You and I seem to be in agreement here.
I was disheartened to see McCain become the clear front-runner. I do not want to vote for McCain, let alone donate to his campaign, but I will do so, despite being angry about this being my best choice.
There are several areas where I think McCain will be reliably conservative: trade, health care reform, and the WoT. McCain stands in great contrast to Clinton and Obama on these issues. He would likely be more conservative than GWB on his response to the financial/credit crisis and on earmarks.
He would be less reliable on SCOTUS appointments, but he won’t appoint another Ginsburg or Breyer, unlike Obama or Clinton.
I’ll have to hold my nose and overlook his history on immigration “reform”, campaign finance “reform”, and McCain -Lieberman.
I tend to think of those who refuse to support McCain as absolutists rather than extremists. Absolutists have a place in the party (but then, I also think that Ron Paul has a place in the party). They might be affiliated with a particular cause and view certain policy positions as non-negotiable.
This is understandable, but my view is that one must be more pragmatic in a Presidential campaign. The last several elections have been close. If Perot hadn’t run in ‘92 and ‘96, these elections would likely have been even closer than ‘04. The electorate does not have a conservative consensus as in 1972 or 1984 or a liberal consensus as in 1936 or 1964. McCain will actually inject some interesting dynamics into the race. It’s possible he could get a (slight) majority of the Hispanic vote, a large chunk of Jewish voters, and a majority of Catholics.
For this reason, I think that in the long run, McCain could be of great benefit to conservatives. He could realign the political map favorably to conservatives who run as Republicans.
Conservatives should also extract very specific commitments from McCain now. That means we have to negotiate and compromise, which is not always easy for principled people to do.
WOW - now that is a well-reasoned, well thought out position on the entire scenario that is facing all of us.
I’m also not a happy camper, but whoever the lead conservatives are, possibly posting here, did practically nothing to put up a candidate that could secure at least Republican votes and possibly independent votes in the final run. If you think about it, all the carping going on around here comes from the ‘absolutists’ (which to me means the same as extremist in this arena, along with far, far rightist) who sat on their butts versus encouraging those that tried to run or those that could have run to run.
Now, those absolutists want all posters to join their ranks to convey some sort of protest statement by no voting or writing in a candidate that has no chance - both actions logically produce a vote for the other side.
McCain isn’t the conservative choice, OK that’s a settled issue that was never in doubt. Next choice is - McCain, given his position on so many issues, but out all issues - plus the the position on all issues relating to Obama/Clinton. Clearly, it’s a huge compromise but given the voting pattern of Americans, a compromise that all conservatives, except the absolutist can easily make in view of the circumstances - it’s simply doing the right thing for America versus maintaining the unproductive self-serving attitude of many posters here.