Posted on 08/19/2008 12:31:41 PM PDT by LdSentinal
As speculation grows around who John McCain will select as his vice presidential running mate next week, Republican National Committee officials said Tuesday that McCain is no longer considering former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.
Several sources at the RNC told FOX News that in the last 36 hours, senior McCain advisers and aides have told RNC officials that McCain “got the message” last week that choosing a running mate who supports abortion rights would not be helpful.
GOP pundits had been vocal in urging the presumptive presidential nominee not to pick a running mate who supports abortion rights. Ridge, the first homeland security secretary, was said to be on McCain’s short list, and the only candidate who explicitly supports abortion rights.
The National Review reported Monday that the McCain campaign has been calling key state Republican officials around the country in recent days to weigh the consequences of picking a candidate who backs abortion rights. The conservative magazine interpreted that as a sign that the McCain campaign is seriously considering Ridge or another abortion rights defender.
“I think it’s a hard sell and I don’t see much upside to Tom Ridge except for John McCain likes him a lot,” National Review Editor Rich Lowry told Fox News Tuesday.
“I don’t think he’s going to be a big benefit in Pennsylvania and even if he is, I think the downside is the rest of the country among conservatives are going to be upset about this, just at the moment they’re beginning to work up being excited about John McCain. ”
Conservative commentator David Limbaugh went even further Tuesday, labeling a McCain-Ridge ticket “political suicide.”
(Excerpt) Read more at elections.foxnews.com ...
I agreed (past tense) until the most recent of the bunch, where McCain attacks Big Tobacco, Big Corporations, and especially, Big Oil. Yes, Washington IS broken, but the problem is that our SINGLE-DIGIT CONGRESS is broken.
The mess we are in is solely and absolutely the fault of Congressional meddling, and now this “gang-of-10” wants to meddle even more.
Meddle with commodity markets, where traders have knocked the price of oil dowm from $147 to $113 as soon as they thought the US might actually get serious about drilling, thus PROVING that the issue is best addressed on the SUPPLY side.
Meddle with the product itself, with its infamous “ethanol mandate” that has stolen two miles from every gallon of adulterated gasoline I buy, and raised the price of virtually everything else I buy.
Meddle with the oil companies, by removing tax deductions, raising the amount these companies must collect from their customers - that’s us, folks - by $68 billion so they can misallocate and misdirect the funds into blind alleys of meaningless, politically correct “research” that is really more about the fine art of “grants-manship”.
CONTINUE to meddle in the process of exploration and extraction of our own AMERICAN energy resources with nonsensical restrictions and limitations on locations and technologies. 50-mile limit? There MIGHT be oil there, but we KNOW there is oil much closer to shore.
MY PERSONAL CONTEMPT FOR THE SINGLE-DIGIT CONGRESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS!
“senior McCain advisers and aides have told RNC officials that McCain “got the message” last week that choosing a running mate who supports abortion rights would not be helpful.”
McCain “got the message”? Coming from McCain, not the most reassuring phrase they could have chosen. We’ve heard that phrase before.
Is Whitman pro-life?
Hooray! I hope this is accurate...
No doubt the polling data following his appearance at Saddleback was quite the eye opener for McC and his advisers.
Americans respect life whether they are pro life or not. A lesson McC needed to learn and thankfully, it would seem, he did learn the lesson.
The ‘debate’ has been a turning point in this election, IMHO.
ROFL
Oh, you’re back already! That didn’t take long! LOL
-—”Is Whitman pro-life?”-—
No. She is not.
Gotta go — will post a thread about it later.
Great news!!!!!!!!!!!
Now let’s give the McCain camp some names of STRONG pro-life, conservatives, and here’s McCain contact info.:
John McCain 703-418-2008 and e-mail jpblack@mccain08hq.com and http://www.johnmccain.com/Contact/
Here’s who I like, because they are STRONGLY pro-life, and very conservative in other ways, as well. Mark Sanford, Bobby Jindal, Rep. Eric Cantor, Rob Portman, Rep. John Kasich and my very favorite would be Duncan Hunter (I can hope for Hunter, can’t I?)
He won't choose Lieberman. Why would you choose a previous VP loser from the other party? Even McCain won't do that. Lieberman will be in the cabinet.
The midwest is the hot spot. Will be someone who can help deliver that area. Hope for Romney but doubt it since that makes too much sense. Palin is about as experienced as Obama, so won't be her.
Given Romney’s liberal record, particularly regarding abortion (until maybe a year ago, he was adamantly in favor of Roe v. Wade), I would hope for another runningmate for Senator McCain. There are many solid conservatives that he could choose: Gov. Pawlenty, Congressman Cantor, Congressman Portman, Gov. Jindal and Gov. Palin would all be far better choices.
As for Michael Steele, he’s 100% pro-life and is fairly conservative on other positions, and I was heartbroken when he lost to Ben Cardin in the 2006 Senate race. I hope Steele runs for Governor of MD in 2010 (with former Gov. Ehrlich running for the Senate). If Steele can win the governorship, he would be well on his way to a spot on a presidential ticket in 2012 or (more likely) 2016. But John McCain can’t pick a former single-term Lt. Gov. of a Democrat state as his runningmate.
BTW, Michael Steele is one of two black conservative Republicans that would be strong candidates for the VP had they won in 2006; the other, former OH Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (who is actually far more conservative than Steele), would probably be a no-brainer for VP had he won the governorship of swing-state OH.
Let it be Mitt! :-)
Link to Ken Blackwell's Biography: http://www.kenblackwell.com/
Just some of his many many accomplishments. You cam find many many many more at the above link.
In 1998, Mr. Blackwell delivered the Becket Lecture on Religious Liberty at Oxford University. Since the spring of 2004, he has been a member of the Arlington Group, an influential national coalition of pro-life, pro-family and religious leaders and organizations.
In 2004, the American Conservative Union and the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs honored Mr. Blackwell with the John M. Ashbrook Award for his steadfast conservative leadership. Past recipients of the award include President Ronald Reagan, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Charlton Heston.
What does McCain even have to take a poll if he has REAL beliefs
You can’t have a better team than this for our country.
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