Posted on 03/02/2008 10:58:52 PM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
It’s no secret that John McCain is disliked in conservative circles. Whether it is because of his pro-amnesty stance on illegal immigration, his reputed hotheaded temper when dealing with interns and staffers or the media’s unexplainable fetish for covering the travels of the McCain Straight Talk Express bus, McCain has a definite problem proving to conservatives that he is one of them. The thing is, though, if you have to remind and prove to people that you’re a conservative (or a liberal, for that matter), you’re probably not one.
However, for one Cincinnati radio commentator, the final nail in the Straight Talk Express’s tire came last week. Enter Bill Cunningham, host of WLW 700’s “The Big Show” with Bill Cunningham, on the AM dial. Cunningham, along with former Cincinnati-area Congressman Robert Portman, opened for McCain’s campaign stop in the Queen City last Tuesday. Cunningham, in a horrible act of insensitivity, said Obama’s full name! Oh, my stars and garters. He called Obama “Barack Hussein Obama” instead of “Barack Obama” or, as it seems Democrats have taken to calling him, “Messiah.” As if that was not enough reason for Cunningham to commit hari-kari right then and there, he then went on to say that the media needs to stop coddling Obama and start to “peel the bark off of” him.
As soon as McCain left the stage, he spoke with his favorite supporters, the national media. In a move that did Casca and Cassius — the prototypical back-stabbers from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar — proud, McCain denounced Cunningham, and assured the media that he had nothing but warm, fuzzy feelings for Senator Obama. Is this what someone who is trying to convince conservatives that he is one of them would do? Does John McCain even care about the fact that he needs the conservative Republican vote in order to win the election? Let me shake my Magic Eight Ball of Politics here … Well, the answer it gave is “all signs point to no.” For both questions.
Really, it seems like the only issue on which McCain is conservative is the war in Iraq. He likes to call himself one of the “foot soldiers in the Reagan Revolution,” but what would the Gipper think of the McCain-Feingold law’s restriction of political speech? Would Reagan applaud McCain’s global warming fear-mongering bill, the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act? How about McCain’s calculated opposition to President Bush that changed as soon as it became politically advantageous? It’s things like this that make me wonder if McCain is an escapee from a mirror universe, one where conservatives are buddy-buddy with flaming liberals such as Obama and Clinton, the most widely recognized leader of the conservative movement would have liked cap-and-trade carbon credits and draconian arbitrary restrictions on political speech, and “straight talk” means “saying whatever the audience wants to hear.” If McCain ever decides to grow a beard, I’ll be convinced that McCain is an evil mirror double. For now, however, it’ll have to remain a pet theory of mine.
John McCain’s strategy appears to go along the lines of “I’m going to win the Republican vote without getting the conservative vote.” By constantly shifting his views with the tricky, fickle Independent winds, McCain is pinning his hopes on gaining more votes from the unwashed unaffiliated masses than he’s lost from the conservative base. In essence, he’s hoping to rob Peter to pay Paul. This is a bad strategy, one that may have worked in past years, but one that definitely won’t fly in a race against the Democratic rock star, Barack “No Middle Name Here” Obama.
saying it won’t make it so.
Either you are incapable of comprehending the comparatively simple "fungible," or else you simply prefer making up your own word definitions on the fly.
Massive Fail, either way.
yes I know what it means. It doesn’t apply to voting.
I have to add what does it matter how how any President treats the troops if he gives away the store back home ( amnesty ).
Who backstabbed the troops on Gitmo and waterboarding and leaving the southern border wide open during wartime?
Who is going to make their vote meaningless by destroying the two party system?
John McCain.
well in 2000 we had the same choice but republicans voted for Bush who broke the balanced budget, came up with a new medicare entitlement instead of fixing it and the last time I saw him, he was dancing with Africans who were happy that he gave them billions of taxpayer dollars. The dollar is now at record lows and Moody’s is threatening to lower the credit rating on US debt.
I’d rather have my back stabbed than my wallet.
So hand it over to Obama right?
Great plan.
If Obama was more conservative than mcCain on even one issue then I could understand why someone would not support mccain if that issue was very important to them.
well now your thinking rationally,
Can’t have that during a nice McCain bashing thread.
btt
How about your right to free political expression?
The loss of the nation's sovereignty over its own borders?
The breakdown of the rule of law?
The invasion of America by tens of millions of foreign nationals, and that action being rewarded with the precious gift of American citizenship?
And, if you don't think those things are going to hit your pocketbook, you're being willfully blind.
Great plan.
Well when you republicans jump on his bandwagon when he is courting Democrats right in front of you there is no need for McCain to reach out to conservatives.
Great plan
Ah, there he goes again—The Lesser of Two Evils ari! Hi ari. How’s it goin’? How are the numbers, ari? Still at 62% of Freepers for McLame?
Why are you here trying to convince us? You’ve already said that McCain will have more than enough moderates to make up the difference and win the election. What is the point?
so...when he is president we can oppose him on those specific issues. We did that with Bush. He was for the same bill and that didn’t stop conservatives from supporting him on the war and other things where we agree.
if Obama was strong on illegals you’d have a point. but he would be worse on illegals and everything else.
Your second sentence proves the first one a lie. Now you're simply embarrassing yourself, really.
For ballots in any given election to be genuinely fungible -- pay close attention, now; can't grasp anything as inarguable and baseline obvious as this, first time out of the chute, and I'm simply going to steer you right back towards the shallow end of the pool, along with the other kids -- they'd need to be, each and every blessed one of 'em, the "rightful" "property" of one (or more) of the nominees in question, prior to their being cast, in the first place. There would be votes that were already "rightfully" McCain's (let's say), prior to their being cast, simply because he had a large-but-inherently-meaningless capital letter "R" next to his name on the ballot. Anyone casting one of those votes for anyone other than McCain would, in essence, be stealing from him, as "fungible" automatically implies ownership, or the possibility of same (duh).
In the real world, however, of course: no voting adult "owes" his or her ballot to any given candidate(s), solely on the basis of party, or past votes cast. (Again: duh.) This is not a land of kings, and we (much as Juan McCain and his most ardent apologists might mulishly wish otherwise) are not yet serfs, obliged to show fealty to our self-annointed, self-appointed feudal lords. Each and every single, last ballot vast on behalf of any given candidate must, irrefutably -- like a job's wages; like a credit rating; like a decent reputation among one's peers -- be, instead, be e-a-r-n-e-d.
Grasp that much, at barest minimum, and we might yet continue profitably from there. Failing that: I am normally (and rightfully) paid for providing tutorials of this sort. FReep mail me for a rates list, if you're interested.
OH I am under no delusion of convincing hardcore McCain haters that staying home and letting Obama win is a bad idea.
But to other readers here, it will make sense.
I’ve edited your quote so that it now tries to look like a logical argument:
For ballots in any given election to be genuinely fungible they’d need to be, the “rightful” “property” of one (or more) of the nominees in question, prior to their being cast, in the first place. There would be votes that were already “rightfully” McCain’s (let’s say), prior to their being cast, simply because he had a capital letter “R” next to his name on the ballot. Anyone casting one of those votes for anyone other than McCain would, in essence, be stealing from him, as “fungible” automatically implies ownership, or the possibility of same.
In the real world, however, of course: no voting adult “owes” his or her ballot to any given candidate(s), solely on the basis of party, or past votes cast. This is not a land of kings, and we are not yet serfs, obliged to show fealty to our self-annointed, self-appointed feudal lords. Each and every single, last ballot vast on behalf of any given candidate must, irrefutably — like a job’s wages; like a credit rating; like a decent reputation among one’s peers — be, instead, be earned.
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You are correct that a vote must be earned but there are only 2 choices. Either McCain wins or the democrat wins. What matters is the result. There is no choice called “both not win.” If that was the case, then not voting for mccain would not help the democrat. But since the democrats will vote for the democrat and you won’t counter that vote, your not voting helps the democrat win, de facto even if not de jure. The practical result is still the same.
Yes.
I'm fast starting to believe the McCainophobes have become neonihilists.
they would probably have to argue that McCain is just as bad as Obama or Hillary.
If Hillary ran against Obama (and no 3rd option) in the general election then would you vote for Hillary? I would find it hard to vote for either one of them. In that case, I would probably consider moving to another country.
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