McCain Haters For McCain

American Thinker ^ | September 05, 2008 | Randall Hoven

[neverdem]

I think I'm fairly representative of those conservatives who just could not stand to vote for John McCain.  But I now plan to vote for him this November.  Let me tell you why.

My published criticisms of McCain can be read here, here, here and here.  I even contemplated that a President Obama might not be so bad.  I think my bona fides as a "McCain hater" are fairly well established.  (Although I don't care for the word "hate" here.  I didn't hate him, just voting for him.)

To some conservatives, voting is a simple matter: only one of two candidates is going to win, so pick the more conservative.  By that measure, McCain easily beats Barack Obama.  Just compare, say, lifetime ACU ratings.  The score would be 82 to 8, McCain over Obama.  No contest.  But by that measure, if the Republicans had nominated Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), we should vote for her over Obama, since her ACU score is 22.

The logic of the anti-McCain crowd was not that simple.  Our time horizon was not just the next four years, but the future in general.  I had stated that it is better to have a Democrat President who governs like a Democrat than a Republican who governs like a Democrat.  Why?  Because the Democrats would get a twofer with the latter: the enactment of a Democratic agenda and the ability to fix the blame for anything bad on the Republicans.

And what would conservatives get?  An agenda they despise, blame for everything bad and no political party representing them any more.

I gave the example of Richard Nixon.  He did virtually everything Democrats wanted.  He got us out of Vietnam -- by withdrawing in defeat.  He hugged Mao Zedong, the greatest mass murderer in history, in public.  He imposed wage and price controls.  He gave us OSHA and the EPA.  His EPA chief then outlawed DDT, letting millions around the world die defenseless against malaria.  He appointed Justice Blackmun to the Supreme Court, who went on to author Roe v Wade.  He increased government spending to support a growing welfare state.

And what did conservatives get for all that?  A Republican President resigning in disgrace, a sweep of Democrats in Congress, oil price shocks, a recession, President Jimmy Carter, our enemies emboldened abroad and a political albatross that hangs around the necks of Republicans to this day.

In short, some of us think preserving a party that truly represents conservative values is more important for the long term than just having someone in the White House with an ACU rating somewhere north of 8.

If McCain were trying to morph the Republican Party into Democrat-Lite, I would not vote for him.  He could have demonstrated that by picking a Vice President like Joe Lieberman.  Nothing wrong with Joe, but he's not a Republican.  He thinks life is improved through government programs.  Republicans think government usually is the problem, not the solution.

But McCain did not pick Joe Lieberman or anyone like that.  He picked Sarah Palin.

And that changed everything.

Sarah Palin is pro-freedom, pro-life, pro-gun, anti-tax, anti-spending.  And she walks the walk.  Her life story is pure American -- even old-time, frontier American.  We can compare experience levels in years of "public service": her 12 to Barack Obama's 11.  But more importantly, Obama's experience consists mostly of missing a lot of votes so he could write a second autobiography and make speeches, while Palin's includes negotiating a gas pipeline deal with Canada and confronting Big Oil face-to-face and making it blink.

Sarah Palin also represents real reform in government.  Not just reform in the sense of ethics rules, but reform in the sense of getting back to the days where elected officials were normal people recognized for their real-world leadership, not professional politicians, usually lawyers, adept at making good excuses, not good decisions.  Alexis de Tocqueville would recognize her as an American: a Bible in one pocket and a newspaper in the other.

And because she is so young, John McCain showed us the future of the Republican party.  It's even more choice that Palin's nemesis in Alaskan politics is Senator Ted Stevens, the oldest, whitest, pork-barrelest, and now indicted, Republican in the Senate.  McCain made it clear: out with the Stevens, in with the Palins.  I am down with that.

In a stroke, McCain showed us his vision of the Republican party, and it is not Democrat-Lite.  And the base knew it right away.  On the day he announced Palin as his VP choice, $4 million flew into his campaign from internet contributions.  The previous daily high was under $1 million.  What does that tell you about what the Republican base thinks of Sarah Palin?

Yet we've heard this spun by our wise media as a scheme to get Hillary Clinton's voters.  We hear those same wise men advise McCain to reach to the middle and the left.  Such advice is wishful thinking or self-delusion at best, or lies at worst.  Five of the last seven presidential elections were won by Republicans.  When Bill Clinton did win, he did it with less than a majority of the popular vote.  The last Democrat to garner a majority of the popular vote for President was Jimmy Carter, who received 50.1% of the popular vote two years after Nixon resigned.

Republicans do not win by moving left.  They win by being Republican: pro-freedom, pro-defense, pro-American, by being the party of small government and big ideas.

The Palin choice was not about getting Hillary's voters, although that might help nudge the margin of victory up by maybe 1% or 2%.  It was about reinvigorating the base, the base that put Reagan in the White House with a 49-state victory.

This whole episode also shows me that McCain is probably smarter than I had thought.  He apparently has favored Palin since February; this was not a seat-of-the-pants decision.  His campaign staff was not only able to keep it a secret, it let the media drink its own bathwater in its silly who's-he-gonna-pick game.  And he timed it beautifully to deny Obama a big post-convention bounce.  You could almost think McCain knows what he's doing.

The surge is working.  The US and Iraq are discussing troop withdrawal dates.  General Petraeus is drafting a troop drawdown schedule.  The latest GDP figures show healthy economic growth.  Jobless claims are down three weeks straight.  And John McCain picked Sarah Palin for VP.

I'm voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin this November, and I won't even have to hold my nose.

Randall Hoven can be contacted at randall.hoven@gmail.com or  via his web site, kulak.worldbreak.com.

[Coldwater Creek]

This race is between Obama and Palin. McCain would do well just to kind of stay in the background.

I had to rethink my resolution to NEVER vote for McCain, when Obama became the nominee.

[incredulous joe]

I believe the poster’s fear is more akin to letting someone like Obama be responsible for protecting your home and family.

I much prefer the lovely pitbull wearing the lipstick.

[Coldwater Creek]

That's right. Mrs. Palin is no Al Gore who wouldn’t stand up to Clinton's trashing of the Presidency.

[Darkwolf377]

That's why Palin is such a smart and well thought-out choice--she reflects well on McCain because he chose someone HE should fear if he's not who he claims to be.

I trust McCain's promises because he's brought on his own ombudsman in Palin. I can't think of any democrat independent enough to bring an independent person onto the ticket in this way. It's truly startling.

[HarleyD]

Great article! I’ve been debating about going to the polls simply for the same reasons. I groan when John McCain said he wanted to include Republicans, Democrats and Independents in his cabinet. He really doesn’t get it. I don’t think Palin is one to sit around.

[Coldwater Creek]

McCain will no longer be surrounded by 25 year olds, who actually run the Congress. He's going to have listen to the big guys now. Which is what I believe got us Sarah Palin. Some wise adviser said, choose a real conservative or you're going to loose. They made a believer out of him.

[squidly]

Going with the writer's analogy, but correcting him where he has it wrong, Nixon does not equal McCain. Nixon = Bush, and Obama = Carter. That's where we're at right this minute, a very 1976ish situation. I'm not going to say McCain = '76 Reagan, but I certainly prefer the McCain/Palin ticket to Ford/Rockefeller. And an Obama administration would be just as disastrous to the country as Carter's was, if not moreso. Hell, he's already got a bunch of Carter's advisers on his team.

But we don't need to be thinking about McCain as the Democrat Lite that would bring us the raging lefty following in his wake. The raging lefty is here now (Obama), and he's following in the wake of an often times Democrat-Lite named Bush.

[Kimberly GG]

Ridiculous logic.

We aren’t electing her as President, we’re electing him and he’s the same today as he was the day before he chose Sarah. I like Sarah, but some folks are fools for falling for his game. He played it right, brilliant choice, and it worked. All the attention is on her. Meanwhile, he’s free to move, seemingly undetected, as far to the left as he wants. Bravo McCain. Bravo

[stripes1776]

But something happened. McCain reversed course on amnesty and even grudgingly supported building our Southern Border Fence...plus, McCain latched on to Drill Here, Drill now. McCain is a war hero, we all know that, but he supported the Surge in Iraq even before my hero, President Bush. That counts for something. He was for the Surge when sending more troops into Iraq was extremely unpopular...he’s resolute.Plus, McCain is pro-life.

He have hit all the points that I came to see about John McCain. But I must admit, I cannot say or write his name without hearing Sarah Palin saying the name at the same time. I was, like millions of people, powerfully moved by her speech at the convention.

But I was also powerfully moved by his speech the next day. And I think the key to John McCain the politician is his life in that cell in Hanoi. He died to self in that hell-hole. And the only thing he began living for was his country. I do believe the man wants to do what is good for his country, and not what is only good for himself or his buddies at the country club.

[Tublecane]

I sympathize, McCain-hater. McCain the man is perhaps the most respectable living figure in national politics. But I believe he would govern as a RINO in every arena save national defense. I believe this because of his record, and because of his leaning on the “maverick” label, which we all know refers to his frequent hops across the aisle (i.e. his frequent votes on the Democrat line). In McCain’s head, I’m sure he is a man above party. From the outside, he is a man between parties, leaning one way or another, often not to my satisfaction.

Perhaps it is not fair of me to single out McCain as an especially pernicious example of centrist bipartisanship (or, as I call it, sporadic liberalism). But my party (or formerly my party) has singled him out for me. For a time now, dissension has grown within me. i voted for Bush twice, swallowing steel tariffs, Medicare expansion, unbalanced budgets, pork-barrel spending, “compassion” (i.e. liberalism), No Child Left Behind instead of school choice, and so on.

The spectre of terrorism; the tax cuts; and the valiant, if truncated, assualt on Social Security kept me on board. But now, I wonder what I will gain by the switch to McCain. I know that I will lose ground on immigration and environmentalism. He talks of tax cuts and limited government only in generalities. He made a strong case for school choice, but then there was that claptrap about federal community colleges.

For those of you tired of RINOs, sick of ever-advancing centralism, socialism, and environmentalism (three synonyms, I realize), when are you going to do something about it? Why isn’t McCain too far? Can you imagine, eight years ago, in the McCain/Feingold era, rooting for this guy? When will the time come to embrace a new Goldwater, a new Reagan? When will we purge the party of its Lindsays, its Rockefellers, its Nixons, and its McCains?

Why isn’t now the time? I know what you’ll answer (since you’ve already answered above). You’ll say Obama is too dangerous. You’ll say Obama is the most unqualified and the most liberal candidate in this country’s history. I take your point. I might say now is as good a time as any to prove to the people how disastrous a quasi-socialist can be. But I know that economic or foreign-policy disasters on Obama’s watch would probably be spun by the media to advocate further state expansion, as all disasters are.

Then there’s Palin, who has excited me like no other politician in my lifetime—though my enthusiasm may be a bit premature. I was too young for the Reagan Revolution, the first election I can recall was Bob Dole’s run at the house. In four years, I’d vote for Palin. In eight years, I’d vote for Palin. But now, under McCain, I don’t see her doing much.

She cannot put McCain over the top. I choose now to strike out, to vote third party. I welcome a Goldwater to step up to be struck down (hard) by the left and the media. I welcome a William F. Buckley to put verbalize our angst and stand athwart the tide of liberalism. I welcome a Reagan (Palin?) to stand astride the pillars of power and yell, “Out, you pharisees! Out I say!” I welcome the internet to poor forth the wills of a hundred million rugged-individualists onto the opinion of the hour.

The rapture will come again. Then another Gengrich Revotlution will putter out, and another watered-down liberal will rule in our name, and we will have to begin again. Eternal vigilence is so annoying.

[Gamecock]

Republicans do not win by moving left. They win by being Republican: pro-freedom, pro-defense, pro-American, by being the party of small government and big ideas.

We seem to keep forgetting that.

[TommyDale]

I am voting for Sarah Palin in November. McCain will benefit.

[ozzymandus]

McCain wasn’t my choice, but the primaries are over, and I’ll vote for him. I cannot understand why the McCain haters don’t realize they’re helping Obama, and I’m sick of their whining.

[TommyDale]

"We seem to keep forgetting that."

No, the GOP leadership keeps forgetting that. Those conservatives who rose up against the GOP leaders this year were heard, just as with the Immigration Shamnesty Bill in 2007.

[papertyger]

I’m amazed by how many people needed Sarah Palin to see the light as to how big a disaster allowing Obama to win would be for America.

That's because you're still missing the point. Obama's not the issue: McCain himself, is.

[GLDNGUN]

Palin would be the McCain to McCain—if he went too far left, she would have no problem announcing this to all, even resigning her vice presidency so she could run against him should he seek re-election as a Democrat-Lite in 2012.

I have even wondered about that myself. What if McCain went off the reservation? Would she quit the VP job, like she quit the oil and gas board in Alaska? I really think she would. In fact, I think it would be a no-brainer for her. She would do it on principle, but it would also be a brilliant political move. The GOP would certainly side with her over an old man deserting principle, and the democrats certainly wouldn't come to his rescue. She would immediately become the odds-on favorite in the next election. Of course McCain knows all of this, so Sarah will keep him in line. What other VP in the history of our country had such a noose around a President's neck?

[papertyger]

Keeping McCain from being McCain is not the reason to support Palin; her being the leader of the Republican Party once McCain leaves public life is.

[GLDNGUN]

Do you think he will go RINO if President, or will he "conservatize".

McCain's choice of Palin puts the Obama/Biden ticket into a corner they cannot escape. When McCain takes office on January 20th, 2009, his choice of Palin puts him into a corner he cannot escape.

[infowarrior]

You could almost think McCain knows what he's doing.

After having watched how McCain and his team have handled this campaign from the start, and almost missing it, until somewhere between Saddleback, and the Dem Convention, I'd say that Mr. Hoven *almost* nailed it. I *do* think that McCain knows what he's doing, and it's been absolutely brilliant!

Lastly, I just *know* that he has even more tricks up his sleeve to finish this arrogant poseur off, between now, and November. He isn't finished yet...

the infowarrior

[endthematrix]

I agree. On the flip-side, Obama is the “One” that could pass some untouchable reform that only a dictator could accomplish. He’d be a one termer or deposed...but the Socialist Amerika progressive changes would be made and the democrats could play dumb. Obama would be championed (like MLK) in revisionist textbooks.