significant issues. This monopoly on significant issues cannot continue indefinitely and it will not be.
Can it be said that McCain has acted, in his political career, in manner "worthy of his suffering"? I think not.
His record is mixed but that is not uncommon for politicians of twenty years standing in DC.
Voting the wrong way on a bill that has complex facets is one thing, actively co-authoring legislation that is anti-conservative is quite another.
He considered running alonside the unrepentant John Kerry, whose, 1971 testimony was played repeatedly in the Hanoi Hilton, according the POW's who supported the SBVFT in 2004.
Again, we have John Kerry's word on this and if you want to trust Kerry on this than you are being amazingly selective in what you will accept from him.
No, we have McCain's word on that. McCain admitted that he would consider accepting a VP slot on Kerry's ticket.
I already dealt with this and what you are referring to was McCain speaking of an impossible hypothetical situation. If you think that was something serious then you are really in need of toning down the lithium dosages because it sounds like something Dr. Savage would say.
He panders to the media, many of whom who show more sympathy with his captors than they do the POW's.
This is "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" kind of stuff XXXXXXX.
How so? So, you don't think McCain panders to the left wing media and that that very same left wing media that has more sympathy for those who held McCain and his fellow POWs in totureous squalor for over a half decade? In fact, when I pointed this out to you before, you seemed to be in agreement with it. Why the sea change all of a sudden?
You just went from "many of whom show more sympathy" to "that...media has more sympathy" in a kind of universal statement. Furthermore, while I have no love for the msm (as you probably know) unfortunately they are at times a necessary evil to deal with. We can debate on the best way of how this is done but there is no "one size fits all" approach to be taken.
My intuition on McCain and the media is that McCain tries to take a Reagan like approach to the media but does not recognize that executives (be they presidents or governors) are in a better position to pull it off than congressmen and senators are - Reagan's profound superiority at public speaking over McCain notwithstanding of course.
This has always bothered the hell out of me about McCain.
Whether we like it or not XXXXXXX, the media is a necessary evil in a lot of this. Without them, it is hard to nearly impossible to get your message to a broader audience and with them, you have to deal with the fact that they have an agenda. (We have alternatives now that we did not have in years past but McCain is pretty old school in this regard to some extent.) Whatever prudence or lack thereof that you want to ascribe to Senator McCain in this area, it would be wise to view the situation for what it is.
How is pandering to the left wing media necessary for conservatives? If anything it is couterproductive for conservatives. The biggest mistake a republican not to mention a conservative one can make is pander to the media. This is the very thing that sunk Newt Gingrich.
What sunk Gingrich to a good extent is that he was a good guerilla fighter on the defensive but not really cut out to be the primary spokesman on issues pertaining to an overall agenda. There are other factors that led to his downfall but that was a key one right there. He is not the first leader of a revolution who once they were in power could not effectively govern nor will he be the last.
The one thing Rush Limbaugh warned the 1994 freshman class about was to not try to get the media to like them. That it would be the very thing that destroyed them becuase the left wing media hates republicans and conservatives even more so. You couldn't anymore worng when you say McCain isn't stupid. He is not only stupid, but his relationship with the media is a textboook example who of how useful an idiot can be.
As I said before, McCain is old school when it comes to the media. You see it as "useful idiot" and I see it as a seventy-one year old senator who does not understand many of the dynamics of the new media age we are in. I am not saying Limbaugh is wrong on this point in principle but he also spoke to the freshmen at a time when there was no real alternatives to the mainstream media other than the very small (but growing rapidly) talk radio outlet and the occasional conservative publication of limited circulation (like National Review).
With the advent of a more balanced overall media picture now -including more conservative-inclined cable news outlets like FoxNews, the explosion of the internet, and a variety of online sources such as Drudge, NewsMax, etc- the landscape is significantly different now than it was even in 1994 which (lest you forget) was two years before the launch of FoxNews. If you want to claim that McCain should have better adapted to the changing circumstances of media in that time, perhaps so but a lot of things have changed very rapidly in a short span of time and a rule of life is that older people (and McCain at seventy-one qualifies as old) do not usually respond quickly to these sorts of changes.
The recent New York Slimes non-story about McCain and the lobbyist could not be anymore timely in proving my point. This is a story they have been sitting on for eight years. Now, why would they sit on such a hot non-story for that long? Simple. They've been waiting for McCain to get the nomination so they can destroy him. IOW, they've been playing him. Sad thing is, a blind man could see this coming from a mile away, but McCain being so blinded by his desire to be liked was too stupid to see it. And since the left-wing media is a stable of whores and the Old Gray Lady is the madam you can expect a lot more of this.
Perhaps but people have gotten a lot more jaded about the msm in recent years. And unlike in previous times, there are a host of ways to fact check and otherwise examine these matters via "Armstrong research,"{10} That is why the msm has gotten their eyes blackened in recent years with an increasing frequency: that and the fact that the msm is not the only game in town anymore...just ask Dan Rather about that.
Before you use the "President Reagan went over the heads of the media to the people" line, remember that as president there is a bully pulpit of sorts that senators and house representatives do not have. Unlike the president who can call press conferences by virtue of his position -and thus has a platform for making their views known apart from media spin- senators and representatives cannot do that unless they at least implicitly do something that appears to support the media weltanschauung. And a Republican who does not toe the Republican party line fits that in a way that a Democrat who does not toe the Democratic party line does not. This is not to defend or excuse McCain mind you but instead to remind you of what he is up against. As president he will not be so constrained.
Reagan's ability to go over the heads of the media precedes his presidency.
He did it as governor of California too...another executive position. Prior to that, Reagan was the head of the Screen Actors Guild: another executive position of sorts. Starting to see a pattern yet???
Otherwise how do you think he got elected without the benefit of an influential conservative talk radio?
Two words: Jimmah Carter.
If he had that he would have even been able to destroy Clinton (the only Dem President since FDR to to get reelected) in 1996.
Who would have been able to destroy Clinton in 1996??? Surely you do not mean Reagan who was in the throes of Alzheimers by that point.
And given McCain's hero status as a POW, it gave him a great opportunity to speak over the heads of the media but he chose to be a suck ass. And given McCain's long standing reputation as a left wing media kiss ass, it would most definitely constrain him as president because reputations do matter.
McCain's hero status as a POW of a war that the msm despised and continues to despise. Or did you forget about that part of the equation???
This is a mere synopsis of the problems I have with John McCain. His nomination perplexes me greatly.
He was not even in my top four of candidates. In order, my candidate choices ideally were 1) Duncan Hunter 2) Fred Thompson 3) Sam Brownback 4) Mitt Romney 5) John McCain 6) Rudy Guiliani. I would vote for a Democrat before I would vote for either Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul so I need not mention them. I only want you to realize in my saying this that I am not enthralled by McCain being the nominee either but we have what we have.
You're number one guy endorsed the one you demonize the most. What does that say?
The pickings among the candidates that were left at that point were on the issue of illegal immigration akin to Scylla and Charybdis.{11} I frankly wish Hunter would have said nothing but it did not happen that way obviously. Imagine that: politics is the art of the possible not of the perfect.
On one hand, a good case can be made that he is better than both Shrillary and the Magic Negro.
Side note: that Sharpton parody from Paul Shanklin is my favourite parody in a long time!!!
It's one I would, under normal circumstances, instinctively embrace. But Rush Limbaugh makes the point that if we are going suffer in the next four years it is better that it be a Democrap holding the bag for it than a republican.
Limbaugh is not going to fail to support McCain. I remember in 1992 he said a lot of the same things about Bush's papa and then went out and supported Bush Sr. He will do the same thing this time -guaranteed.
Uhmm, don't think so.
I have yet to see Rush not support a Republican.
If anything, he will give tacit support at best. Remember, McCain is a totally different animal than Bush Sr. In fact, I think Rush is right when he says that his endorsing McCain would hurt him given the fact that conservatives are not going to enthusiasctically back McCain and Rush's endorsement will only scare the liberals McCain is going to have to win over.
Tacit or otherwise, he will endorse McCain: that was my point.
Now, I'm not sure if I would embrace that view, but it can't be dismissed out of hand given what a McCain Administration would bring in the unlikely event he wins in November.
I remind you that a year is a long time in politics...McCain has lower unfavourable ratings than Clinton (and that is not going to change) and Obama is still quite unknown. The more Obama is drawn out, the less attractive he will be.
Yes, but once McCain attacks Obama's liberalism, Obama can strike back by saying "Senator McCain just last year you were on the same side as us on many of these issues." IOW, Obama will have an easy time portraying McCain as the weaker version of himself that McCain truly is. Obama may be an empty suit, but he is light years smarter than McCain.
Obama's inexperience is going to hurt him against McCain after Hill is through beating Barack to a pulp. That is the value of Hill staying in the race: she will be able to go after Obama in ways that McCain could not if it was just him and Obama. And of course once she does that, McCain could then merely "concur with the senator from New York" on these matters.
And there are not a whole lot of issues which Obama can claim that he and McCain are simpatico on. Hillary would have an easier time making that argument than Obama would (albeit not by much) but she is not likely to at this point get the nomination unless she can lock up enough delegates to take it at the convention through a back room deal. If that happens, the fallout for the Democrats would be a lack of substantive unity going into November which would be a detriment to them.
I think these are things we conservatives have to think long and hard about in the next nine months.
As a former Republican you have my sympathies. But you wonder why I have in various ways endorsed a third option in politics for a long time. But for all your talk about how that throws things to the Democrats, now you appear to be willing to do the same thing but directly instead of potentially indirectly.
First of all, the main reason I oppose the stupid ass third party theory is that our electoral and governemental process doesn't faclitate more than two major parties in practice. I said this clearly when I utterly destroyed your Kingdom for a Third Party arguments a year or so ago.
That was three and a half years ago and your recollection is faulty on more than just the time line.
What, you don't think I would remember?
My how we revise the past and omit what is not convenient!!! I remember having to constantly explain to you that I was not proposing the traditional approach to third parties in that hypothesis but you continued to misrepresent my stance. Yeah, misrepresentation is "destroying [my] arguments" alright...more like erecting strawmen, knocking them down, and then crowing about "victory"...What, you do not think Iwould remember???{12} I may not be a Republican anymore but I still have a memory like an elephant most of the time.
If you care as much about preserving conservative constitutionally sound principles you cannot be indifferent to what happens to the Republican party whether you regard yourself as such.
Who said I was indifferent??? Just because I do not tip the biretta, bow three times, and incense uncritically the dogmatic pronouncements of Pope Limbaugh on what is and is not conservative does not make me indifferent.
At least the indirect approach sets the table for something possibly coming out of it other than establishment retrenching. But then again, you seem to not recall just how Reagan was really perceived by the establishment: he was as distrusted by the "far right" as he was the "far left."
No, your third party idea only further empowers the country club establishmment within the GOP.
Since you continue to not get the third party idea that I outlined (which is in many respects unconventional anyway), it is difficult for me to not laugh as I type this in response. You remind me of those fundamentalists who no matter how many times it is explained to them continue to say "but Catholics worship Mary."
It is damn difficult to have a dialogue when one party refuses to listen and (as a result) continues to caricature the position of others. Even if I do not always represent 100% accurately your view it is not for want of listening as people capable of critical discernment often have nuances to their positions which are not self-evident and require repeated emphasis. But one thing I do tire of very quickly is those who are set straight on an issue more than once and yet they continue to repeat the same misunderstandings or errors over and over again. How I choose to respond to such things depends on a case by case basis on my mood or level of patience at the time respond to this sort of thing in a variety of ways.
Let's see what your vote for Perot "set the table" for, eight years of Clinton and eight years of Bush.
At least I voted.
Now, it is safe to say that eight years of Clinton was bad.
Not completely. It did get us us six years of a Republican congress in both houses which derailed or otherwise watered down a lot of what Clinton wanted to do. If only from the standpoint of breaking that logjam of four decades of House control and Senate control for forty of the previous forty-six years it was a worthwhile endeavour because without Clinton as president, it never would have happened. But beyond that point, it also got us progress on welfare reform, a balanced budget, a nationalization to general elections for congressmen and senators that previously did not exist, and also contributed to a generally good degree of economic growth.
There are a few other bits and pieces here and there I could probably list if I gave this point a bit more thought but that is all I have time for now. Suffice to say your "safe" assumption here is not as "safe" as you presume it to be.
And if your BDS runs it's full course, you are going to wind up saying that Bush is worse than Clinton if you don't think that already.
You are confusing my realistic assessment of W with your McCain Derangement Syndrome. At least I gave W the benefit of the doubt before he was elected and then let him deprive himself of my good will over time while he governed. It is not derangement to do the same thing for McCain that I did for W. As far as the last two presidencies as a whole go, it is too early to be fair to either Clinton or Bush in deciding which of them was better than the other -particularly Bush since he is still in office now. Plus, even when he leaves in a year, some of his legacy depends on what happens in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as how the court shapes up after his nominations particularly the selection of Roberts as chief justice.
Neither of them will be viewed as a great president -overall probably average at best for the both of them with W coming out a bit better on the basis of his court selections. But right now and in the here and now, he looks pretty bad and that is reality whether you like it or not.
Ergo, you unwittingly argue more forcefully than I do that your third party ala voting for Perot was foolish.
You mean the election where I voted and you did not??? I have not a whit of regret at that vote because I voted instinctively on something I had a faint shadow of knowledge of at the time. Knowing what I know now, I would make the same decision without a hesitation.
The realignment I spoke of earlier is coming and oftentimes ideas have to start outside the machinery of the major parties before either one will accept them -akin to the fact that alternatives to pharmaceutical remedies start outside the medical establishment more often than not only to be accepted by the establishment at a later date. The principle here is the same.
And I have also explained that this is why I remain republican.
Out of love of party is what it seemingly boils down to when you take it to brass tacks on some subjects.
And the [disputed issue deleted] reveals that I am a lot less willing to circle the wagons for our side when they choose to be two-faced wimps than you are.
No, that issue reveals that you are more willing to charge into windmills like Don Quixote than I am or (to use a WWII analogy) "fly kamakaze-like at aircraft carriers." If that is what you are asserting, then I agree with you. That is all you have accomplished on that one for the most part: alienating people who could be allies to the cause (even if imperfect ones) out of some stupid "my way 100% or the highway" kind of mentality. For your extolling of Reagan, The Gipper certainly did not take that approach (to his credit). You would be well to learn from him on that matter.
To be Continued...
Notes:
{1} The last time they fielded a candidate for president.
{2} He died in 1835.
{3} Who did but not enough to win the election.
{4} Whom Jackson gave his support to at the Democratic convention.
{5} With General Harrison beating President Van Buren only to be succeeded a month after his inauguration by Vice President John Tyler when the president died of pneumonia.
{6} When former speaker Henry Clay lost to James K. Polk after the incumbent President Tyler was denied the nomination and then kicked out of the Whig party.
{7} Or in many subjects perhaps supportive of.
{8} Winning the Cold War by bankrupting the Soviet Union is what I refer to here.
{9} And the deficits went down in the second half of Reagan's presidency as you presumably know was due to the economic growth.
{10} Aka "googling various terms."
{11} That was one of Hunter's main issues as you know: he was not about to endorse McCain on it and Romney's recent "come to Jesus" conservative view was obviously viewed as suspect.
{12} To note a few examples from our earlier discussion:
[Y]ou cannot find in this country's history a third party approach such as what I am advocating...
Yes it is telling. That is why I am proposing alternative third party strategery here...
I recommending a policy here that has reflections in the American experience with third parties??? No, I am not and surely you can agree with that much...
I am proposing this third option along with other ideas like my rider reform proposal and am not rehashing old ideas or approaches by any stretch...
Frankly, I think the general trends of third parties in history would make such multiplication unlikely. Remember, I am proposing a party that takes time to build a coherent philosophy and grass roots influence before running candidates for office. This is a radical approach for third parties to take which is why there are not likely to be a lot of imitators should one utilize this method as I am suggesting...
[Y]our argument is not interacting with the substance of what I am proposing...[Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa November 11, 2004)]
As subsequent emails from you continued to misrepresent what I was saying to no small degree, I decided to drop the issue at that time and not continue discussing it with you.
Showing posts with label Duncan Hunter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Duncan Hunter. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
More on Senator John McCain, the Boundaries of Conservative Republican Thought Historically Speaking, and Certain Troubling Contemporary Ahistorical So-Called "Conservative" Trends Thereof:
(Part II of a Dialogue)
This posting is a continuation from the first part of a dialogual series which (if you have not read it yet) can be accessed here. I also want to remind the readers of the colour schemata noted in the first part of the series so there is (hopefully) no confusion as to who said what and where:
The orange font is from the emailer's original email while light blue font is my responses to the emailer's original note. The dark green font is from the emailer's follow-up to my first response while the regular blog font colour is my response to the emailer's follow-up note. Any sources I quote in this note will be in dark blue font and possibly smaller type as a result of the format this original text was taken from (I do not have time to change it). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]
Without further ado...
The budget grew over 30% with a Republican congress during the first six years of his presidency. As the only reason we got Alito was a refusal to accept Miers and as the surge only was announced after the Republicans lost congress, even half of those achievements can be taken away as minimal concessions W made. It would not be hard for McCain to be more conservative than W as the bar sure is not set that high. I would advise that you put down the crack pipe and look at W's real record. The liberals like [name deleted] who savage him have it all wrong: he is one of them. All the Republicans did in six years of congressional control with a Republican president is vindicate my decision after the 96 elections to throw them under the bus. I saw this coming then in faint outline when the Republicans did not have the guts to follow through when Clinton called them on their bluff about the government shut down, when they achieved virtually nothing they solemnly pledged to do with the Contract With America except welfare reform and eventually a balanced budget. And the final straw for me was when the establishment stacked the deck to give the nomination to Dole in a year where probably any of the other candidates in a general election would have beaten Clinton. As Limbaugh and others pretended otherwise, I saw problems with the Republicans in congress then and in the establishment. But unlike them, I was not and have not felt any obligation to support them.
I supported W in 2000 partly because the thought of Gore as president was disturbing but also because he appeared to be an an energetic executive and I knew that such would be needed. This nation always needs an energetic executive as the federalists like Hamilton, Morris, Washington, Adams, and others (including Madison initially and then later on as president) realized and supported. W in that role has been horrible. I am not about to publicly bash him though as it is unbecoming to do so in the final year of a lame duck presidency but that does not means I will not say this in private to you and others -or say so publicly in a benign manner and leave it at that without explanation. Much the way I did not bash the pre-surge approach even though I thought it was short sighted and a failure (something I admitted on the blog only in mid [to late] 2007 after the surge was so obviously working) I am not going to give any additional ammunition to those who want to hang on the Republican nominee the W Bush record. But the reason is more tactical than any special affinity I have for W.
[Disclaimer: Obviously by posting this thread, I changed my mind about not mentioning this stuff publicly -SM]
Boy, Shawn you know how to serve up the red herring with the best of them. I have never said that Bush didn't have his problems or that the GOP doesn't have its serious problems. I have made almost identical laments regarding both and you know it!
I am aware of your laments on those matters.
What I am saying is that Bush is better than McCain would be, that's all.
I disagree with you on that point XXXXXXX -primarily because I refuse to negatively judge McCain presidential potential before he goes into office should he be elected president. I would not have disagreed in 2000 (where I supported W over McCain) but that was eight years ago and I instinctively went with the party with executive experience over the one that did not: Bush having run businesses as well as been Governor of Texas. I also had a lot of optimism about what W would be able to accomplish...you know the whole "now that we have a Republican president and Republican congress we will show the Democrats what it means to govern in a fiscally conservative fashion" sort of stuff. Thanks to that bunch of losers they may well have destroyed the Republican party as a viable party right when the Democrats themselves can only win by claiming to not be Republicans. Pretty sad really.
To wit: the war. All of McCain's newly found conservative sycophants are talking about how much of a hawk on the war Johnny Mac is. Let's see, he wants to close Gitmo, which means bringing terrorists here to the U.S. which would afford them constitutional rights.
Not necessarily. Senator McCain does not favour giving terrorists constitutional rights and has said this bluntly more than once. Indeed with this current Supreme Court, they are not likely to get a sympathetic hearing if we look at the totality of the decisions they have handed down on national security issues thus far.
And as far as the detainees getting the rights of American citizens (read: constitutional rights), consider the following from last month:
I asked the Senator whether he would have any reservations about the execution of the six detainees on trial at Guantanamo Bay for their role in the 9/11 attacks, whether he is comfortable with the current legal regime for trying detainees, and whether the interrogation techniques used there cast doubt on the fairness of the trials. His response:
McCain: No. I would not have concerns. I rely to a large degree on my friend Lindsey Graham, who is a JAG lawyer and who has been intimately involved in this whole process. These are not individuals who deserve the protections of the kind of judicial process that a citizen of the United States would have. We did not give those rights and privileges in the Nuremberg tribunals...these tribunals as far as I can tell...are appropriate and they are the way to address these particular cases...and there's nothing in the Geneva Conventions or any other rule of law that I've ever seen that said that the same rights and privileges apply to them as apply to American citizens. [LINK]
In other words, your assumption that closing Gitmo would involve the defacto giving of constitutional rights to terrorists does not jive with what McCain has noted he wants to do.
He also has been [moonbat]-like on the torture issue sponsoring what Rush Limbaugh rightly calls the "al Qaeda bill of rights. He also uses Kerryequse global test lingo, lamenting about how the appeasement-loving "rest of the world" would view us if we used heavy handed interrogation techniques, even in ticking time bomb scenario question. I think Tom Tancredo had a great line in response to that when he said, "Worry about waterboarding? I'm looking for Jack Bauer." After all, effective interrogation and intelligence gathering (and yes, if that necessitates torture, which by the way is not intrinsically evil, in and of itself, despite how hard [name deleted] and [name deleted] want to spin it, then so be it!) is essential to any war effort. And McCain has worked hard to undermine our ability to do just that. If McCain is a hawk, give me a dove, please!
This is a subject that McCain has firsthand knowledge about unlike you and me. I place very little stock in military advice asserted dogmatically by those who do not understand the environment involved. You certainly served in the military but to my knowledge (and correct me if I am wrong) you cannot claim any expertise in this area -and even if you could I would assess your statements in the same manner I do anyone else's.
Being a POW by itself does not give someone expertise in this area.
I did not say it gave expert status now did I??? It does not bode well to accuse me of red herrings and then immediately do the same thing yourself !!!
In fact, an argument can made that because of such a truamatic experience, it can cloud one's judgment.
Arguments can be made for both sides of this. I have my views on the matter and they happen to coincide with yours for the most part. But that does not mean that those who disagree with us on this matter cannot legitimately call themselves conservatives. Differences in the application of agreed upon principles are not the stuff of anathemas.
Many of those who have real expertise, like trained interrogators, as well as documented evidence of the effectiveness of methods McCain opposes (waterboarding got Khalid Shiekh Mohammed to give up key information) carry alot more weight than McCain's experience as a POW does here.
I am not comparing McCain's experience as a POW with the views of trained interrogators. That is quite an apples and oranges attempt on your part. However, I will always give some credence to those who have been in the arena over ivory tower sorts who theorize about what they have no actual experience of.
And quite frankly I don't think McCain's exerience as a POW is influencing his positions as much as political opportunism is. He just uses the former to advance the latter. And I think that much is rather clear to anyone who has intelligent eyes to see with.
There are trained interrogators who support the methods McCain opposes and trained interrogators who oppose them. I am not making my support for them a sine qua non of what constitutes being "conservative" XXXXXXX. It appears to me though that you are doing this and on what basis???
Furthermore, you apparently are not aware that when the Senate voted to ban federal agencies from using interrogation tactics not in the US Army Field Manuel (one of which is waterboarding), McCain opposed the proposed ban. It is certainly possible that he is gambling on the Bush Administration not using that approach again rather than take a stance on an outright ban but it is on the record for those who are interested in knowing how their senators and representatives vote on issues.
Furthermore, Why is it that when Dick Durban says what he says about comparing our troops and intelligence agents to Pol Pot, he is engagin in sedition while McCain's positions are really no different in substance and McCain gets a pass because he was a POW?
When did McCain in any respect approximate Dick Durbin??? It is true that McCain noted that one of the war crimes that the Japanese were tried for was waterboarding. It is also true that the manner in which they did it differs from the way in which we did. But you and I both know that that sort of nuance is lost on the lions share of people including the voting public. (Hell, look at the problem I am having trying to get a neutral point of view on Wikipedia on this subject for an illustration of this.) In a political season, nuanced positions are the death knell of election hopes. I wish it was otherwise but history demonstrates unequivocally that it is.
If anything McCain should have loudly denounced Durbin by saying "Senator Durbin, as one who experienced first hand the kind of treatment the Pol Pot-type communists treat their enemies, I can tell you you haven't the first clue as to what you are talking about. Whether or not you agree with the tactics our side uses they are nowhere close to that of the Pol Pot-types. And I demand you retract those vile comments." And McCain's credibility as a former POW would have been such that the left wouldn't have dared trying to demonize him for it.
I agree with you here in principle. However, you would do well to review the proceedings of that day and you would realize that the placement of Durbin's statement which was at the end of the legislative day just before the close of the session. He also raised it in the context of an energy bill and took some time to concur with proposed legislation from Senator Harkin of Iowa and then diverged into his tirade. You can see this by noting these threads where the entire speech was given:
RENEWABLE FUEL STANDARD -- Senate - June 14, 2005 pg. 6591 (Senator Harkin and Senator Durbin) pgs. 6592-6593 (Senator Durbin recognized for 25 minutes)
RENEWABLE FUEL STANDARD -- Senate - June 14, 2005 pg. 6594-6595 (Senator Dick Durbin with three minute extension of remarks granted)
You read that right: the subject in discussion when Durbin went off on his rant was the renewable fuel standard. Furthermore, if you read the Congressional Record, you will see that the very next entry is this one:
ADJOURNMENT UNTIL 9:30 A.M. TOMORROW -- (Senate - June 14, 2005)
GPO's PDF
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate stands in adjournment until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, June 15, 2005. Thereupon, the Senate, at 7:19 p.m., adjourned until Wednesday, June 15, 2005, at 9:30 a.m.
LINK
In other words (to use a football analogy), Durbin used his time and leverage at that session to run out the clock -including taking the three minute extension when he did to insure that he could not be responded to in that session.{1} The next day, Durbin tried to defend himself without apologizing for the statements and was condemned for it by the leader of the Illinois Republican Party Chairman (Durbin is an Illinois senator). I am sure I could find the exact transcripts of Durbin's dodges from that day in the record if I had time to peruse it all. The day after that, Al Jazeera ran with the story. Then on Thursday, June 16, 2005, Durbin's refusal to retract and apologize for his statements was met with angry retorts by four Republican senators on June 17, 2005.
I unfortunately cannot find The Congressional Record for that Senate day online so I have no idea where to acquire the text offhand. (And the online congressional record site is blocked in the internet archive by the owner's robot.txt so I cannot verify if it was ever there or not.) However, based on what I can verify (and thanks to a bit of additional tracking in the internet archive for the thread), Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia was the primary bulldog on this and his age (81) and length of time in the Senate (since 1979) were of no small significance. Similarly Senator Mitch McConnell who is the senior senator from Kentucky who outranked McCain in the Senate by virtue of position (Senate Majority Whip at the time) and Senator McCain's fellow Arizona senator Jon Kyl (the junior senator from Arizona whose total time in the congress is the same as McCain's) was particularly vocal in his denouncements. So too was Senator Jeff Sessions the junior senator from Alabama.
If you want to claim that McCain also should have raised his voice, perhaps so but Durbin was getting hammered that day by a number of senators and justly so. It is possible that McCain viewed what the others did as adequate. I do not know because I cannot find the Congressional Record for that day to know who said what and where. But it is not as if Durbin went unrebuked for what he said and I am not about to put an unfavourable interpretation onto what happened out of personal animosity towards Senator McCain as you seem intent on doing.
But McCain was quieter than a mouse fart.
Considering the pummeling that Durbin was getting from mostly higher ranking or longer tenured senators, I do not have a problem with this. If no one had spoken up, it would be another matter altogether but "Turbin" Durbin did not get away with it now did he???
But yet when fellow GOP Sen. John Cornyn takes McCain to task for trying to shove amnesty down the throats of the American public, McCain tells him to "fuck off"!
That was a direct affront to McCain individually. And I say that not because I supported McCain's position...you presumably know that I have denounced amnesty proposals publicly and explicitly numerous times going back explicitly on this weblog over four years. But to compare a direct personal affront to McCain personally and a statement that at best implied McCain and from which four senators (three of which have equal or greater tenure or position of authority in the Senate) already responded to is a different kettle of fish altogether.
It would be akin to you being present while someone verbally attacked the military and then they were effectively slapped down in rebuke by a major general, a captain, a major, and a sergeant. Would you feel the need in that company to also say anything extra??? Probably not. But what if someone else came into the room and went after you personally??? It makes more sense that you would respond to them than you would in the first scenario.
Look, there is a degree of politics involved when you have elections and politicians running for office. And all candidates have to try and come across as to some extent diplomatic on various "hot point" issues -even if the degree of nuance and carefully chosen words for doing that can bother those who consider themselves the "real deal." We both think highly of President Reagan and he did this too -albeit not to the extent of most who run for office. Do not forget this: the last conservative candidate who bluntly told people what was what was Barry Goldwater and we know what happened to him when he ran for president. We had Duncan Hunter this time saying what was what and he got nowhere. Fred Thompson understood the issues better than the candidates running ahead of him and yet he could not catch traction either.
As far as Goldwater is concerned, it wasn't his conservatism that cost him the 64 election, it was one, he was running against the ghost of the recently assasinated JFK, something you had told me Goldwater admitted.
That was one reason sure. There were many ingredients to the gumbo and that was the one Goldwater generally focused most on -perhaps out of respect for his friend JFK who would have been man enough to stand or fall against Goldwater on issues unlike that cowardly bully Lyndon Johnson. Another was that he was half Jewish...Goldwater being an Anglicanized version of the name Goldwasser which was the name of his paternal grandfather. There were many reasons in essence -enough to probably write a book about.
Number two, the differences between conservatives and liberals were nowhere as stark back then as they are now.
Are you kidding??? XXXXXXX, I am laughing as I read that statement from you. There were some areas of common ground then which now do not exist now but there are also significant differences then which now no longer exist. Reagan's A Time For Choosing speech encapsulated the stark differences of the visions then and now and Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative -a book I still hold in high esteem for its role in the development of my political outlook years ago{2}- is still of great value in this area. Those sources should be perused by you if they have not been in a while.
Number three, Goldwater was not the articulate voice Reagan was at least when he was elected in 1980, if not at the time (many believe his Time for Choosing speech did more to advance the conservative cause back then than anything Goldwater said).
Goldwater was not the polished speaker that Reagan was but that was not a major factor -Senator Goldwater was a gifted public orator in his own right after all. What was a factor though is that Goldwater personally had a habit of saying what was on his mind without concern for whomever's overly delicate sensitivities he offended. Between that and certain conservative stances he took which were against the grain{3} and Johnson's campaign dirty tricks combined to sink Goldwater's candidacy -along with Eisenhower's refusal to support him because of Goldwater's late 1950's statement about the Eisenhower Administration being a "dime store new deal."
But those factors aside, Goldwater did break the establishment's decades old hold on the party as well as electorally breaking through the old "solid south" on principles for the first time in 110 years if we exclude Hoover's 1928 sweep of the south.{4} The involvement of McCarthy in 1968 helped Nixon get through and the result was the 1972 landslide which was duplicated and exceeded in 1980 and then in 1984. Etc.
As far as Duncan Hunter is concerned, his conservatism wasn't what sunk his candidcacy.
I never said it was. What I said was that he was similarly blunt as Goldwater and this contributed to him being unable to get traction in the crowded field -that and whomever ran his campaign deserving to be shot for gross incompetence but that is another matter altogether. His bluntness was one reason and the other was the media tarring him with the brush of that xenophobe Tancredo and pitching them as clones when they are not.
None of the candidates who were blunt on the problems got traction because the public as a rule does not like to hear the truth: a subject I am not about to go into now but that gets to the heart of it in a sentence.
Number one, he is just a former congressman who really didn't have much of a following.
His lack of being a governor was a liability this is true. (Executives like governors and mayors always have advantages in running for president.)
Number two, while there are things I like about Duncan Hunter, I think he has a great deal of growing up to do before he can be considered presidential timber. I think he ought to consider running for Governor of CA. That would give him the springboard from which to make a serious run at the presdiency.
I agree with this stance actually.
However, he would have to learn how do a better job as a campaigner. And he ought to rethink some of his populist positions. BTW, guess who Hunter endorsed after dropping out? You guessed it, Schmuckabee!
Must you remind me??? I already blogged on my disappointment with that right after it happened.
Now if you think Hunter is this great guy, but Huckabee is such as disgrace and Hunter endorses him over a more conservative and before he dropped out viable candidate Romney, what does that say about Duncan Hunter viz your view of Huckabee, hmmmmmmm?
I can understand a lot of people who had problems with Romney XXXXXXX. I was not one of them even if Romney was my fourth selection. Romney could not escape the suspicion of many that his views were changed so completely and so recently as to be questioned as to their substance and that was a key reason why his campaign faltered.
Fred Thompson? C'Mon man, you know that Thompson was asleep at the switch and showed absolutely no energy and didn't act anything like a serious candidate.
I was disappointed in the way Thompson ran generally speaking. Of those who were allowed into the debates, his statements on the positions were the most articulate and correct. Unfortunately, it takes more than that to run a campaign.
Quite frankly, if any of those candidates had made McCain defend his actions with any real seriousness, like they should have, McCain's candicacy would have been sunk a long time ago.
I cannot argue with you on that so I will not.
"You also need to remember what I said previously about how different offices come with different functions and the like. Senator McCain as a senator has a different role than he would as president and the difference of the office means a difference in how you go about doing things. To use a religious example, Cardinal Ratzinger when he was Pope John Paul II's CDF prefect approached issues one way and as Pope Benedict XVI his approach has been strikingly different. The difference is the positions: as CDF prefect, his role was preserving doctrine. As pope his role is guardian of the common unity and as the largest voice of Christian conscience in the world. We are seeing things from Benedict as pope that we did not see from Ratzinger the prefect and this is analogous to what a president does and what a senator does...not a perfect analogy but one that to some extent should be taken into consideration on this matter."
Please tell you are not serious here.
I am serious. I noted that the analogy was not perfect but it does nonetheless apply here to some extent.
Before this analogy can even be considered, you would have to cite an instance where Ratzinger had, in his capacity as CDF prefect, sided with those who dissent from Catholic doctrine against the pope.
No I do not. Conservatism is not exactly the same with the principles involved as Catholicism is with doctrine; however with applications of core principles there is a similarity and that is what I was referring to. On the latter, I could list a number of things that John Paul II did or sanctioned that Cardinal Ratzinger was not happy about. The difference between Ratzinger and McCain is that the former has a much greater store of prudence.
I understand the difference in roles between a senator and a president, but that is not what is at issue here. What is at issue is John McCain's active repeated attempts to undermine conservative efforts, while having the audcity of claiming to be a conservative. If you are going to try to insult my intelligence with a lame ass analogy like this, you could at least humor me and act like you are trying to intelligently interact with what I am saying. This is moonbat shit Shawn, really!
The analogy works albeit imperfectly. But considering your track-record thus far in being wider than Oprah's backside after a month of binging at Ezell's{5} of the mark, I would advise being careful in presuming any moonbattery on my part.
About McCain's allegedly seeking the VP spot on the John "F-ing" Kerry ticket. His denial wasn't all that passionate. I mean, if that wasn't true don't you think McCain would be screaming "HELL NO"?
Not necessarily. This is politics and those who habitually scream and rant are quickly painted as lunatics. Furthermore, this is not the senate or house floor where tirades could go mostly unreported -this is a candidate running for president and anything of this sort would be a major media point of focus. McCain is not that stupid whatever else you may want to say about him.
If McCain was even sympathetic to consevatism, not to mention being conservative, would have done so with more passion than he did. After all, he has no compunction in letting his temper fly when attacking conservatives.
This is speculation on your part. Not all conservative-minded people are the same way. And sometimes when McCain has attacked conservatives it was to avoid being painted with the same brush as those he does not agree with. You may not like this or you may question his prudence on the matter{6} but at bottom you are engaging in a lot of speculation and presuming the worst in McCain at every opportunity it seems.
I mean, any conservative in their right mind would, especially someone like Johnny Mac who can go ballastic with the best of them, would do at least that.
Depends on the situation and the place XXXXXXX. Going ballistic is not usually a good approach to take unless one does so sparingly.
Again, McCain does all the time when going after conservatives.
I already covered this.
To succeed in politics you have to be Machiavellian: smile and pretend all is well for the cameras (maybe be a touch snappy but not too much) and save the stack blowing for private.
Besides, McCain actually did publicly state he would consider it if asked.
As you raised this point again, let us deal with it to show the context.
And he also considered bolting the GOP but Jumpin' Jim jumped first first (say that real fast ten times) stealing his thunder.
Considering the sort of underhanded approaches that W's campaign used against Johnny O'Mac I can understand a possibility that he entertained the idea. But then again, I am one who is not a Republican anyway.
Exactly what underhanded approaches did W's campaign use against McCain? Proof please!
Read up on what happened in South Carolina in 2000 for starters. I have done enough thus far in tracking down sources to substantiate my positions against what you wrote and this email needs to be ended at some point.
In fact, Bush bent over backwards and sideways to accmodate John McCain, especially after he became president.
After he was president sure, I will not argue with that.
That's why he signed MF into law. It was a stupid ass thing to do, but that's why he did it.
McCain-Feingold was an unfortunate piece of legislation: well intended but woefully inadequate and procedurally problematical.
And, even granting that they did, how does this justify McCain's behavior? I mean this would not only hurt the GOP, it would have hurt the conservative aganda all the more.
There you go with the "conservative agenda" as if it is a single monolithic mentality when it is not. Conservatism is not whatever Rush Limbaugh says it is XXXXXXX.
McCain's even entertaining the idea of being VP on the ticket of the unrepentant John Kerry is at the very least tantamount to McCain, of all people, condoning Kerry's actions in 1971. Gee, I wonder what former Senator Jeremiah Denton thought of that, given the rather vitriolic way he criticized Kerry in 2004. Without minimizing McCain's ordeal, it paled in comparison to what Denton, along with Stockdale, went through. If you ever heard of the movie When Hell Was in Session that was about Denton's ordeal. If you can even "understand" why McCain would do some thing like this against this backdrop, you are suffereing from a strain of Bush Derangement Syndrome that is every bit as potent, albeit different, as that of what Stephen Hand and Mark Shea are suffereing from.
Again, can you provide serious proof of this other than from the mouth of the same John Kerry you would claim any other time was a lying fraud??? For until you do, I will not even dignify the above with a response. Aaah sod it, I will respond to this to show you just how RIDICULOUS this whole line of argument on your part is. Here goes:
McCain said in a television interview that he would consider the unorthodox step of running for vice president on the Democratic ticket — in the unlikely event he received such an offer from the presidential candidate. "John Kerry is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years," McCain said Wednesday when pressed to squelch speculation about a Kerry-McCain ticket. "Obviously I would entertain it." Within hours, the Arizona senator's chief of staff, Mark Salter, closed the door on that idea. "Senator McCain will not be a candidate for vice president in 2004," Salter told The Associated Press, saying he spoke for the senator. McCain had emphasized how unlikely the whole idea was. "It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk," the senator told ABC's "Good Morning America" during an interview about illegal steroid use. "They'd have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen." [LINK]
Yeah, that is a real serious response there!!! This is no different than if I were to entertain the idea of Rush Limbaugh giving me all the cigars in his humidors along with the humidors themselves if someone asked me if I was open to that idea. Sure I would entertain that idea (damn right I would!!!) but the likelihood of it{7} is so slim as to be considered impossible.
Honestly, I don't see where you're not and my being still Republican have anything to do with this.
Simple, I do not at any time feel compelled to have to defend Bush or the establishment Republicans whereas you by virtue of being a professed Republican give every appearance of needing to beyond the realm of the reasonable. Either that is the compulsion on your part or else it is taking the view that whatever Rush and Dave say is THE Conservative position and any other positions (even if they have longer pedigrees in the conservative movement) are anathema to "THE conservative movement." Boy, I thought it was liberals who claimed that conservatives marched in mindless lockstep fashion, not fellow conservatives!!!
To be Continued...
Notes:
{1} The remaining senate time that day was to handle nominations and confirmations.
{2} The Conscience of a Conservative: An Upcoming Amazon Book Review (circa March 8, 2005)
{3} Including against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on constitutional principle rather than going along with the zeitgeist.
{4} Which I do because it was motivated by solely antiCatholic bigotry against Alfred Smith and not on actual principles.
{5} For those who do not know, Ezell's Chicken is a chain of sorts which serves southern style chicken, sweet potato pie, and a variety of other fixins which are simply delightful. Oprah has eaten there and her picture is on the wall along with her raves about the quality of the food. I happen to love the food there too though due to my current weight reduction regimen, I cannot allow myself to get anywhere in the vicinity of one of those places but I digress.
{6} Or his seeming inability to be as tactful in dealing with those he does not agree with as the late William F. Buckley Jr. and those of Buckley's mindset can do.
{7} You need to remember that the media asks politicians a lot of these "would you consider this hypothetical situation" kind of questions in press conferences and the like. It is considered part of the diplomatic game to play along generally speaking.
(Part II of a Dialogue)
This posting is a continuation from the first part of a dialogual series which (if you have not read it yet) can be accessed here. I also want to remind the readers of the colour schemata noted in the first part of the series so there is (hopefully) no confusion as to who said what and where:
The orange font is from the emailer's original email while light blue font is my responses to the emailer's original note. The dark green font is from the emailer's follow-up to my first response while the regular blog font colour is my response to the emailer's follow-up note. Any sources I quote in this note will be in dark blue font and possibly smaller type as a result of the format this original text was taken from (I do not have time to change it). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]
Without further ado...
The budget grew over 30% with a Republican congress during the first six years of his presidency. As the only reason we got Alito was a refusal to accept Miers and as the surge only was announced after the Republicans lost congress, even half of those achievements can be taken away as minimal concessions W made. It would not be hard for McCain to be more conservative than W as the bar sure is not set that high. I would advise that you put down the crack pipe and look at W's real record. The liberals like [name deleted] who savage him have it all wrong: he is one of them. All the Republicans did in six years of congressional control with a Republican president is vindicate my decision after the 96 elections to throw them under the bus. I saw this coming then in faint outline when the Republicans did not have the guts to follow through when Clinton called them on their bluff about the government shut down, when they achieved virtually nothing they solemnly pledged to do with the Contract With America except welfare reform and eventually a balanced budget. And the final straw for me was when the establishment stacked the deck to give the nomination to Dole in a year where probably any of the other candidates in a general election would have beaten Clinton. As Limbaugh and others pretended otherwise, I saw problems with the Republicans in congress then and in the establishment. But unlike them, I was not and have not felt any obligation to support them.
I supported W in 2000 partly because the thought of Gore as president was disturbing but also because he appeared to be an an energetic executive and I knew that such would be needed. This nation always needs an energetic executive as the federalists like Hamilton, Morris, Washington, Adams, and others (including Madison initially and then later on as president) realized and supported. W in that role has been horrible. I am not about to publicly bash him though as it is unbecoming to do so in the final year of a lame duck presidency but that does not means I will not say this in private to you and others -or say so publicly in a benign manner and leave it at that without explanation. Much the way I did not bash the pre-surge approach even though I thought it was short sighted and a failure (something I admitted on the blog only in mid [to late] 2007 after the surge was so obviously working) I am not going to give any additional ammunition to those who want to hang on the Republican nominee the W Bush record. But the reason is more tactical than any special affinity I have for W.
[Disclaimer: Obviously by posting this thread, I changed my mind about not mentioning this stuff publicly -SM]
Boy, Shawn you know how to serve up the red herring with the best of them. I have never said that Bush didn't have his problems or that the GOP doesn't have its serious problems. I have made almost identical laments regarding both and you know it!
I am aware of your laments on those matters.
What I am saying is that Bush is better than McCain would be, that's all.
I disagree with you on that point XXXXXXX -primarily because I refuse to negatively judge McCain presidential potential before he goes into office should he be elected president. I would not have disagreed in 2000 (where I supported W over McCain) but that was eight years ago and I instinctively went with the party with executive experience over the one that did not: Bush having run businesses as well as been Governor of Texas. I also had a lot of optimism about what W would be able to accomplish...you know the whole "now that we have a Republican president and Republican congress we will show the Democrats what it means to govern in a fiscally conservative fashion" sort of stuff. Thanks to that bunch of losers they may well have destroyed the Republican party as a viable party right when the Democrats themselves can only win by claiming to not be Republicans. Pretty sad really.
To wit: the war. All of McCain's newly found conservative sycophants are talking about how much of a hawk on the war Johnny Mac is. Let's see, he wants to close Gitmo, which means bringing terrorists here to the U.S. which would afford them constitutional rights.
Not necessarily. Senator McCain does not favour giving terrorists constitutional rights and has said this bluntly more than once. Indeed with this current Supreme Court, they are not likely to get a sympathetic hearing if we look at the totality of the decisions they have handed down on national security issues thus far.
And as far as the detainees getting the rights of American citizens (read: constitutional rights), consider the following from last month:
I asked the Senator whether he would have any reservations about the execution of the six detainees on trial at Guantanamo Bay for their role in the 9/11 attacks, whether he is comfortable with the current legal regime for trying detainees, and whether the interrogation techniques used there cast doubt on the fairness of the trials. His response:
McCain: No. I would not have concerns. I rely to a large degree on my friend Lindsey Graham, who is a JAG lawyer and who has been intimately involved in this whole process. These are not individuals who deserve the protections of the kind of judicial process that a citizen of the United States would have. We did not give those rights and privileges in the Nuremberg tribunals...these tribunals as far as I can tell...are appropriate and they are the way to address these particular cases...and there's nothing in the Geneva Conventions or any other rule of law that I've ever seen that said that the same rights and privileges apply to them as apply to American citizens. [LINK]
In other words, your assumption that closing Gitmo would involve the defacto giving of constitutional rights to terrorists does not jive with what McCain has noted he wants to do.
He also has been [moonbat]-like on the torture issue sponsoring what Rush Limbaugh rightly calls the "al Qaeda bill of rights. He also uses Kerryequse global test lingo, lamenting about how the appeasement-loving "rest of the world" would view us if we used heavy handed interrogation techniques, even in ticking time bomb scenario question. I think Tom Tancredo had a great line in response to that when he said, "Worry about waterboarding? I'm looking for Jack Bauer." After all, effective interrogation and intelligence gathering (and yes, if that necessitates torture, which by the way is not intrinsically evil, in and of itself, despite how hard [name deleted] and [name deleted] want to spin it, then so be it!) is essential to any war effort. And McCain has worked hard to undermine our ability to do just that. If McCain is a hawk, give me a dove, please!
This is a subject that McCain has firsthand knowledge about unlike you and me. I place very little stock in military advice asserted dogmatically by those who do not understand the environment involved. You certainly served in the military but to my knowledge (and correct me if I am wrong) you cannot claim any expertise in this area -and even if you could I would assess your statements in the same manner I do anyone else's.
Being a POW by itself does not give someone expertise in this area.
I did not say it gave expert status now did I??? It does not bode well to accuse me of red herrings and then immediately do the same thing yourself !!!
In fact, an argument can made that because of such a truamatic experience, it can cloud one's judgment.
Arguments can be made for both sides of this. I have my views on the matter and they happen to coincide with yours for the most part. But that does not mean that those who disagree with us on this matter cannot legitimately call themselves conservatives. Differences in the application of agreed upon principles are not the stuff of anathemas.
Many of those who have real expertise, like trained interrogators, as well as documented evidence of the effectiveness of methods McCain opposes (waterboarding got Khalid Shiekh Mohammed to give up key information) carry alot more weight than McCain's experience as a POW does here.
I am not comparing McCain's experience as a POW with the views of trained interrogators. That is quite an apples and oranges attempt on your part. However, I will always give some credence to those who have been in the arena over ivory tower sorts who theorize about what they have no actual experience of.
And quite frankly I don't think McCain's exerience as a POW is influencing his positions as much as political opportunism is. He just uses the former to advance the latter. And I think that much is rather clear to anyone who has intelligent eyes to see with.
There are trained interrogators who support the methods McCain opposes and trained interrogators who oppose them. I am not making my support for them a sine qua non of what constitutes being "conservative" XXXXXXX. It appears to me though that you are doing this and on what basis???
Furthermore, you apparently are not aware that when the Senate voted to ban federal agencies from using interrogation tactics not in the US Army Field Manuel (one of which is waterboarding), McCain opposed the proposed ban. It is certainly possible that he is gambling on the Bush Administration not using that approach again rather than take a stance on an outright ban but it is on the record for those who are interested in knowing how their senators and representatives vote on issues.
Furthermore, Why is it that when Dick Durban says what he says about comparing our troops and intelligence agents to Pol Pot, he is engagin in sedition while McCain's positions are really no different in substance and McCain gets a pass because he was a POW?
When did McCain in any respect approximate Dick Durbin??? It is true that McCain noted that one of the war crimes that the Japanese were tried for was waterboarding. It is also true that the manner in which they did it differs from the way in which we did. But you and I both know that that sort of nuance is lost on the lions share of people including the voting public. (Hell, look at the problem I am having trying to get a neutral point of view on Wikipedia on this subject for an illustration of this.) In a political season, nuanced positions are the death knell of election hopes. I wish it was otherwise but history demonstrates unequivocally that it is.
If anything McCain should have loudly denounced Durbin by saying "Senator Durbin, as one who experienced first hand the kind of treatment the Pol Pot-type communists treat their enemies, I can tell you you haven't the first clue as to what you are talking about. Whether or not you agree with the tactics our side uses they are nowhere close to that of the Pol Pot-types. And I demand you retract those vile comments." And McCain's credibility as a former POW would have been such that the left wouldn't have dared trying to demonize him for it.
I agree with you here in principle. However, you would do well to review the proceedings of that day and you would realize that the placement of Durbin's statement which was at the end of the legislative day just before the close of the session. He also raised it in the context of an energy bill and took some time to concur with proposed legislation from Senator Harkin of Iowa and then diverged into his tirade. You can see this by noting these threads where the entire speech was given:
RENEWABLE FUEL STANDARD -- Senate - June 14, 2005 pg. 6591 (Senator Harkin and Senator Durbin) pgs. 6592-6593 (Senator Durbin recognized for 25 minutes)
RENEWABLE FUEL STANDARD -- Senate - June 14, 2005 pg. 6594-6595 (Senator Dick Durbin with three minute extension of remarks granted)
You read that right: the subject in discussion when Durbin went off on his rant was the renewable fuel standard. Furthermore, if you read the Congressional Record, you will see that the very next entry is this one:
ADJOURNMENT UNTIL 9:30 A.M. TOMORROW -- (Senate - June 14, 2005)
GPO's PDF
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate stands in adjournment until 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, June 15, 2005. Thereupon, the Senate, at 7:19 p.m., adjourned until Wednesday, June 15, 2005, at 9:30 a.m.
LINK
In other words (to use a football analogy), Durbin used his time and leverage at that session to run out the clock -including taking the three minute extension when he did to insure that he could not be responded to in that session.{1} The next day, Durbin tried to defend himself without apologizing for the statements and was condemned for it by the leader of the Illinois Republican Party Chairman (Durbin is an Illinois senator). I am sure I could find the exact transcripts of Durbin's dodges from that day in the record if I had time to peruse it all. The day after that, Al Jazeera ran with the story. Then on Thursday, June 16, 2005, Durbin's refusal to retract and apologize for his statements was met with angry retorts by four Republican senators on June 17, 2005.
I unfortunately cannot find The Congressional Record for that Senate day online so I have no idea where to acquire the text offhand. (And the online congressional record site is blocked in the internet archive by the owner's robot.txt so I cannot verify if it was ever there or not.) However, based on what I can verify (and thanks to a bit of additional tracking in the internet archive for the thread), Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia was the primary bulldog on this and his age (81) and length of time in the Senate (since 1979) were of no small significance. Similarly Senator Mitch McConnell who is the senior senator from Kentucky who outranked McCain in the Senate by virtue of position (Senate Majority Whip at the time) and Senator McCain's fellow Arizona senator Jon Kyl (the junior senator from Arizona whose total time in the congress is the same as McCain's) was particularly vocal in his denouncements. So too was Senator Jeff Sessions the junior senator from Alabama.
If you want to claim that McCain also should have raised his voice, perhaps so but Durbin was getting hammered that day by a number of senators and justly so. It is possible that McCain viewed what the others did as adequate. I do not know because I cannot find the Congressional Record for that day to know who said what and where. But it is not as if Durbin went unrebuked for what he said and I am not about to put an unfavourable interpretation onto what happened out of personal animosity towards Senator McCain as you seem intent on doing.
But McCain was quieter than a mouse fart.
Considering the pummeling that Durbin was getting from mostly higher ranking or longer tenured senators, I do not have a problem with this. If no one had spoken up, it would be another matter altogether but "Turbin" Durbin did not get away with it now did he???
But yet when fellow GOP Sen. John Cornyn takes McCain to task for trying to shove amnesty down the throats of the American public, McCain tells him to "fuck off"!
That was a direct affront to McCain individually. And I say that not because I supported McCain's position...you presumably know that I have denounced amnesty proposals publicly and explicitly numerous times going back explicitly on this weblog over four years. But to compare a direct personal affront to McCain personally and a statement that at best implied McCain and from which four senators (three of which have equal or greater tenure or position of authority in the Senate) already responded to is a different kettle of fish altogether.
It would be akin to you being present while someone verbally attacked the military and then they were effectively slapped down in rebuke by a major general, a captain, a major, and a sergeant. Would you feel the need in that company to also say anything extra??? Probably not. But what if someone else came into the room and went after you personally??? It makes more sense that you would respond to them than you would in the first scenario.
Look, there is a degree of politics involved when you have elections and politicians running for office. And all candidates have to try and come across as to some extent diplomatic on various "hot point" issues -even if the degree of nuance and carefully chosen words for doing that can bother those who consider themselves the "real deal." We both think highly of President Reagan and he did this too -albeit not to the extent of most who run for office. Do not forget this: the last conservative candidate who bluntly told people what was what was Barry Goldwater and we know what happened to him when he ran for president. We had Duncan Hunter this time saying what was what and he got nowhere. Fred Thompson understood the issues better than the candidates running ahead of him and yet he could not catch traction either.
As far as Goldwater is concerned, it wasn't his conservatism that cost him the 64 election, it was one, he was running against the ghost of the recently assasinated JFK, something you had told me Goldwater admitted.
That was one reason sure. There were many ingredients to the gumbo and that was the one Goldwater generally focused most on -perhaps out of respect for his friend JFK who would have been man enough to stand or fall against Goldwater on issues unlike that cowardly bully Lyndon Johnson. Another was that he was half Jewish...Goldwater being an Anglicanized version of the name Goldwasser which was the name of his paternal grandfather. There were many reasons in essence -enough to probably write a book about.
Number two, the differences between conservatives and liberals were nowhere as stark back then as they are now.
Are you kidding??? XXXXXXX, I am laughing as I read that statement from you. There were some areas of common ground then which now do not exist now but there are also significant differences then which now no longer exist. Reagan's A Time For Choosing speech encapsulated the stark differences of the visions then and now and Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative -a book I still hold in high esteem for its role in the development of my political outlook years ago{2}- is still of great value in this area. Those sources should be perused by you if they have not been in a while.
Number three, Goldwater was not the articulate voice Reagan was at least when he was elected in 1980, if not at the time (many believe his Time for Choosing speech did more to advance the conservative cause back then than anything Goldwater said).
Goldwater was not the polished speaker that Reagan was but that was not a major factor -Senator Goldwater was a gifted public orator in his own right after all. What was a factor though is that Goldwater personally had a habit of saying what was on his mind without concern for whomever's overly delicate sensitivities he offended. Between that and certain conservative stances he took which were against the grain{3} and Johnson's campaign dirty tricks combined to sink Goldwater's candidacy -along with Eisenhower's refusal to support him because of Goldwater's late 1950's statement about the Eisenhower Administration being a "dime store new deal."
But those factors aside, Goldwater did break the establishment's decades old hold on the party as well as electorally breaking through the old "solid south" on principles for the first time in 110 years if we exclude Hoover's 1928 sweep of the south.{4} The involvement of McCarthy in 1968 helped Nixon get through and the result was the 1972 landslide which was duplicated and exceeded in 1980 and then in 1984. Etc.
As far as Duncan Hunter is concerned, his conservatism wasn't what sunk his candidcacy.
I never said it was. What I said was that he was similarly blunt as Goldwater and this contributed to him being unable to get traction in the crowded field -that and whomever ran his campaign deserving to be shot for gross incompetence but that is another matter altogether. His bluntness was one reason and the other was the media tarring him with the brush of that xenophobe Tancredo and pitching them as clones when they are not.
None of the candidates who were blunt on the problems got traction because the public as a rule does not like to hear the truth: a subject I am not about to go into now but that gets to the heart of it in a sentence.
Number one, he is just a former congressman who really didn't have much of a following.
His lack of being a governor was a liability this is true. (Executives like governors and mayors always have advantages in running for president.)
Number two, while there are things I like about Duncan Hunter, I think he has a great deal of growing up to do before he can be considered presidential timber. I think he ought to consider running for Governor of CA. That would give him the springboard from which to make a serious run at the presdiency.
I agree with this stance actually.
However, he would have to learn how do a better job as a campaigner. And he ought to rethink some of his populist positions. BTW, guess who Hunter endorsed after dropping out? You guessed it, Schmuckabee!
Must you remind me??? I already blogged on my disappointment with that right after it happened.
Now if you think Hunter is this great guy, but Huckabee is such as disgrace and Hunter endorses him over a more conservative and before he dropped out viable candidate Romney, what does that say about Duncan Hunter viz your view of Huckabee, hmmmmmmm?
I can understand a lot of people who had problems with Romney XXXXXXX. I was not one of them even if Romney was my fourth selection. Romney could not escape the suspicion of many that his views were changed so completely and so recently as to be questioned as to their substance and that was a key reason why his campaign faltered.
Fred Thompson? C'Mon man, you know that Thompson was asleep at the switch and showed absolutely no energy and didn't act anything like a serious candidate.
I was disappointed in the way Thompson ran generally speaking. Of those who were allowed into the debates, his statements on the positions were the most articulate and correct. Unfortunately, it takes more than that to run a campaign.
Quite frankly, if any of those candidates had made McCain defend his actions with any real seriousness, like they should have, McCain's candicacy would have been sunk a long time ago.
I cannot argue with you on that so I will not.
"You also need to remember what I said previously about how different offices come with different functions and the like. Senator McCain as a senator has a different role than he would as president and the difference of the office means a difference in how you go about doing things. To use a religious example, Cardinal Ratzinger when he was Pope John Paul II's CDF prefect approached issues one way and as Pope Benedict XVI his approach has been strikingly different. The difference is the positions: as CDF prefect, his role was preserving doctrine. As pope his role is guardian of the common unity and as the largest voice of Christian conscience in the world. We are seeing things from Benedict as pope that we did not see from Ratzinger the prefect and this is analogous to what a president does and what a senator does...not a perfect analogy but one that to some extent should be taken into consideration on this matter."
Please tell you are not serious here.
I am serious. I noted that the analogy was not perfect but it does nonetheless apply here to some extent.
Before this analogy can even be considered, you would have to cite an instance where Ratzinger had, in his capacity as CDF prefect, sided with those who dissent from Catholic doctrine against the pope.
No I do not. Conservatism is not exactly the same with the principles involved as Catholicism is with doctrine; however with applications of core principles there is a similarity and that is what I was referring to. On the latter, I could list a number of things that John Paul II did or sanctioned that Cardinal Ratzinger was not happy about. The difference between Ratzinger and McCain is that the former has a much greater store of prudence.
I understand the difference in roles between a senator and a president, but that is not what is at issue here. What is at issue is John McCain's active repeated attempts to undermine conservative efforts, while having the audcity of claiming to be a conservative. If you are going to try to insult my intelligence with a lame ass analogy like this, you could at least humor me and act like you are trying to intelligently interact with what I am saying. This is moonbat shit Shawn, really!
The analogy works albeit imperfectly. But considering your track-record thus far in being wider than Oprah's backside after a month of binging at Ezell's{5} of the mark, I would advise being careful in presuming any moonbattery on my part.
About McCain's allegedly seeking the VP spot on the John "F-ing" Kerry ticket. His denial wasn't all that passionate. I mean, if that wasn't true don't you think McCain would be screaming "HELL NO"?
Not necessarily. This is politics and those who habitually scream and rant are quickly painted as lunatics. Furthermore, this is not the senate or house floor where tirades could go mostly unreported -this is a candidate running for president and anything of this sort would be a major media point of focus. McCain is not that stupid whatever else you may want to say about him.
If McCain was even sympathetic to consevatism, not to mention being conservative, would have done so with more passion than he did. After all, he has no compunction in letting his temper fly when attacking conservatives.
This is speculation on your part. Not all conservative-minded people are the same way. And sometimes when McCain has attacked conservatives it was to avoid being painted with the same brush as those he does not agree with. You may not like this or you may question his prudence on the matter{6} but at bottom you are engaging in a lot of speculation and presuming the worst in McCain at every opportunity it seems.
I mean, any conservative in their right mind would, especially someone like Johnny Mac who can go ballastic with the best of them, would do at least that.
Depends on the situation and the place XXXXXXX. Going ballistic is not usually a good approach to take unless one does so sparingly.
Again, McCain does all the time when going after conservatives.
I already covered this.
To succeed in politics you have to be Machiavellian: smile and pretend all is well for the cameras (maybe be a touch snappy but not too much) and save the stack blowing for private.
Besides, McCain actually did publicly state he would consider it if asked.
As you raised this point again, let us deal with it to show the context.
And he also considered bolting the GOP but Jumpin' Jim jumped first first (say that real fast ten times) stealing his thunder.
Considering the sort of underhanded approaches that W's campaign used against Johnny O'Mac I can understand a possibility that he entertained the idea. But then again, I am one who is not a Republican anyway.
Exactly what underhanded approaches did W's campaign use against McCain? Proof please!
Read up on what happened in South Carolina in 2000 for starters. I have done enough thus far in tracking down sources to substantiate my positions against what you wrote and this email needs to be ended at some point.
In fact, Bush bent over backwards and sideways to accmodate John McCain, especially after he became president.
After he was president sure, I will not argue with that.
That's why he signed MF into law. It was a stupid ass thing to do, but that's why he did it.
McCain-Feingold was an unfortunate piece of legislation: well intended but woefully inadequate and procedurally problematical.
And, even granting that they did, how does this justify McCain's behavior? I mean this would not only hurt the GOP, it would have hurt the conservative aganda all the more.
There you go with the "conservative agenda" as if it is a single monolithic mentality when it is not. Conservatism is not whatever Rush Limbaugh says it is XXXXXXX.
McCain's even entertaining the idea of being VP on the ticket of the unrepentant John Kerry is at the very least tantamount to McCain, of all people, condoning Kerry's actions in 1971. Gee, I wonder what former Senator Jeremiah Denton thought of that, given the rather vitriolic way he criticized Kerry in 2004. Without minimizing McCain's ordeal, it paled in comparison to what Denton, along with Stockdale, went through. If you ever heard of the movie When Hell Was in Session that was about Denton's ordeal. If you can even "understand" why McCain would do some thing like this against this backdrop, you are suffereing from a strain of Bush Derangement Syndrome that is every bit as potent, albeit different, as that of what Stephen Hand and Mark Shea are suffereing from.
Again, can you provide serious proof of this other than from the mouth of the same John Kerry you would claim any other time was a lying fraud??? For until you do, I will not even dignify the above with a response. Aaah sod it, I will respond to this to show you just how RIDICULOUS this whole line of argument on your part is. Here goes:
McCain said in a television interview that he would consider the unorthodox step of running for vice president on the Democratic ticket — in the unlikely event he received such an offer from the presidential candidate. "John Kerry is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years," McCain said Wednesday when pressed to squelch speculation about a Kerry-McCain ticket. "Obviously I would entertain it." Within hours, the Arizona senator's chief of staff, Mark Salter, closed the door on that idea. "Senator McCain will not be a candidate for vice president in 2004," Salter told The Associated Press, saying he spoke for the senator. McCain had emphasized how unlikely the whole idea was. "It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk," the senator told ABC's "Good Morning America" during an interview about illegal steroid use. "They'd have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen." [LINK]
Yeah, that is a real serious response there!!! This is no different than if I were to entertain the idea of Rush Limbaugh giving me all the cigars in his humidors along with the humidors themselves if someone asked me if I was open to that idea. Sure I would entertain that idea (damn right I would!!!) but the likelihood of it{7} is so slim as to be considered impossible.
Honestly, I don't see where you're not and my being still Republican have anything to do with this.
Simple, I do not at any time feel compelled to have to defend Bush or the establishment Republicans whereas you by virtue of being a professed Republican give every appearance of needing to beyond the realm of the reasonable. Either that is the compulsion on your part or else it is taking the view that whatever Rush and Dave say is THE Conservative position and any other positions (even if they have longer pedigrees in the conservative movement) are anathema to "THE conservative movement." Boy, I thought it was liberals who claimed that conservatives marched in mindless lockstep fashion, not fellow conservatives!!!
To be Continued...
Notes:
{1} The remaining senate time that day was to handle nominations and confirmations.
{2} The Conscience of a Conservative: An Upcoming Amazon Book Review (circa March 8, 2005)
{3} Including against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on constitutional principle rather than going along with the zeitgeist.
{4} Which I do because it was motivated by solely antiCatholic bigotry against Alfred Smith and not on actual principles.
{5} For those who do not know, Ezell's Chicken is a chain of sorts which serves southern style chicken, sweet potato pie, and a variety of other fixins which are simply delightful. Oprah has eaten there and her picture is on the wall along with her raves about the quality of the food. I happen to love the food there too though due to my current weight reduction regimen, I cannot allow myself to get anywhere in the vicinity of one of those places but I digress.
{6} Or his seeming inability to be as tactful in dealing with those he does not agree with as the late William F. Buckley Jr. and those of Buckley's mindset can do.
{7} You need to remember that the media asks politicians a lot of these "would you consider this hypothetical situation" kind of questions in press conferences and the like. It is considered part of the diplomatic game to play along generally speaking.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Miscellaneous Musings:
Just a few quick bits as time is short...
--I must admit that I like the proactive approach that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is taking towards the economy. The three quarter point cut in the funds rate done earlier in the week (and a week in advance of the Fed's director meeting for the month of January) is the largest single cut since President Reagan's first term. At that time, the large Fed cut was to facilitate the economic recovery picking up steam (which certainly happened) and this time it is to approach the matter when the status is uncertain rather than waiting until it is.
--Rumour has it that there may be another cut in the funds rate at the Fed's rate at the meeting. I for one cannot say I would have a problem with it -this kind of approach could make the oft-asserted "recession"{1} a very mild one if at all. Certainly it will help in keeping interest rates low and that is not in and of itself a bad thing for a whole host of reasons.
--I am disappointed in both Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter. In the case of the former, for dropping out prior to Super Tuesday and the latter for endorsing Mike Huckabee. I do not want to reiterate what I wrote recently on the subject of Huckabee and the stupidity of the pro life lobby{2} but in Hunter's case, that is what I see happening. Since Thompson has dropped out, the smartest thing he could do now is not endorse anybody. We shall see in time if that approach is taken or not.
--Much as I have been critical of the absurdities of Ron Paul already{3} and plan to again at least indirectly in an upcoming thread already written{4} but in need of final review (as of this writing). I do want to note that I am glad he is in the Republican race. Some of the issues he is talking about need to be talked about and for that reason alone, he is worth having in there for the duration of the campaign.
--With Mike Holmgren being back for a final season in Seattle, I am finally comfortable putting together my prognosis on what the Hawks need to do in order to get to and win the Superbowl next season. And no folks, my sports diagnosis is not as bad as my sports prognosticating -in the former I actually do pretty well overall. And unlike with the Mariners{5} I actually am optimistic that the Hawks will be able to do what they need to do next year to have a good shot at it.
Notes:
{1} I for one am not convinced there is an actual recession -it looks to me like a market correction more than anything.
{2} On the Candidacy of Mike Huckabee and the Political Stupidity of Pro-Lifers (circa January 9, 2008)
{3} On the Constitutional Standing of Wars Undertaken Without a Formal "Declaration of War (circa December 26, 2007)
{4} A thread first mentioned on this weblog last April and which has been mentioned or alluded to on a few occasions since -including in the excerpts from the archives posted below:
I am not sure when I first mentioned it on the weblog but I believe it was in this posting from April of 2007 which was written as a prelude to it. The idea had been in my mind for quite some time prior to that posting though -the seeds of which were in retrospect planted when I was publicly noting my views on the need for a third party in the United States. (As noted in a pair of postings from 2002, a pair of postings from 2004, and a couple of posts from early 2006 prior to the elections.) Perhaps the time it would take to make the vision as I outlined it occur coupled with the intuition I have had for years that serious fixes are needed and needed now facilitated this approach to the issue in question. Anyway, it has been in the works for some time and hopefully I can put the finished product into the arena of ideas for criticism and/or interaction with soon. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa September 25, 2007)]
It was noted last month that your host planned to write on the Founding Fathers, some of the principles and systems that shaped their outlook, and also to point out what he believes is a serious problem of imbalance in the modern political climate.[...] That intention is being worked through bit by bit as we have both time to and also are in the mood to write on that subject. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 15, 2007)]
{5} For the Mariners to get a similar vote of optimism from me (in light of their history of messing these things up) they would need to sign a top rank ace for the staff to go along with Felix Hernandez. In a word, they would need to sign Eric Bedard but I am not too optimistic about that happening.
Just a few quick bits as time is short...
--I must admit that I like the proactive approach that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is taking towards the economy. The three quarter point cut in the funds rate done earlier in the week (and a week in advance of the Fed's director meeting for the month of January) is the largest single cut since President Reagan's first term. At that time, the large Fed cut was to facilitate the economic recovery picking up steam (which certainly happened) and this time it is to approach the matter when the status is uncertain rather than waiting until it is.
--Rumour has it that there may be another cut in the funds rate at the Fed's rate at the meeting. I for one cannot say I would have a problem with it -this kind of approach could make the oft-asserted "recession"{1} a very mild one if at all. Certainly it will help in keeping interest rates low and that is not in and of itself a bad thing for a whole host of reasons.
--I am disappointed in both Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter. In the case of the former, for dropping out prior to Super Tuesday and the latter for endorsing Mike Huckabee. I do not want to reiterate what I wrote recently on the subject of Huckabee and the stupidity of the pro life lobby{2} but in Hunter's case, that is what I see happening. Since Thompson has dropped out, the smartest thing he could do now is not endorse anybody. We shall see in time if that approach is taken or not.
--Much as I have been critical of the absurdities of Ron Paul already{3} and plan to again at least indirectly in an upcoming thread already written{4} but in need of final review (as of this writing). I do want to note that I am glad he is in the Republican race. Some of the issues he is talking about need to be talked about and for that reason alone, he is worth having in there for the duration of the campaign.
--With Mike Holmgren being back for a final season in Seattle, I am finally comfortable putting together my prognosis on what the Hawks need to do in order to get to and win the Superbowl next season. And no folks, my sports diagnosis is not as bad as my sports prognosticating -in the former I actually do pretty well overall. And unlike with the Mariners{5} I actually am optimistic that the Hawks will be able to do what they need to do next year to have a good shot at it.
Notes:
{1} I for one am not convinced there is an actual recession -it looks to me like a market correction more than anything.
{2} On the Candidacy of Mike Huckabee and the Political Stupidity of Pro-Lifers (circa January 9, 2008)
{3} On the Constitutional Standing of Wars Undertaken Without a Formal "Declaration of War (circa December 26, 2007)
{4} A thread first mentioned on this weblog last April and which has been mentioned or alluded to on a few occasions since -including in the excerpts from the archives posted below:
I am not sure when I first mentioned it on the weblog but I believe it was in this posting from April of 2007 which was written as a prelude to it. The idea had been in my mind for quite some time prior to that posting though -the seeds of which were in retrospect planted when I was publicly noting my views on the need for a third party in the United States. (As noted in a pair of postings from 2002, a pair of postings from 2004, and a couple of posts from early 2006 prior to the elections.) Perhaps the time it would take to make the vision as I outlined it occur coupled with the intuition I have had for years that serious fixes are needed and needed now facilitated this approach to the issue in question. Anyway, it has been in the works for some time and hopefully I can put the finished product into the arena of ideas for criticism and/or interaction with soon. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa September 25, 2007)]
It was noted last month that your host planned to write on the Founding Fathers, some of the principles and systems that shaped their outlook, and also to point out what he believes is a serious problem of imbalance in the modern political climate.[...] That intention is being worked through bit by bit as we have both time to and also are in the mood to write on that subject. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 15, 2007)]
{5} For the Mariners to get a similar vote of optimism from me (in light of their history of messing these things up) they would need to sign a top rank ace for the staff to go along with Felix Hernandez. In a word, they would need to sign Eric Bedard but I am not too optimistic about that happening.
Friday, January 18, 2008
A Primary Update, Vindicating a Previous Proclamation, and Briefly on Fred Thompson:
First in the interest of reminding the esteemed gentleman from Michigan about something he and I said in a previous conversation about the New Hampshire primary won by Sen. John McCain:
me: I think Romney can lose NH and still be the nominee
Kevin: no he can't
me: but he needs to win elsewhere. Wyoming. Michigan. Somewhere in an early primary. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa January 8, 2008)]
As Romney won in both Wyoming and Michigan and leads in the Republican delegate count by a significant margin{1} while his closest in the delegate count{2} has peaked already and the other major challenger at the moment having less than a third of the count thus far{3}, it should be obvious that New Hampshire will not be the deciding factor in the Republican nomination. Or as I noted over lunch earlier today in a short chat with my esteemed colleague from Michigan on the matter:
me: any time you want to admit your error is fine with me ;-p
Kevin: which one? where am i in error? lol
me: how's that for an intro?
I believe I predicted that Mitt would not be out of it if he did not win NH. you said he would [and] ironically your state was the pivot.
Kevin: well i didn't say he would drop out, just that he'd be crushed. I was wrong lol. now mitt has a ticket to super tuesday but he still needs to win Florida I think.
me: I was listening to him on Glenn Beck today. i must say, [Romney] appears strategically astute. Beck noted that he was behind in SC. Mitt admitted that but noted that he believes he will win Nevada which has more delegates than SC.
Kevin: it does and there's a chance he will. SC is more symbolic though.
me: my point is, Mitt is counting delegates, not keying in on specific primaries. he already leads in that area and is looking to build on it more even if the states he wins are not symbolically huge.
Kevin: well if he survives until super tuesday with a good running, McCain is in trouble, since these primaries are party only.
me: agreed. [Chat circa 12:30pm today]
Despite his second place spot in delegate count, by all appearances Huckabee has peaked. He did well in winning Iowa where he got 17 of his 19 delegates but he has done poorly since. McCain got half of his delegates in New Hampshire and the others from a fourth place finish in Iowa and a second place finish in Michigan.
In other words, though Huckabee has more delegates than McCain, there is no evidence that Huckabee has any momentum at all. Compared to candidates with lower delegate totals who have not won a primary (i.e. Thompson with 6, Paul with 2, Guiliani with 1, and Hunter with 1), by all appearances, they could catch fire on Super Tuesday whereas Huckabee appears to have used up all his momentum.{4}
With regards to one of those candidates who your host is hoping will show some sign of catching on soon, here is a bit that we wrote in a combox thread on him in dark green font -the words of the person we were responding to will be in italics...
I wonder how much of the "lack of energy" is media fabricated...
An "energetic executive" is what we need but the media's idea of "energetic" and the Founders' idea are significantly different.
I would not give the msm's dictums on that too much credit -remember all that talk about Reagan "sleeping through cabinet meetings"??? Compared to the relentless minutiae-focused approaches of his predecessor and successor, I would prefer a president who "slept through cabinet meetings" even if Reagan did that and he rarely did that in reality.
Thompson is in my top tier of candidate preferences. I would not have a problem voting for him if he can get a fair shake from the msm to present his message. I fail to see what the msm is worried about -both Thompson and Hunter are treated as Tancredo clones when they quite obviously are not.
And though Paul is a complete loon, I think he should be allowed into the debates too -if these candidates are to fall then it should be of their own making, not the media proclaiming, pronouncing, and defining as dogma that they have when primary and caucus season has only just begun.
Readers will also notice that we are going solely off of actual delegates thus far, not projections. So for all that talk about Clinton having twice the delegates as Obama (190 vs. 103) and Edwards (51) half of Obama, those are projections and not actual counts. When we look at the actual counts they are nowhere near that.{5} So make sure you read the fine print before accepting any msm source on the matter in question. Well that and/or just remember to read Rerum Novarum when we deign to post anything here of course. Our non-sports prognosticating is usually pretty accurate on the whole after all.
Notes:
{1} As of this morning, Romney has 48 delegates.
{2} As of this morning, Huckabee has 19 delegates.
{3} As of this morning, McCain has 15 delegates.
{4} This is not to say that he will not get more delegates of course, only that traditionally a candidate that starts off as he did and then declines is usually done whereas a candidate who starts off weak can catch fire later on traditionally.
{5} The actual counts of delegates for the Democratic candidates thus far are as follows:
Clinton: 28-29
Obama: 28-30
Edwards: 21
The reason for the range on the first two is it is unclear which number is correct from our sources as of this writing.
First in the interest of reminding the esteemed gentleman from Michigan about something he and I said in a previous conversation about the New Hampshire primary won by Sen. John McCain:
me: I think Romney can lose NH and still be the nominee
Kevin: no he can't
me: but he needs to win elsewhere. Wyoming. Michigan. Somewhere in an early primary. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa January 8, 2008)]
As Romney won in both Wyoming and Michigan and leads in the Republican delegate count by a significant margin{1} while his closest in the delegate count{2} has peaked already and the other major challenger at the moment having less than a third of the count thus far{3}, it should be obvious that New Hampshire will not be the deciding factor in the Republican nomination. Or as I noted over lunch earlier today in a short chat with my esteemed colleague from Michigan on the matter:
me: any time you want to admit your error is fine with me ;-p
Kevin: which one? where am i in error? lol
me: how's that for an intro?
I believe I predicted that Mitt would not be out of it if he did not win NH. you said he would [and] ironically your state was the pivot.
Kevin: well i didn't say he would drop out, just that he'd be crushed. I was wrong lol. now mitt has a ticket to super tuesday but he still needs to win Florida I think.
me: I was listening to him on Glenn Beck today. i must say, [Romney] appears strategically astute. Beck noted that he was behind in SC. Mitt admitted that but noted that he believes he will win Nevada which has more delegates than SC.
Kevin: it does and there's a chance he will. SC is more symbolic though.
me: my point is, Mitt is counting delegates, not keying in on specific primaries. he already leads in that area and is looking to build on it more even if the states he wins are not symbolically huge.
Kevin: well if he survives until super tuesday with a good running, McCain is in trouble, since these primaries are party only.
me: agreed. [Chat circa 12:30pm today]
Despite his second place spot in delegate count, by all appearances Huckabee has peaked. He did well in winning Iowa where he got 17 of his 19 delegates but he has done poorly since. McCain got half of his delegates in New Hampshire and the others from a fourth place finish in Iowa and a second place finish in Michigan.
In other words, though Huckabee has more delegates than McCain, there is no evidence that Huckabee has any momentum at all. Compared to candidates with lower delegate totals who have not won a primary (i.e. Thompson with 6, Paul with 2, Guiliani with 1, and Hunter with 1), by all appearances, they could catch fire on Super Tuesday whereas Huckabee appears to have used up all his momentum.{4}
With regards to one of those candidates who your host is hoping will show some sign of catching on soon, here is a bit that we wrote in a combox thread on him in dark green font -the words of the person we were responding to will be in italics...
I wonder how much of the "lack of energy" is media fabricated...
An "energetic executive" is what we need but the media's idea of "energetic" and the Founders' idea are significantly different.
I would not give the msm's dictums on that too much credit -remember all that talk about Reagan "sleeping through cabinet meetings"??? Compared to the relentless minutiae-focused approaches of his predecessor and successor, I would prefer a president who "slept through cabinet meetings" even if Reagan did that and he rarely did that in reality.
Thompson is in my top tier of candidate preferences. I would not have a problem voting for him if he can get a fair shake from the msm to present his message. I fail to see what the msm is worried about -both Thompson and Hunter are treated as Tancredo clones when they quite obviously are not.
And though Paul is a complete loon, I think he should be allowed into the debates too -if these candidates are to fall then it should be of their own making, not the media proclaiming, pronouncing, and defining as dogma that they have when primary and caucus season has only just begun.
Readers will also notice that we are going solely off of actual delegates thus far, not projections. So for all that talk about Clinton having twice the delegates as Obama (190 vs. 103) and Edwards (51) half of Obama, those are projections and not actual counts. When we look at the actual counts they are nowhere near that.{5} So make sure you read the fine print before accepting any msm source on the matter in question. Well that and/or just remember to read Rerum Novarum when we deign to post anything here of course. Our non-sports prognosticating is usually pretty accurate on the whole after all.
Notes:
{1} As of this morning, Romney has 48 delegates.
{2} As of this morning, Huckabee has 19 delegates.
{3} As of this morning, McCain has 15 delegates.
{4} This is not to say that he will not get more delegates of course, only that traditionally a candidate that starts off as he did and then declines is usually done whereas a candidate who starts off weak can catch fire later on traditionally.
{5} The actual counts of delegates for the Democratic candidates thus far are as follows:
Clinton: 28-29
Obama: 28-30
Edwards: 21
The reason for the range on the first two is it is unclear which number is correct from our sources as of this writing.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
On the Candidacy of Mike Huckabee and the Political Stupidity of Pro-Lifers:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[Prefatory Note: This is a near-verbatim text which we wrote yesterday during lunch for another site when the outcome of the New Hampshire primary was yet to be revealed. Some additional links from this weblog were added which the site the original text was posted to would not accept along with two additional footnotes that came to mind when formatting the original text for posting. -ISM]
Hucksterbee's nomination would be a complete disaster of 1964 proportions for the Republicans with one significant difference: at least Goldwater's political immolation planted the seeds that started the modern conservative movement. Hucksterbee will be carried along by the media because they are salivating at presenting Hucksterbee as another Pat Robertson if he was nominated. But prior to that, they will give him whatever life support they think he needs. And that brings me to the subject of the traditional electoral pro life hari kiri.
The pattern of the modern Court with Roberts as chief justice is not one of legislating from the bench. And with us on the verge of two more court replacements (at least one in the next presidential term) -ask yourself who is more likely to replace Ginsberg or Stevens with a juror of the mould of Thomas, Roberts, Scalia, or Alito.
A McCain presidency or even one with Don Guiliani would have a much greater chance of getting another originalist on the court. Similarly those who would refuse to vote for Mitt because he is a Mormon: Hucksterbee's pathetic attempt to make the job of the presidency one of a religious test deserves the swiftest of rebukes.
As a twelve year independent voter who was annoyed at many of McCain's deviations from the conservative orthodoxy and who does not favour him for the nomination, I have to look at the alternatives and put my "ideal candidate" mould aside. (And as Duncan Hunter is the longest of long shots to win, that is a reality for me anyway.)
A McCain presidency or even one with Don Guiliani would have a much greater chance of getting another originalist on the court -McCain because he is overall pro-life in his outlook and Guiliani because (i) he keeps insisting he wants an originalist on the court and (ii) he is interested in outcomes and knows that a deal will have to be struck with the conservatives in lieu of other areas he is questionable on. And I say this as someone who does not want Guiliani to get the nomination.{1}
As far as the pro lifers doing their traditional geopolitical hari kiri, Hill, Edwards, and Obama would never nominate a genuine originalist for the high court. EVER. They would not even give such a person a chance. Do you the reader honestly think that McCain, Thompson, Hunter, Romney{2}, or Guiliani would do a worse job{3} in this area than any of the Dem major candidates???
A Hucksterbee nomination would be a disaster. As far as those who would not support Romney because of his Mormonism, as a friend of mine noted "it is better to be ruled by a wise Mormon than a foolish Baptist" -an apropo paraphrase of Martin Luther's dictum on wise Turks and foolish Christians.
I do not want to have to go through twenty more years of self-inflicted damage akin to the way the prolifers in their political stupidity in the 1986 elections got us Anthony Kennedy on the court instead of Robert Bork in 1987 and the high court voting difference in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey in 1990 which retained Roe. Religious pro lifers had better learn Jesus' advice about being "wise as serpents and guileless as doves" darn fast unless they want to go a long time undoing the damage that their 2008 election stupidity would foist upon us with a Hucksterbee nomination -and that is apart from Hucksterbee's naive view of economics which is beyond the scope of my time or inclination to go into at this time.
Notes:
{1} Plus, there are these two "commitments" as listed on Guiliani's site:
I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, & protect the quality of life for our children
I will reform the legal system & appoint strict constructionist judges
Rudy saw what happened when Bush tried to push Miers on the conservatives. He is no dummy and realizes that his stock is not high with the same constituency who rebuked Bush on Miers and illegal alien amnesty.
{2} Dialogue on Mitt Romney, Conservatives, and the Judiciary (circa December 16, 2007)
{3} I exclude Ron Paul from that list because he would be a trainwreck as president and not only because of his significant ignorance of American history and the proper understanding of basic constitutional issues. This is subject we will cover soon on this weblog in general (the post is already written) though a bit of a foretaste as far as Paul is particularly concerned was touched on in this thread for those who are interested:
On the Constitutional Standing of Wars Undertaken Without a Formal "Declaration of War" (circa December 26, 2007)
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)
[Prefatory Note: This is a near-verbatim text which we wrote yesterday during lunch for another site when the outcome of the New Hampshire primary was yet to be revealed. Some additional links from this weblog were added which the site the original text was posted to would not accept along with two additional footnotes that came to mind when formatting the original text for posting. -ISM]
Hucksterbee's nomination would be a complete disaster of 1964 proportions for the Republicans with one significant difference: at least Goldwater's political immolation planted the seeds that started the modern conservative movement. Hucksterbee will be carried along by the media because they are salivating at presenting Hucksterbee as another Pat Robertson if he was nominated. But prior to that, they will give him whatever life support they think he needs. And that brings me to the subject of the traditional electoral pro life hari kiri.
The pattern of the modern Court with Roberts as chief justice is not one of legislating from the bench. And with us on the verge of two more court replacements (at least one in the next presidential term) -ask yourself who is more likely to replace Ginsberg or Stevens with a juror of the mould of Thomas, Roberts, Scalia, or Alito.
A McCain presidency or even one with Don Guiliani would have a much greater chance of getting another originalist on the court. Similarly those who would refuse to vote for Mitt because he is a Mormon: Hucksterbee's pathetic attempt to make the job of the presidency one of a religious test deserves the swiftest of rebukes.
As a twelve year independent voter who was annoyed at many of McCain's deviations from the conservative orthodoxy and who does not favour him for the nomination, I have to look at the alternatives and put my "ideal candidate" mould aside. (And as Duncan Hunter is the longest of long shots to win, that is a reality for me anyway.)
A McCain presidency or even one with Don Guiliani would have a much greater chance of getting another originalist on the court -McCain because he is overall pro-life in his outlook and Guiliani because (i) he keeps insisting he wants an originalist on the court and (ii) he is interested in outcomes and knows that a deal will have to be struck with the conservatives in lieu of other areas he is questionable on. And I say this as someone who does not want Guiliani to get the nomination.{1}
As far as the pro lifers doing their traditional geopolitical hari kiri, Hill, Edwards, and Obama would never nominate a genuine originalist for the high court. EVER. They would not even give such a person a chance. Do you the reader honestly think that McCain, Thompson, Hunter, Romney{2}, or Guiliani would do a worse job{3} in this area than any of the Dem major candidates???
A Hucksterbee nomination would be a disaster. As far as those who would not support Romney because of his Mormonism, as a friend of mine noted "it is better to be ruled by a wise Mormon than a foolish Baptist" -an apropo paraphrase of Martin Luther's dictum on wise Turks and foolish Christians.
I do not want to have to go through twenty more years of self-inflicted damage akin to the way the prolifers in their political stupidity in the 1986 elections got us Anthony Kennedy on the court instead of Robert Bork in 1987 and the high court voting difference in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey in 1990 which retained Roe. Religious pro lifers had better learn Jesus' advice about being "wise as serpents and guileless as doves" darn fast unless they want to go a long time undoing the damage that their 2008 election stupidity would foist upon us with a Hucksterbee nomination -and that is apart from Hucksterbee's naive view of economics which is beyond the scope of my time or inclination to go into at this time.
Notes:
{1} Plus, there are these two "commitments" as listed on Guiliani's site:
I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, & protect the quality of life for our children
I will reform the legal system & appoint strict constructionist judges
Rudy saw what happened when Bush tried to push Miers on the conservatives. He is no dummy and realizes that his stock is not high with the same constituency who rebuked Bush on Miers and illegal alien amnesty.
{2} Dialogue on Mitt Romney, Conservatives, and the Judiciary (circa December 16, 2007)
{3} I exclude Ron Paul from that list because he would be a trainwreck as president and not only because of his significant ignorance of American history and the proper understanding of basic constitutional issues. This is subject we will cover soon on this weblog in general (the post is already written) though a bit of a foretaste as far as Paul is particularly concerned was touched on in this thread for those who are interested:
On the Constitutional Standing of Wars Undertaken Without a Formal "Declaration of War" (circa December 26, 2007)
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
A Friday Lunchtime Analysis of the Upcoming New Hampshire Primary and Subsequent Candidate Viability:
(Dialogue With Kevin Tierney)
This is a continuation of sorts of a previous dialogue which can be read HERE.
Kevin: well, next week we find out if the republican party is truly brain dead
me: indeed. Edwards needs to win or place in NH to still be viable; otherwise it is a Obama/Clinton race
Kevin: I can understand why people voted for huckabee, I think they are wrong, or are ignoring reality
me: meanwhile, Paul is [basically done]
Kevin: Paul did [a lot] better than expected though
me: Hucksterbee is not likely to win NH
Kevin: if Obama wins NH, we're looking at the dem nominee
me: Duncan Hunter is apparently putting some eggs in NH where in IA he had none
Kevin: which Rudy or McCain could dispatch easily
me: Guiliani's strategy is really risky
Kevin: I think Romney is toast unless he wins in NH convincingly well with Romney losing Iowa and McCain winning NH, it just might work
me: the two who did best in IA are Thompson and McCain in terms of establishment
Kevin: the true victor of last night was Rudy though there's a reason Rudy has been awful chipper the last 24 hours
me: I think Romney can lose NH and still be the nominee
Kevin: no he can't
me: but he needs to win elsewhere. Wyoming. Michigan. Somewhere in an early primary{1}
Kevin: Romney put too much time and investment into the two early states to lose
me: or he will be done. On the Dem side, Edwards needs to win SC and place well in NH or he is done. McCain is amazingly resilient in appearance -he looked to be toast a couple months ago.
Kevin: if Romney loses NH, expect Don Giuliani to make him an offer he can't refuse
me: lol. You mean VP?
Kevin: or some other high level cabinet position to bring Romney aboard
me: Ambassador to outer Mongolia will not swing it?
Kevin: though in all honesty, Iowa's influence on the GOP is not as pervasive as it is on the Dems
Bush the younger is the only exception. Reagan got trounced in Iowa, as did Bush the elder.
me: Iowa is not a Republican maker the way it is for Dems
Kevin: I agree with most, SC is the true kingmaker of the GOP
me: NH even does not require a win from either party however to not place or show in NH is to mean you are done barring some miracle. That is why Rudy's strategy is so risky -if he is not top 3 there after placing so badly in IA then he is in big trouble.
Kevin: as long as the race stays divided, with the new super Tuesday, he has a chance and if it stays divided, people may view him as the last hope to prevent the GOP from driving off a cliff.
me: Wyoming will be a factor this time if only to allow someone who has not done well to this point to get on the board and get noticed
Kevin: because lets be honest, Hillary won't be there to unite the GOP very likely. If its Obama vs Huck, I'm predicting an Obama slaughter
me: Obama would win easily. So would Hill.
Kevin: If it is Hillary vs Huck, Huck would win, but would do vast damage to the GOP.
me: you think Huck would win? I do not see how [as] he is the classic "cannot win the big show but can perhaps win nomination" kind of guy like McGovern in 72, Dukakis in 88, Mondale in 84. That is my gut on him anyway.
Kevin: he'd have a high negatives Hillary, and the rest of the GOP would swallow their animus but if thought fratricide was bad with President Bush, just wait til you see a President Huckabee he would be a guaranteed one termer and the GOP would be sundered.
me: and unlike Goldwater, the conservative movement will not rise like the Phoenix from his electoral immolation. Huck needs to be defeated and early but here is the kicker: no matter how badly he does, the msm will make him always sound "one hill from the shining city" cause as you said (and astutely at that) some time back Huck is roadkill that they are salivating for. He is a chance to say it is the second coming of Robertson who I remind you did very well in IA in 88.
Kevin: since whether or not one will say it publicly, Bush has done much to destroy the GOP coalition, and I'm not talking Iraq
me: Huck is the only candidate to have the taint of the "fundy coalition" on him. Romney is religious but he cannot be lumped in with that group as many of them view Romney with derision. You know, the whole "he is not Trinitarian" thing which is not the sort of argument that needs to happen here in the election where no religious tests for public office are supposed to be administered.
Kevin: one will see what happens, but things got a bit more interesting
me: True. I did not say Edwards needs to win SC because of the power of that primary as a major kingmaker though it is that of course. I remind you Buchanan won SC in 92 along with NH{2} so it is not bulletproof. Hunter and Thompson along with McCain have eyed it as must have for them and I cannot disagree. In Edwards case, it is his home state which he failed to carry as VP for Kerry in 2004. Edwards wins it and stays in or he loses it and is finished. He does not have (and would not get) the finances to go all the way otherwise.
Notes:
{1} As I noted on Saturday evening, this happened in Wyoming with a huge Romney caucus win.
{2} [Update: I misspoke here: Buchanan came in second in 1992. I had 1996 in mind when he came in first but mixed the two up in the chat; ergo this footnote of correction and the adding of the "mea culpa" post tag. -ISM 1/09/08 8:29pm]
(Dialogue With Kevin Tierney)
This is a continuation of sorts of a previous dialogue which can be read HERE.
Kevin: well, next week we find out if the republican party is truly brain dead
me: indeed. Edwards needs to win or place in NH to still be viable; otherwise it is a Obama/Clinton race
Kevin: I can understand why people voted for huckabee, I think they are wrong, or are ignoring reality
me: meanwhile, Paul is [basically done]
Kevin: Paul did [a lot] better than expected though
me: Hucksterbee is not likely to win NH
Kevin: if Obama wins NH, we're looking at the dem nominee
me: Duncan Hunter is apparently putting some eggs in NH where in IA he had none
Kevin: which Rudy or McCain could dispatch easily
me: Guiliani's strategy is really risky
Kevin: I think Romney is toast unless he wins in NH convincingly well with Romney losing Iowa and McCain winning NH, it just might work
me: the two who did best in IA are Thompson and McCain in terms of establishment
Kevin: the true victor of last night was Rudy though there's a reason Rudy has been awful chipper the last 24 hours
me: I think Romney can lose NH and still be the nominee
Kevin: no he can't
me: but he needs to win elsewhere. Wyoming. Michigan. Somewhere in an early primary{1}
Kevin: Romney put too much time and investment into the two early states to lose
me: or he will be done. On the Dem side, Edwards needs to win SC and place well in NH or he is done. McCain is amazingly resilient in appearance -he looked to be toast a couple months ago.
Kevin: if Romney loses NH, expect Don Giuliani to make him an offer he can't refuse
me: lol. You mean VP?
Kevin: or some other high level cabinet position to bring Romney aboard
me: Ambassador to outer Mongolia will not swing it?
Kevin: though in all honesty, Iowa's influence on the GOP is not as pervasive as it is on the Dems
Bush the younger is the only exception. Reagan got trounced in Iowa, as did Bush the elder.
me: Iowa is not a Republican maker the way it is for Dems
Kevin: I agree with most, SC is the true kingmaker of the GOP
me: NH even does not require a win from either party however to not place or show in NH is to mean you are done barring some miracle. That is why Rudy's strategy is so risky -if he is not top 3 there after placing so badly in IA then he is in big trouble.
Kevin: as long as the race stays divided, with the new super Tuesday, he has a chance and if it stays divided, people may view him as the last hope to prevent the GOP from driving off a cliff.
me: Wyoming will be a factor this time if only to allow someone who has not done well to this point to get on the board and get noticed
Kevin: because lets be honest, Hillary won't be there to unite the GOP very likely. If its Obama vs Huck, I'm predicting an Obama slaughter
me: Obama would win easily. So would Hill.
Kevin: If it is Hillary vs Huck, Huck would win, but would do vast damage to the GOP.
me: you think Huck would win? I do not see how [as] he is the classic "cannot win the big show but can perhaps win nomination" kind of guy like McGovern in 72, Dukakis in 88, Mondale in 84. That is my gut on him anyway.
Kevin: he'd have a high negatives Hillary, and the rest of the GOP would swallow their animus but if thought fratricide was bad with President Bush, just wait til you see a President Huckabee he would be a guaranteed one termer and the GOP would be sundered.
me: and unlike Goldwater, the conservative movement will not rise like the Phoenix from his electoral immolation. Huck needs to be defeated and early but here is the kicker: no matter how badly he does, the msm will make him always sound "one hill from the shining city" cause as you said (and astutely at that) some time back Huck is roadkill that they are salivating for. He is a chance to say it is the second coming of Robertson who I remind you did very well in IA in 88.
Kevin: since whether or not one will say it publicly, Bush has done much to destroy the GOP coalition, and I'm not talking Iraq
me: Huck is the only candidate to have the taint of the "fundy coalition" on him. Romney is religious but he cannot be lumped in with that group as many of them view Romney with derision. You know, the whole "he is not Trinitarian" thing which is not the sort of argument that needs to happen here in the election where no religious tests for public office are supposed to be administered.
Kevin: one will see what happens, but things got a bit more interesting
me: True. I did not say Edwards needs to win SC because of the power of that primary as a major kingmaker though it is that of course. I remind you Buchanan won SC in 92 along with NH{2} so it is not bulletproof. Hunter and Thompson along with McCain have eyed it as must have for them and I cannot disagree. In Edwards case, it is his home state which he failed to carry as VP for Kerry in 2004. Edwards wins it and stays in or he loses it and is finished. He does not have (and would not get) the finances to go all the way otherwise.
Notes:
{1} As I noted on Saturday evening, this happened in Wyoming with a huge Romney caucus win.
{2} [Update: I misspoke here: Buchanan came in second in 1992. I had 1996 in mind when he came in first but mixed the two up in the chat; ergo this footnote of correction and the adding of the "mea culpa" post tag. -ISM 1/09/08 8:29pm]
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