McCain vs. Obama: restating the case

1. When there is a Republican in the White House, the conservative movement and the Republican party take their cues, the very mental coloration, from that president.

2. The heart of John McCain’s politics is that he refuses to attack the left (because that would be “divisive” and “hateful”), while he loves to attack the right (because the right is divisive and hateful).

3. Therefore, if McCain is president, there will be no conservative and Republican opposition to leftism in America, including, of course, McCain’s own leftism, and conservatives will find themselves put down and marginalized by the very president they helped elect. But if Obama is president, there will be plenty of conservative and Republican opposition to leftism in America, and conservatives will be at the forefront of national politics instead of being marginalized.

4. There is a further argument that professes to transcend the above considerations: that Obama will be so damaging to the country that his election simply must be stopped, regardless of how bad McCain is and how much he will damage conservatism.

5. The issue, then, comes down to whether you find the argument in statements 1, 2, and 3 to be more persuasive, or the argument in statement 4 to be more persuasive.

- end of initial entry -

October 8

James P. writes:

You write:

“When there is a Republican in the White House, the conservative movement and the Republican party take their cues, their very mental coloration, from that president.”

It is normal for the Republican party to take its cues from a Republican President. However, it is extremely troubling that the conservative movement should take its cues and its mental coloration from a Republican President. This is not the sign of a movement that is philosophically and politically confident. A movement that knows what it wants and what it stands for does not need to truckle to and apologize for any particular individual, even if that individual is the President. A confident movement would demand that the leader conform to their principles, and would never bend their principles to suit the political needs of the leader! A conservative movement that takes its cues from a Republican President who is not a conservative is a movement that is uncertain of what it really stands for, and thus spins like a weathercock according to the prevailing winds from the White House. A conservative movement that takes its cues from a Republican President who is not a conservative is a political cipher seeking to surrender on the best terms it can get.

The most dangerous thing that can happen now is for conservatives to fall into line behind McCain, allowing him to say he ran as a conservative but was defeated nonetheless. Why taint conservatism by association with a defeated liberal who has always hated conservatives? Better to stay home and let the two liberals fight it out.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 07, 2008 12:03 PM | Send