What McCain’s nomination would mean
(Note: Be sure to see Justin T’s comment below responding to Michael Graham.)
Someone at the Corner named Michael Graham says the GOP nomination fight is over. He’s very unhappy about it, but he says it’s over. After giving his reasons, he continues:
So it is over. Finished. In November, we’ll be sending out our most liberal, least trustworthy candidate to take on Hillary Clinton—perhaps not more liberal than Barack Obama, but certainly far less trustworthy.
And the worst part for the Right is that McCain will have won the nomination while ignoring, insulting and, as of this weekend, shamelessly lying about conservatives and conservatism.
You think he supported amnesty six months ago? You think he was squishy on tax cuts and judicial nominees before? Wait until he has the power to anger every conservative in America, and feel good about it.
Every day, he dreams of a world filled with happy Democrats and insulted Republicans. And he is, thanks to Florida, the presidential nominee of the Republican party. [Emphasis added.]
I think that last observation in bolded type is correct. I truly believe that Graham has identified the animating core of McCain’s political being, the thing that drives him. And that is why I have been so intense in opposing him, in being horrified and staggered at the very idea of his becoming the GOP nominee, not that I have been alone in that feeling. Though clearly, not nearly enough people have felt the same to prevent it from happening.
- end of initial entry -
Mark Jaws writes:
Michael Graham is right about McCain. Absolutely under no circumstances will I vote for him. In my hard line way of thinking, this helps the Mark Jaws Enclavist Crusade by further alienating the GOP rank and file and forcing them to look elsewhere—a true traditionalist party, such as the Constitution Party, currently being inhabited by kooks. By the way, if this is the same Michael Graham who I think it is, then he was fired by our local Wash DC AM talk radio station for stating on the air that “Islam is the problem.”
Justin T. writes:
This statement by Michael Graham at the Corner that was posted on your site caught my eye:
“In November, we’ll be sending out our most liberal, least trustworthy candidate to take on Hillary Clinton—perhaps not more liberal than Barack Obama, but certainly far less trustworthy.”
McCain is most certainly not more liberal than any of the Democratic candidates. To suggests that it may be so is so insanely ignorant of voting records and policy positions as to be almost beyond belief. Relatively speaking, Hillary is the most right-leaning of the Democratic candidates, and Giuliani was probably the most left-leaning of the Republican candidates. McCain is far more pragmatic than ideological, probably as a result of his military service, which leads him to positions that alienate strong conservatives.
That Hillary is doing well in the Democratic primaries is an extremely good thing for anybody even mildly conservative in inclination. If Obama gets the nomination, we will have to deal for almost a year with a highly charismatic individual pushing some of the most leftist policies ever promoted by a Democratic candidate. Because of his charisma and his color he is very appealing to self-hating white Americans and stands a strong chance of winning the general election, especially if the Republicans nominate a strong conservative who aggressively promotes policies that alienate moderate voters. If he is nominated and loses, we will have to deal with the huge amount of influence of special interest groups who will promote the idea that America is still a racist country and will call upon the Democrats in Congress to pass various forms of pro-minority legislation. Basically, regardless as to whether Obama wins or loses, it will be a lose-lose situation for the country as a whole if he is nominated.
Initially, I was a supporter of Romney, despite his flip-flops, but after analyzing the election in this way, the prospect of Obama winning, or even Hillary, was so terrifying that I simply could not justify supporting somebody who cannot attract enough centrists to win the election. The main issue that caused me to doubt McCain was his support for the “Comprehensive Black Death Act,” as you so appropriately called it, but he has since changed his position on immigration to one much more conservative than policies outlined in the Act. McCain is a conservative; he may not be a traditionalist, like you, but he still remains a conservative and is significantly to the right of most Democrats in Congress, with the exception of maybe Ben Nelson. So McCain got my vote in Florida, where I voted via absentee ballot.
Let us not forget: one of the greatest conservatives ever, Ronald Reagan, is the one who started this whole amnesty business in the first place. Is he not a conservative?
LA replies:
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Remember that I found the Graham comment at the Corner, not a place where one expects to see hotheads.
If we add certain qualifications to Graham’s statement, if we assume that Graham was not making a blanket statement about Obama as compared with McCain, but but was talking mainly about immigration and related things, would Graham’s statement seem less extreme and off-base to you?
Justin replies:
Well, I’m squishy on tax cuts, too, if it is not accompanied with budget cuts and policy modernizations. Deficit spending eventually leads to a weaker dollar, which is bad for the economy, hurts lower and middle-class Americans, and makes us less dominant in international trade.
Remember the Contract with America? That document, along with the positions supporting a strong national defense, is what convinced me to become a conservative in the first place. But what do we have now? What we have is a president who promoted tax cuts, but brought about the greatest expansion of the welfare state since the 1960s and the highest levels of deficit spending since the 1930s. Not only that, he had the full support of the Republican Congress! Even more pathetic, with control of the Congress, the Republicans could easily have secured enough Democratic votes, especially from centrist Democrats, to pass a balanced budget amendment and solve this problem once and for all. Did they do that? No. And this was a Congress packed full of strong conservatives when Bush took office, with Trent Lott leading the Senate.
McCain has stated, time and again, that he supports tax cuts if they are accompanied with budget cuts. We conservatives have become so ideological that we have lost sight of the bigger picture. The picture I outlined above was what happened under a Republican Congress. What we have now is a Democratic Congress where passing any kind of even mildly conservative legislation is near impossible, so even if we got a strong conservative elected president, he’d be able to do very little as far as passing any kind of conservative legislation is concerned. Who we need is a president who has the guts to veto all the pork barrel crap that the Congress is producing while simultaneously traveling around the country acting the moderate so we can win back the Congress, things that McCain has shown himself to be more than capable, and willing, to do. Not only that, once we get a Republican Congress, we’ll have a president who will veto the excess spending, balance the budget, and support conservative legislation passed by Congress.
Idealistic? Yes, but certainly more realistic than anything hardcore conservatives can produce. So, philosophically, I agree with Graham. Realistically, though, I know it’s unfeasible under the current circumstances and I know that we need a person who can work within those circumstances to produce a favorable result.
I once really liked the Constitution Party, and have even voted for their candidates in state elections as protest votes against moderate Republicans. Heck, one thing I really liked about them is that they wanted to repeal the 17th Amendment. That’s pretty conservative! Realistically, though…
Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 30, 2008 02:13 AM | Send