Miscellaneous Musings on Defining "Normalcy":

This was posted to social media yesterday and reposted here except for some material that was moved to footnotes. Without further ado...

So Clarence Oveur...err...Joe Biden is going to run on a campaign of "returning to normalcy." It is not an original idea as Warren G. Harding ran a "return to normalcy" campaign in 1920 after eight years of Woodrow Wilson and the drama and fatigue of The Great War. Harding won big that year actually. But what is "normalcy" in the modern environment?

For example, oil prices are falling big, gas prices continue to fall as a result, Trump's policies{1} played a definite role in that, and the US is more energy independent than at any time since the mid twentieth century. Is "normalcy" a return to Obamas policies here and once again due to overregulation, a returning of the US to being under the thumb of OPEC and the other Middle East cartels?

Also, for all the talk about Trump being a dangerous trigger happy and unstable warmonger, he has turned out to be the most anti-interventionist president since Coolidge militarily. Is a "return to normalcy" a return to regular military interventions around the globe?

Consider as well that the economy is overall doing the best it has been in about twenty years and wages on the lower end are rising for the first time since Monica was under Bill's desk. Is a "return to normalcy" a return to a sinking or tepid at best economy which flattens those trying to rise from the bottom?

For a variety of reasons, the problems with unchecked or lax enforcement of immigration laws in this country have declined and we have other countries{2} policing our mutual borders better which has fixed some of the prior problems of recent decades in this area. It would be foolish to pretend that no Trump policies has a role in this. So, is a "return to normalcy" a reversal of Trump's policies here and a return to the Obama/Bush 43/Clinton failures in this area?

Finally, there is as a result of Trump's tremendous originalist judicial appointments a greater judicial restraint at all levels of the legal system than we have seen in decades. Is a "return to normalcy" a return to the days of judicial activism and the appointment of activist justices who invent rather than apply the law?

Joe Biden plans to campaign on "a return to normalcy." It therefore is only appropriate that he be pressed on this point to explain what he means by that and if the supposed "national nightmare" we are supposedly living through right now includes any of the examples noted above.

Notes:

{1} Including reversing a number of Obama's executive actions that hampered exploration, drilling, and development, etc.

{2} Such as Mexico.

"One From The Vault" Dept.

I found this in the archives of the draft folder when doing a search for something. Apparently it was a bit being worked on for a while and finished on August 5, 2008 but for some reason, I never posted it. Since so many of these same kinds of arguments could be tweaked and directed towards Donald Trump or any Republican in the White House, I have decided for fun to lightly tweak and publish the material at the present time since the principles outlined in the text below are just as valid now as they were then even if every little detail may not be. Without further ado...

Oh brother...

Environmetally unfriendly read Kyoto,

Kyoto would cost a ton of money and do nothing whatsoever to change things.

no sane person doubts global warming. 

More like no sane person buys into this garbage and that is why Gore and his ilk are being sued by a few parties including the founder of the Weather Channel who has accused Gore of being the lying fraud that he is. The earth was warmer in the 1940's than it is now, it was warmer during the Renaissance than it is now, it was warmer in the eleventh century than it is now: with the latter that is why Greenland was named "Greenland" because it was green not the icebox it has subsequently become. However, the earth is also warmer now than it was in the 1970's when they were claiming "global cooling" and predicting a coming ice age.

These things are and always have been cyclical and the overwhelming majority of the factors involved are outside of man's control. Meanwhile, the ones that are in our control it is debatable to what extent they even matter except in the most localized of incidents.

The problem with people today is they have no sense of perspective on these matters and will believe whatever fits their inclinations. Furthermore, you have historians and scientists today who let their politics or personal views cloud their professional judgment much as you do judges and other people in positions of authority. The idol of "creativity" in jobs where "creativity" is not part of the description and only leads to confusion as a result.

Katrina totally mishandled due to cronies appointed to positions that should been held by bureaucrats. 

As if bureaucrats are to be trusted with anything...I am not defending the appointment of cronies by any stretch but the idea that somehow bureaucrats are to be trusted as competent is a comment that can only be made by someone naive as to the inefficiencies of bureaucracies. Katrina happened in large part because of weaknesses in the state system of Louisiana going back decades -decades I might add of mismanagement by democratic governors and legislators. Furthermore, it is not the role of the federal government to be handing out money for disaster relief anyway: something else that many folks apparently are unaware of.

Osama - still on the loose, fumbled at Tora Tora.

Yes, Bush was on the ground over there personally overseeing everything...how could we not know this. Phuleeze ;-)

Iraq - billions wasted, 4000 dead, no weapons of mass destruction.

The level of casualties in Iraq is ridiculously low by historical standards and still people whine. I trust most people believe the Civil War was fought for just causes and General Grant in winning that war lost on average 1700 soldiers a DAY in the final year. Both sides combined lost 625,000. There were whole battles in WWII where we lost significantly more than 4000 - Okinawa and Iwo Jima come to mind, so does the Battle of the Bulge and D-Day. Other examples could be noted but this suffices to illustrate my point.

I do not say these things to deprecate those who lost their lives in Iraq but instead to point out the ridiculous lack of historical perspective people today have as well as their overall weakness.

As far as weapons of mass destruction, it is interesting how many people think that was the only reason for the war -the belief by all the major intelligence agencies in the world that Saddam had them notwithstanding.

At any point since 1991 we could have lawfully gone back into Iraq because Hussein never abided by the terms of the ceasefire. And however this was dealt with in that interim, it was becoming evident that something was going to be done about Saddam at some point: that is why President Clinton reoriented the approach towards Iraq to be one of "regime change" in the late 1990's. And after 9/11, it was decided that certain things could not be tolerated anymore and one of them was the situation in Iraq after 1991.

But the media as is their wont never presented the full picture on this matter, focusing only on the WMD subject. As far as whether or not there ever were any -and a variety of sources (including former Iraqi generals) telling us they were moved to Syria in 2002 notwithstanding- it nonetheless was not the sole justifying reason.

I remind you also that even the UN voted on resolution 1441 15-0 but when it came time to vote for the actual use of force (rather than merely another toothless scolding from the UN) there were three nations voting against (Russia, France, and Germany) all of which were found to be receiving kickbacks from Hussein. Or have you forgotten about Oil-For -Food and that whole racket?

If determining the justness or lack thereof depended on a unanimous vote of the UN Security Council (itself a dubious proposition) and the parties voting "nay" did so because they were in Hussein's back pocket, that makes appealing to that UN vote to justify the assertion of "unjust war" a most pathetic and embarrassing stance to be taking.

Tax laws favoring the wealthy

The wealthiest 5% pay roughly 75% of all income taxes. How does this favour them?

while borrowing to run a war our children will pay for.

The problem with borrowing money is a problem this is true but is it a problem in principle or simply because the money is being used for something you do not approve of? If you say the latter then you are without principle, if the former than at least there is hope.

Stopping alternative sources of energy with his oil cronies,

And who is going to develop these supposed "alternative sources of energy"? It is not the role of the federal government to do this and even if it was, the federal government's history of incompetence on these kinds of matters gives us a good read of how successful they would be with this one.

The problem with economically ignorant liberals is they are all in favour of taxing the "rich" who often own the sorts of large businesses with the capital to fund research into these matters. (Not to mention business owners in general most of which are small business owners: they are often lumped in with the "rich" also.) Then they complain when alternative sources either are not available or are too expensive for average people when they are.

These things do not just grow on trees but require research, planning, and the risk of capital in speculative enterprises. But continue to whine about "the rich not paying enough" and levying more and more taxes on them so that they do not invest their capital in development in these areas. That is what happens when you have so many economically ignorant people -and a good chunk of the latter tend to vote democratic.

laws disregarded,

Yet I will wager that you have no problem with the idiotic notion of an "evolving constitution" which (if I am correct about this presumption) makes your complaint here have no merit whatsoever.

civil liberties violated.

This is a broadbrush term that you do not bother to explain further; ergo it is worthless until you do.

Firing of DA's for political reasons.

Where you this mad when Clinton fired all 93 federal attorneys upon taking office or is it just with this president firing 8 of them that makes you so mad? Or was Clinton's firing of all the attorneys altrustic and not political in nature?

My stance on what both presidents did is that as chief executives they have complete authority over that department so they can do what they want on it -and I say this despite believing that Clinton's firing of all the attorneys at once was wrong from the standpoint of having no continuity in this area where historically there always had been. But despite that, he was president and had the right to do what he did. That right did not cease when W became president.

Failed immigration policies.

I do not disagree with you on this one but the problems go back prior to this administration.

Disregard for separation of powers.

More useless talking points. Specific examples would be helpful here.

Politicizing the Supreme Court,

Are you nuts? The ones politicizing the Supreme Court are and have been the democrats. The idea that they would ask any justice how they would vote on hypothetical issues and use that as up or down criteria is abominable. But with the democrats, that is why they sandbagged Bork, sought to sandbag Thomas, and the like. Show me where the republicans did this with Clinton's nominees and his nominees are among the worst in history if you care a whit about the actual Constitution and the interpretation thereof as opposed to inventing things out of whole cloth.

alienating all our allies and many other countries in the world.

You realize I presume that a universal negative like "all" can be disproved by one contrary example. And when many of those who are "alienated" were on the take from Hussein, I frankly do not give a damn if they are "alienated" though in the case of France and Germany I am willing in light of the presidencies of Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel to consider the possibility that they have changed courses and are no longer collaborationists.

His financial policies have had a hand leading us into a recession.

What exactly are you referring to here? First of all, there is no definite proof that we are in a recession yet -even if it is looking more and more that we may be. There are certain measurements that all must align for that determination and thus far, they are mixed. Secondly, what exactly has Bush done personally that affects the economy negatively? If you want to claim that he did not wield his veto pen to discipline the Republican congresses of the first six years of his presidency, then that is a viable criticism. (Though the current congress appears to be more money-hungry and wasteful still but at least Bush found his long-lost veto pen to use on them.)

Have I left anything out.

Most of what you list is a bunch of either ignorant gibberish or terms which require further examination to see if the criticisms are even viable ones.

Bush is a disaster.

Bush has not been a great president this is true. He also has been disappointing in a number of areas. Nonetheless, your attempts to "prove" he is a "disaster" are seriously wanting.

Only blindly ignorant conservatives could rally to Dubya.

Considering the degree of ignorance of reality in your comments, I would not be so quick to call other people blindly ignorant if I were you.

Flashback 1991: Gephardt Called Bush's Speech to Students 'Paid Political Advertising'

I am sure that while many Republicans and Independents (not to mention some Democrats) were uncomfortable with the "study plans" released for students prior to President Obama's speech today, I doubt any of them would call for an investigation of the White House and spending public money on this matter. The same was not the case with the Democrats in Congress during the administration of President George H. W. Bush. Kudos to Noel Sheppard at News Busters for this scoop and pointing out yet another in a long list of hypocritical double standards employed by Democrats in Congress.

On Political "Front Runners" Historically, Sarah Palin's Prospects in 2012, Etc.
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

To start with, talking heads in the msm are already (so soon after the last presidential election) opining about various political persons and their perceived viability or lack thereof in the 2012 contest. I however do not play the game of political prognosticating this far out for the simple fact that a year is an ice age in politics and four years might as well be like the Jurassic period metaphorically speaking. A lot can happen between now and then and I have traditionally been very accurate in my political prognosticating{1} to a good extent because I do not play this game that far out. However, there are certain trends politically that one can use to forecast with a greater degree of accuracy what will likely happen and I will at this time do that without currently making any definite predictions one way or the other.

To start with, politics as a vocation tends to be dynastic to a certain extent even though there have only been two presidential "dynasties" properly speaking thus far.{2} But to a certain extent, there are patterns one can refer to from the past to better help them forecast future probabilities. For one thing, though it is not by any means a universal, it is nonetheless true that presidents who are successful more often than not had previous experience as an executive in some capacity. This experience could come in a variety of ways from business owner to field commander in the military to mayor of a town or governor of a state but as a rule the best presidents have had this kind of experience and those who were not as good did not.

By contrast to those with executive experience, senators and representatives in Congress who later on become president are traditionally not as good though again this is not an absolute principle but instead more of a general rule. And having noted those things, we get to the issue of dynastic political elements which I will now touch on so the reader knows what I am talking about if they do not already.

Since the presidency of the businessman and general George Washington, those who were subsequently elected president have always had experience in government in some form or another. In Washington's cabinet was John Adams the vice president and Thomas Jefferson the secretary of state -both of whom had high profile government positions before serving in Washington's cabinet. Adams would succeed Washington as our second president and Jefferson was our second vice president and third president. Jefferson's secretary of state was James Madison who would succeed him as president and Madison's secretary of state was James Monroe who succeeded him. James Monroe's secretary of state was the heavily credentialed John Quincy Adams who had served in various government posts{3} prior to being Monroe's secretary of state.{4} Quincy Adams won the controversial 1824 election after not getting the popular vote against General Andrew Jackson who despite his popular image as the first "commoner" to be president{5} as well as the first of the Democratic party presidents{6} had previous experience as a senator from Tennessee, house member from Tennessee, judge on the Tennessee supreme court, general of the military, and military governor of Florida.

We could similarly trace this pattern throughout all of American political history but pointing to the patterns that we have seen since 1952 suffices to make this point. Let us begin the more modern era therefore starting with Richard M. Nixon who was the vice president for two terms under former army general and president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nixon was the nominee for president in 1960 and we need not go over how the Democratic party machine in Chicago and other places cheated him out of victory in that election.{7} He later on was defeated in the California gubernatorial election of 1962. After losing that election (and claiming he was finished), Nixon came back in 1968 to capture the nomination and win the presidency and won re-election in 1972. Senator John F. Kennedy who narrowly failed to secure the vice presidential position at the 1956 Democratic party convention of course was the party nominee and "victor" in 1960.{8} His vice president Lyndon B. Johnson (Senate majority leader, former House member, and a candidate in the 1960 election) became president in 1963 when Kennedy was assassinated and won in his own right the following year.

Having already covered the Nixon election wins, it bears pointing out that when his successor Gerald Ford{9} ran unsuccessfully for president in 1976, he was very nearly upset by former California governor Ronald Reagan -winning the nomination by a mere hundred odd delegates out of a couple of thousand cast. Reagan of course went on to win the next two presidential elections by monumental victory margins. One of his adversaries in the 1980 election was George H. W. Bush who was then added as his vice presidential candidate when Reagan locked up the 1980 the nomination for president. (He was to succeed Reagan by winning in his own right in 1988.) One of the Democratic party failed presidential candidates of 1988 was Albert Gore Jr. who was added as Bill Clinton's vice presidential candidate in 1992. After eight years of serving as vice president, Gore was nominated as his party's candidate and ultimately lost the 2000 election by failing to win the electoral college. Gore was opposed by former President Bush's son George W. Bush who won the general election after fending off a tough challenge from Sen. John McCain in the Republican primaries. McCain as we all know was the Republican party nominee in the 2008 election.

I have traced this historical sketch out to provide a glimpse of sorts into how history has gone to better enable readers to better gauge how future election history will go. For one thing, those touting a possible future candidacy for Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal are already behind the curve in that my good friend Kevin M. Tierney in one of the frequent political conversations we have had was calling Jindal a possible "dark horse candidate" back in 2008 and already predicted he would run in 2012 and be the favourite for the nomination that year. I am not sure if he has changed his prediction or not in the aftermath of the political ascent of Alaska governor Sarah Palin but I have him on record picking Jindal as far back as at least eight months ago if not more.{10} In the meantime, I know of some people who are currently picking Palin as the front runner in 2012.

Speaking of Governor Sarah Palin, insofar as she goes as a front runner in the 2012 presidential election for the Republicans, a bit of history of former vice presidential candidates who later ran as presidential candidates seems in order. (I should note that when I say "ran" I mean was actually successfully nominated to run as representative of their respective political parties.) The first of the major parties to cover is the Federalist party and the only vice presidential candidate they had who later ran for president was President Washington's vice president John Adams but this example as well as the one from the elections of 1796 and 1800 cannot be used.{11} The opposition Democratic-Republican party{12} never had a vice presidential candidate who became president so we can rule them out as well. In the divisions of 1824 from which today's Democratic party takes its true origin to the present day, there have been several vice presidential candidates who have become president but in all but one case they succeeded to the presidency upon the death of the president.{13} The exception to the rule was the only vice presidential candidate who ever ran successfully as president later on and that was President Franklin D. Roosevelt.{14} There have been a number of former vice presidents from the Democratic party side who subsequently secured their parties nomination for president{15} but only FDR successfully won in his bid after securing the vice presidential nomination in a losing party effort.

On the side of the Whigs -a party that became the main opposition to the Democratic party in 1833 and eventually was replaced by the Republicans in 1854, two of their vice presidential candidates on winning presidential tickets became president but in both cases (Tyler in 1841 and Fillmore in 1850) it was because the president they ran under died in office.{16} On the Republican party side of things, seven successfully nominated vice presidential candidates ran for president later on. Of the seven, three succeeded to the presidency upon the death of the president before they made their runs{17} and two of them won election as president in their own right.{18} Of the others{19}, none of them successfully was elected president in their own right after failing to win the vice presidency earlier.

The history of political dynastic voting patterns points to Governor Sarah Palin being the logical front runner in 2012. However, only once in US history has a candidate from any major party successfully been elected president in their own right after failing to win the vice presidency on someone else's ticket. Does this mean that Governor Palin is certain to fail in this endeavour? Not necessarily. Senator Bob Dole after being nominated as President Ford's running mate failed to be elected vice president in 1976 and later on failed to win the presidency in 1996. There is no record of this sort to go on from the Democratic side of things other than the example of FDR. But before people read too heavily into these things as spelling certain death for Governor Palin's chances, they need to consider the circumstances behind the failed vp and successful bid of FDR and the failed bids both times of Senator Dole.

To start with, FDR did not have any executive experience when he ran in 1920 as James Cox's vice president and they ran on the tail end of President Woodrow Wilson from their own party who for a variety of reasons{20} was unpopular. No Democratic candidate was going to win that year basically under the climate of the times. Subsequent to that point, Roosevelt was successfully elected governor of New York in 1928 and thus by 1932 he had executive experience to make his presidential bid more credible than it otherwise would have been. He also in his presidential run had the benefit of opposing the boneheaded governance of the incumbent President Herbert Hoover who was no laissez-faire president by any means.{21} Senator Bob Dole ran as vice president on the ticket of a non-elected president who had previously been appointed as vice president himself two years after the previous vice president of his party (and later the president he replaced) resigned in disgrace.

The Ford/Dole ticket faced a particularly stiff challenge from former California governor Ronald Reagan which while it galvanized the party contributed in the short term to narrow presidential defeat.{22} Twenty years later, Senator Bob Dole ran for president and in a situation where his party had moved to prevent the possibility of potential upsets akin to what Reagan nearly pulled off in 1976, the deck was stacked in the primaries to favour party insiders and make a repeat of the 1976 nomination scenario next to impossible.{23} As a result, the candidate who was the strongest party nominee by force of party connections (Dole) was probably not their best candidate for winning the general election against an incumbent president like William J. Clinton who had recently achieved some significant real and perceived victories against the opposition Republican congress.{24} Plus, Senator Dole though he ran for president in 1988 and also 1996 had not bothered in the time since he was Ford's vp candidate to acquire any executive experience.

So of the two examples we have of successfully nominated vice presidential candidates, we have one that succeeded (FDR) and one that failed (Dole). We can also point to circumstances of the times of the various elections that contributed in no small way to the success of FDR and the failure of Dole in their presidential aspirations. What this tells us ultimately is the general rule I spelled out at the beginning of this posting applied here and the successful example (FDR) had executive experience that the unsuccessful example (Dole) did not.

So readers need to take that into account ultimately when they attempt to write off the chances of Governor Sarah Palin to successfully get her party's nomination in 2012 and potentially win the general election. Like FDR and unlike Dole, she has executive experience having been both a mayor as well as a state governor. As for predicting a front runner for 2012, all I will say is if Palin and Jindal do not win their re-elections in 2010, they will not be the party nominee in 2012 and while I believe they will both be re-elected (particularly Jindal), I will not dare to make a political prediction of the overall viability for presidential candidacy of either of them until they do.

As far as Senator Hillary Clinton goes, her chances of running again depend on how she sees herself in 2012. If President Obama has a successful or average presidency, he will not have any opposition in his party to re-election. If however he is a trainwreck, then he may well receive the sort of stiff party challenge that Ted Kennedy gave President Carter in 1980. Senator Clinton came closer to a come-from-behind victory for the nomination than any presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan in 1976. If Obama really messes things up, she may well run again in 2012 for far from being "too old" she would know that she would be no older then (65) than Reagan was in 1976 when he challenged Ford (he was 65) and four years younger than Reagan was when he won the presidency in 1980 at 69 years of age.

If President Obama is a disaster as president, can anyone think of other Democratic party candidates besides former Senator and now Secretary of State Clinton to give him a political fight? Only two come to my mind offhand that could be similarly viable. One is former Indiana governor and current Indiana senator Evan Bayh and the other is Virginia governor Tim Kaine. Bayh is from a politically dynastic family and Kaine as of January 21, 2009 holds not only his position as Virginia governor (he is up for re-election in 2010) but also is chairman of the Democratic National Committee. It would seem far more probable to me that Kaine would be more the king (or queen) maker than the king himself in light of his new position as DNC chair so that would leave Bayh as the only candidate I can think of who could rival Secretary of State Clinton as a party challenger to President Obama if his presidency is floundering when 2012 approaches.

Furthermore, Secretary of State Clinton's current cabinet position as a political precursor to the presidency was touched on earlier in this note. While it is true that her cabinet position has not been as influential in the past hundred and fifty years as it was previously, it still bears noting that four of the first seven and six of the first fifteen presidents were secretaries of state for a previous president{25} before becoming president in their own right.

Notes:

{1} Though in 2008 I was less accurate than the norm because a lot of things went against type in that election year -the msm shedding the last vestiges of their pretenses of "objectivity" to whore for Barack Obama in a way that was both shocking as well as frightening.

{2} The first of these was John Adams and John Quincy Adams while the second was George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush.

{3} Including Ambassador to the Netherlands under President Washington, Ambassador to Prussia under his father President Adams, Member of the Massachussets state Senate from 1802-1803, Senator of Massachussets from 1803-1809, Ambassador to Russia under President Madison until 1814, negotiator at Ghent for an end to the War of 1812 (and subsequently Ambassador to England) under President Madison. He also served in the Massachussets House of Representatives after losing his bid for re-election in 1828 until his death twenty years later: the only former president to serve in "the people's chamber" after serving as president.

{4} See footnote three. Quincy Adams was also the mind behind the famous Monroe Doctrine as promulgated in 1823 by President James Monroe and one the more fervent early slavery abolitionists. To say that he got by far more on his own natural talents than riding his famous father's coattails than President George W. Bush did is well established and beyond any debate by rational people.

{5} Which to a certain extent is accurate in that he was the first president who was not from the aristocratic class of American society.

{6} The Democratic party does not date from the time of Thomas Jefferson however much modern Democrats may wish it did.

{7} Nixon wisely chose not to go the "Al Gore route" and accepted the election results.

{8} See footnote seven. I would like to add here that I do not think Kennedy personally had a hand in any of this though that his influential father did is pretty close to being beyond debate really.

{9} Who became president after he was appointed to succeed Spiro Agnew in 1973 as vice president and then sworn in when President Nixon resigned the presidency in August of 1974.

{10} I would have to check my archives to know for sure but I have to give Kevin his due for being ahead of the popular curve on Jindal.

{11} The reason is the current law of parties running specifically as designated presidential and vice president was not put into effect by constitutional amendment until after the election of 1800 when Jefferson and Burr tied in electoral votes despite Burr being intended initially to be the vice presidential not presidential candidate. Starting with the election of 1804, the practice as we know it today has been in force.

{12} Originally called the "Republican" party by its advocates who wanted to claim that they favoured republicanism and the opposing federalists were closet monarchists. The Federalists countered by calling them "Democrats" to associate them with the French Jacoban democrats who were the architects of the French Revolution and its anarchial aftermath. Today, they are referred to as the "Democratic-Republican" party to separate them from the later Democratic party formed by the Jacksonians and the later Republican party which originated from 1854 as a coalition of old Federalists and a good section of the then-dying Whig political party.

{13} These include Harry Truman in 1944 and Lyndon Johnson in 1963 -both of whom subsequently won elections to retain their hold on the presidency in the following presidential elections.

{14} Who was the vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket of 1920 to Ohio governor James Cox.

{15} These include John C. Breckenridge who was nominated vice president on the winning ticket in 1856 who ran in a split party election in 1860 (representing the south) and Hubert H. Humphrey who was nominated vice president on the winning 1964 ticket who ran as the party's nominee in 1968. There was also Walter F. Mondale who was nominated vice president on the winning ticket in 1976 and was the incumbent vice president on the losing 1980 ticket, and Al Gore who failed to be nominated in his own right in 1988 and was President Clinton's vice president for eight years. (And as we know, he failed to win in 2000.)

{16} Neither Tyler nor Fillmore despite running as incumbents were able to win the presidency in their own right later on.

{17} Chester A. Arthur (succeeded the assassinated President James Garfield in 1881), Theodore Roosevelt (succeeded the assassinated President William McKinley in 1901), and Calvin Coolidge (succeeded President Warren Harding who died in office in 1923).

{18} Roosevelt in 1904 and Coolidge in 1924.

{19} See footnote fifteen.

{20} Too numerous to go into here.

{21} Contrary to the revisionist historical nonsense paraded about today as "history" supposedly "teaches."

{22} President Ford made some pretty bad gaffes in debate against Georgia governor Jimmy Carter which also did not help him.

{23} This ultimately is why I told the Republicans to go to hell after the 1996 general election and have been an unaffiliated Independent voter ever since.

{24} See footnote twenty.

{25} Jefferson for Washington, Madison for Jefferson, Monroe for Madison, Quincy Adams for Monroe, Van Buren under Jackson, and Buchanan under Polk.

Points to Ponder:
(On Presidential Hypocrisy and Its Relationship To Double Standards)

The issue of presidents and who really spends the country's money aside for a moment...

I can understand some who want things more irenic but I ask them this:

How did you approach things when GWB was president???

Did you play the "he was not elected" BS??? If so you cannot criticize those who question BHO's eligibility to even be president based on presumably failing to verify that he fits citizenship criteria. (The case against BHO here is significantly more credible than the one against GWB in 2000.)

Did you complain about "violations of free speech" when GWB was president??? If so then if you stand quietly while the party in power moves to silence dissent to a degree that GWB never even came close to doing (with this so-called "Fairness Doctrine") you are being a hypocrite.

Did you criticize deficits when GWB was president??? (I sure as heck did!!!) If you did and try to excuse them with Obama you are being a hypocrite since one year of Obama is more than eight years of Reagan, more than four years of GWB's dad, and more than five of eight years we ran a deficit under Clinton. Etc. [Circa February 27, 2009 @ 9:37am]

Briefly on Democratic Party Complete Control of Goverment:
(Aka "One From the Vault" Dept.)

This is not too deep a dip into the proverbial "vault" of responses written to inquiries on certain issues either personally or generally -actually then main text was written a few days ago. Nonetheless, the questioner's words will be in an appropriately dark green colour with footnotes added mostly on points covered in a more detailed format earlier on this weblog -though advance indulgence is begged for the caustic tonality in some of the McCain dialogual postings referenced in the footnotes. (Your host admittedly was pretty incensed when those words were written and did not conceal it as well as he should have.) Without further ado...

Conservatives: are you going to start switching to Obama now that...?

Obama has been calling for talks with Iran. Bush and McCain were dead set against this. Now we're talking to Iran.

Obama has been calling for pulling out troops from Iraq and putting more in Afghanistan. Bush and McCain were against this: "Afghanistan is doing just fine," they said, even though we've been there since October 7, 2001. Now the White House will be putting more troops in Afghanistan and taking them out of Iraq.

Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Jeb Bush were all against drilling off the coast. Now Bush Jr. is for it. Bush Jr. even said in a White House press briefing that it won't help our oil supplies in any immediate future but will help our psychology over the economy. This coming from a guy who was surprised to hear that gas could hit $4 a gallon this summer.

If the Republicans couldn't get it write in the 7 years they had both Congress and the White house, why stick with their party? Why not push to try an all Dem Congress plus W.House to see what happens?

We are talking with Iran but not in the way that Obama wants to do. It is one thing to seek diplomatic means to handle something and another to confer legitimacy on a thug like Ahmadinejad who has voiced the notion of wiping Israel off the map.{1} You cannot dialogue with those who want you dead -something Bush and McCain both realize but that Obama evidenylydoes not.

The troops are able now to be scaled down in Iraq because of the surge and the tactics of General Petraeus along with the Iraqi government and military finally getting their act together -fifteen of the eighteen "benchmarks" set a couple years back being met as of two months ago (versus eight last year).{2} Obama would have simply withdrawn the troops before the country was stabilized if we listen to his rhetoric on the matter. But as Iraq has gone from a mess to a success in the past couple of years, Obama will now flip flop a bit on that issue as he will continue to do on other issues.

Drilling will not solve problems overnight but building more refineries could help in the short term.{3} Obama and the Democrats do not favour such things but McCain and the Republicans would be open to the idea.

The all Democrat government has been tried and failed badly over and over. The problem is, the Republican congresses of 1/1995-1/2001 which were among the best series of congresses in ages were succeeded by the Republican congresses from 1/2001-1/2007 which were as bad as any Democrat congresses in recent memory overall. The reason was the executive. President Clinton was not a great president but he showed what could happen when an executive stands up to the congress in some respects.{4} Conversely, the Republicans who opposed him showed what they could do if they had backbone -they balanced the budget together with those tensions: something that has not happened since.{5}

President Bush and the Republican congresses under his first six years do not make a good case for why the Republicans as a party should soon be trusted with total control again. However, the problem is in my view more that of President Bush not showing executive backbone.{6} He could have played hard ball with the Republican congress and been successful. But it took a Democrat congress to get GWB to show backbone and while he has defeated the Democratic congress time and time again, it raises the question of why he could not have been this way the first six years of his term. My guess is he simply was too provincialist{7} and too much of a party man to tell his party when they needed to shape up.

By stark contrast, John McCain has been a fiscal hawk for his entire congressional career.{8} He has also stood up against the Republicans at times (even times where I did not agree with him{9}) which leads me to believe that if he had a Republican congress that he would be a far more effective executive than GWB has been fiscally.{10} He also due to his ability to reach across the aisle could serve as a control on the pretensions of the Democratic congress. I do not see Obama having any similar capabilities here because unlike McCain, Obama is a green senator who has no track record of going against his own party.

Basically I see an Obama presidency with a Democratic congress being fiscally a repeat of the Bush presidency with a Republican congress. And as bad as the latter was, we do not need another round of that kind of fiscal irresponsibility. And I guarantee you that is what would happen with all Democratic congress and presidency and that is why I would never favour pushing for such a thing.

Notes:

{1} On Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's View of Israel (circa June 3, 2008)

{2} Revisiting the Subject of the Surge and the Deafening Silence of the MSM Thereof (circa July 11, 2008)

{3} Revisiting the Subject of High Gas Prices in a Slowing Economy in an Election Year (circa May 31, 2008)

On the High Gas Prices and the Economics Therein (circa September 10, 2005)

{4} I do not buy (at any price) the crap of the Republicans "not being able to govern in the majority" ala what Rush has said for a number of years. That argument may have been valid in the 1990's[...] but not in the twenty-first century and with a Republican president. For crying out loud, these guys were stood down by President William Clinton -a member of the opposing party. Are you telling me that President George W. Bush of the same party (the "party leader") could not have successfully stood up to them??? [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 5, 2008)]

{5} And though many of the contemporary sorts ignorant of basic civics like to primarily blame the president for deficits, all bills for spending originate in the congress most specifically the House of Representatives. This is why the lions share of the blame for the deficits during the terms of President Ronald Reagan and President George Bush Sr. go not to those presidents but instead to the Democratic congresses of their tenures. Reagan and Bush Sr. also had promises made by those congresses to cut spending in fixed amounts which they never followed through on. (Reagan can be blamed somewhat for taking those disgraceful congresses at their word and Bush Sr. to some extent for not learning from what happened under Reagan as to how those Democratic congresses could not be trusted to keep their word.)

This is also why the credit for the reduced deficits and eventual balanced budgets during President Clinton's terms go to the Republican congresses of his tenure. But having noted these things, consistency on these scores demands that the Republicans not be allowed to skate on this. For that reason, we place the out of control budgets during Bush's first six years equally on the Republican congresses of that period and also for the same party president for failing to discipline his own party: there is no way around it however much the Republican party loyalists may attempt it.

{6} John McCain has been a senator who has to truck and bargain in the senate to try and get anything done whereas President George W. Bush has been the executive for going on eight years now who was and is in a position of far greater power and capable of getting a lot more done.

Whatever you want to say about McCain he was not a lame executive on numerous important issues as W has been for the first six years of his presidency. McCain did not fail to stand up with the power of the bully pulpit and threaten the veto pen to his own party if they did not govern according to conservative principles including fiscal discipline. The whole "well we are at war" excuse was pathetic...it may account for 2002 and 2003[...] but it would not account for 2004, 2005, or 2006.

And I do not give three shits about the fact that it will be another deficit this year: the Republicans messed up big time and attempts now to claim to have "learned their lesson" or whatever will have a difficult time sticking. The only real hope here is that the progress in Iraq continues to look good as it has been for the past fourteen odd months or so. At least with a Republican presidency in McCain and a Republican congress (if we can get that combination), I trust McCain to wield the veto pen against his own party unlike W who lacked the guts to. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 5, 2008)]

{7} Without exhausting much type on the matter at the present time, let it suffice to say that fallacious provincialism is present whenever a party engages in double standards with moral and ethical principles. The most prevalent one is where they give a free pass or promotion of various sorts to those who are their positional allies while either not giving a free pass or condemning the same things in those who are not their positional allies that they let those who agree with them get away with. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 16, 2008)]

{8} On matters of the economy, [McCain] scores a B particularly on matters of taxation having never voted for a tax increase. I know you think he deserves to be flogged for not supporting Bush's tax cuts all along but I remind you that support for broad and deep tax cuts in the absence of definite spending reductions is not a traditional conservative position. If anything, the traditional conservative approach to deficits is to raise taxes not cut them!!! McCain's position on taxes is quite evidently not supply side-based. I am not saying it is wrong mind you, only that supporting tax cuts in the absence of definite (as opposed to future promised) spending reductions is not a position that is required to be a conservative. And I say that as someone who does view tax cuts as important economic stimulator and who defended the hypothesis of supply side economics before a class of liberals back in college.[...]

I note this here so that you understand that I take a different view on this than McCain does in one fundamental respect yet agree with him on another. I do not favour tax cuts without corresponding cuts in spending also -increasing revenue is pointless if that increased revenue is spent and then some- so I in that respect embody in symbiosis two historical conservative positions in one. Prior to Reagan, the mainstream conservative position was one that favoured raising taxes and cutting spending. Even Reagan in cutting taxes wanted corresponding spending reductions so in this respect, my position is solidly in line with Reagan as would appear to be McCain's.

Reagan to some extent though he failed in this area can be given some leeway as he was working with a Democratic congress. Even W's daddy who really messed up by not learning from Reagan's experience in this area again was dealing with a Democratic congress. But W had his guys in control and thus there is no excuse -I do not buy the bullshit of "well we are at war now" as an excuse for a three TRILLION dollar budget and still running a quarter to a half trillion a year deficit. This was pure horseshit and the idea that Bush cares about the budget now when the Democrats have control is "nearly a laugh but [its] really a cry" (cf. R. Waters). [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]

{9} On immigration, McCain gets a D or worse of that there is no doubt. You know my views on this and my disappointment in his position. But the problem is, his position is not different in substance than the one Reagan had...you know, one of those areas where Reagan made a mistake. But The Gipper for better or worse has framed this issue as an acceptable conservative hypothesis by virtue of his support for the proposal coupled with his status as a great conservative party icon. We would be wise to not forget that however much we view that position of McCain's part as a monumental mistake. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa April 26, 2008)]

{10} At least with a Republican presidency in McCain and a Republican congress (if we can get that combination), I trust McCain to wield the veto pen against his own party unlike W who lacked the guts to. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 5, 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 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.

A Dialogue on John McCain and "Conservatism":

This is the text of an email I sent out on February 15, 2008. Barring the permission of the person whose email I responded to below to use their actual name{1}, this response will be posted anonymously. Their words will be in darkgreen font.

Michael Medved (or Michael Methhead as he was affectionately referred to by a caller to Rick Roberts, a talk radio local yokel) has the audacity to call McCain a Reagan Republican here.

I read that thread the other day actually.

What kind of Reagan Republican busts his ass to endear himself to the leftist media, sellout to the pseudo-science loving global warming touting, Algore worshipping, enviromentally ill wackos, whose significant legislative achievements also bear the names of the most radical leftist Democraps in the Senate.

I remind you XXXXXXX that it is nearly impossible to do anything legislatively without some degree of reaching across the aisle unless one party dominates the congresses and the presidency significantly. And as that has not been seen since the first administration of fdr, it is not something that can or should be presumed at any time. And as the most influential persons in the Democratic camp (and the ones therefore who have the most "pull" influentially) are the older and more liberal ones, that does not leave much of a choice tactically.

You would do well to remember that every conservative has had to make deals with liberals to get things passed and vice versa. Reagan never would have gotten his agenda through (the parts of it that he did anyway) without the help of O'Neill and before you claim that was cause they were in his favour, remember that he also was involved in policies that were not beneficial to the conservative cause. The tax increases that Reagan agreed to in 1982 is one example.{2} The mass amnesty from 1986 was another. More could be noted but on both of those suffice to illustrate my point adequately enough for now.

Now while becuase Reagan never was a Senator and therefore can we can never know for sure what kind of record he would have had there, it is more than safe to say that the Reagan we know and love would not have been caught dead acting anything like John McCain. Hell, even Bob "let's make a deal" Dole never would have been caught dead doing such a thing either.

Shawn, if you think McCain would govern more conservatively than even the not so conservative Bush, you really need to flush out your headgear.

Frankly, anyone but Huckabee among the candidates this year would govern more conservatively than Bush did. Other than the tax cuts and war in 2003, the surge in 2007, and two justices on the court in 2005 and 2006 respectively, Bush has been a disgrace. 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 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 1996 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 and 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.{2} This is akin to 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 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.

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. He also has been Shea-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 Mark Shea and Steve Dillard 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.

My stance on the whole "torture" subject has been firm and unequivocal -both in what I have written for this weblog on the subject in particular{3} and also in my support for Steve Dillard's enterprise contra Rudy Guiliani despite certain points on which we were not in agreement with him.{4} Certain refinements in his presentation were obtained by us to secure and sustain our support{5} and in other areas we made our divergences known in expository format.{6} That having been said, there is a degree of politics involved when you have elections and politicians running for office.

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.

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.

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 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.

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. 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. And he also considered bolting the GOP but Jumpin' Jim jumped first first (say that real fast ten times) stealing his thunder.

What I do not understand is this: you are angry because we have McCain as a Republican nominee and have talked about throwing this to the Democrats in 2008 so that the establishment finally realizes that pretending that conservatives can be completely ignored is a policy that means certain defeat. But then in the past you have said that my voting for Perot was stupid because it essentially gave the election to Clinton as a lot of people approached this as I did. Now you seem to functionally advocate now what I advocated then.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 would not be so constrained.

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.

On one hand, a good case can be made that he is better than both Shrillary and [Obama]. 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.

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.

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. 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."

Furthermore, the Reagan years were an aberration of sorts...in the past hundred ten odd years, there were only three non-establishment Republican candidates: Teddy Roosevelt, Barry Goldwater, and Ronald Reagan.{7} TR only became president because the establishment plan to shut him up by making him vice president backfired when McKinley was assassinated. He was able to get elected on his own in 1804 and if he had not died when he did, probably would have won in 1920...a story for another time altogether perhaps.

Goldwater broke the back of the establishment in 1964 along with the Democratic stronghold of the south though he lost in a landslide thanks to the establishment doing their part of not supporting him as they should have. But he made an important breakthrough because other than his home state of Arizona, all the states he won electorally were in the deep south: a break of the "solid south" which had been dominated by Democrat electoral power since 1856. This paved the way for Nixon to come through in 1968 and then even more spectacularly in 1972 but Nixon was an establishment candidate. He was replaced by Ford in 1974 and in 1976, the entire establishment supported Ford against Reagan -even Goldwater who basically brokered Nixon's resignation supported Ford over the candidate who was ideologically much closer to himself.

And if not for Carter being such a horrible president, Reagan would probably not have been elected in 1980. There was that and also because Carter and his advisers made the same mistake in 1980 that Governor Pat Brown and his advisers did in California in 1966: they presumed Reagan was easier to beat than the other major candidates so they sabotaged the front runner to get Reagan as an opponent. So Reagan got the nomination, resisted the attempts to paint him in demonic colours that the Democrats tried to do, and won in 1980 by significantly dominating the south -winning all but Georgia and West Virginia. He added those states in in 1984 when he swept the south: the second time a Republican had ever done that. (Nixon was the first in the 1972 election to do it.)

Bush Sr. ran as carrying Reagan's mantle the same way that Taft ran as carrying TR's mantle in 1912. And just as Taft was a huge disappointment, so too was Bush Sr. and both of them lost re-election in three party races. The Republicans in 1916 as in 1996 went with an establishment candidate and need I go on???

The bottom line is, what we saw this year is historically more probable than not.{8}

For what could be a response to Medved's Kool Aid drinking (although it isn't actually) Rush's little brother has this to say.

David is wrong: McCain is not "liberal lite." Compared to Obama (8%) and Clinton (9%), McCain's lifetime conservative rating is 82.3%. That is lower than the ratings of Tancredo (97.8%), Brownback (94%), Hunter (92%), Thompson (83%). I am not sure about Guiliani and Romney but if we consider the flopflop of Romney and Guiliani's views on certain core conservative issues where he is seriously lacking (unlike McCain) it seems probable that both of them would finish lower than McCain on that score. (The American Conservative Union does not rank governors or mayors so this is a nebulous area

P.S. You may have heard of Rick Roberts. He fills in for Michael Weiner (aka Michael Savage. Weiner is his real name).

I am familiar with both Rick Roberts and also Michael Savage's real name. It is Dr. Michael Weiner Ph.D. by the way...Savage likes to remind people of his degrees to the point to where it is as annoying as listening to Rush carry water for the Republicans used to be. But I digress.

Notes:

{1} In accordance with our long time usage of private correspondence in particular circumstances which was expounded upon with some detail over two years ago on our miscellaneous weblog.

{2} I decided by the nature of what we are dealing with here -as well as a lack of time to revise this thread to be more benign- to simply reproduce with minor at best revisions what I originally wrote in response to this emailer. However, having said what I have, do not expect much else along these lines from this writer during the election year for reasons noted in the text above.

{3} To note some key examples briefly from the archives:

Eric Johnson vs. Mark Shea on Torture (circa July 17, 2006)

On Torture and General Norms of Theological Interpretation Contra Certain "Apologist" Fundamentalist Hermeneutics--Parts I-III (circa October 13, 2006)

On Torture and General Norms Revisited -A Response to Dr. Scott Carson (circa October 25, 2006)

More on Torture and the Problems With Trying To Discount the Historical Record Explicitly or Otherwise (circa November 1, 2006)

On Torture, the Limitations of Dignitatis Humanae, Logic, Etc.--A Response to Dr. Michael Liccione (circa November 14, 2006)

Defining the Word "Torture" Since No One Else Will (circa November 18, 2006)

{4} On the Catholics Against Rudy Website (circa July 12, 2007)

{5} Miscellaneous Notes (circa August 14, 2007)

{6} Clarifying a Previous Endorsement of Catholics Against Rudy (circa August 29, 2007)

{7} The Democrats had only one -Harry Truman- in that same span of time if you exclude the thrice defeated William Jennings Bryan.

{8} I wrote a bit on this subject long before this email was received but it was in draft form until earlier this month when it was blogged. The subjects covered were the historical background of presidential front runners as well as presidential underdogs and can be read HERE for those who are interested.