McCain Recruiting Pragmatists, Moderates to Remake GOP [Manchurian McCain has been activated]

Politico / Politics Daily ^ | 2009-10-02

[rabscuttle385]

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is taking the opposite route of most defeated presidential candidates: rather than quickly bow out of national politics, McCain is working to become a transformative force in the Republican Party, Politico reported Friday. Concerned about the GOP's direction, McCain has been recruiting and raising money for candidates who share his pragmatic center-right style.

McCain has been a particularly generous advisor to Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who he encouraged to run for Senate and threw a $500,000 fundraiser to support.

[diamond6]

Will this pathetic excuse for a man EVER go away?!!!

[right way right]

Do not give directly to the RNC.

Especially, right now.

[squarebarb]

Has anyone ever considered that there are a lot of hidden Democrat sleepers passing as republicans at the higher levels?

I mean really. It would not be past them.

That said, the fight is in the primaries. I hope the TeaParty people start turning that grassroots energy into joing the repubcs and fighting it out in the primaries.

I live in a red state so no point here.

[Jagdgewehr]

JM and the GOP...blind fools.

[downtownconservative]

Seems to me that McCain is sensing the need to redefine himself outside of Arizona. Folks there aren’t too keen on reelecting him. He certainly isn’t raising much money in-state. Ergo, he’s attempting to go global. Maybe he hired Axelrod as his political guru???

[RatRipper]

Out doing the bidding of Mr. Soros again, huh Juan????

[LeonardFMason]

LOSER, LOSER, LOSER. John McCain, aka “The Loser”, can only offer a LOSING strategy for Republicans. Did I mention he was a LOSER?

Please go away and take the stench of LOSING with you.

[JoanneSD]

Go away Juan, and take your duffus daughter with you... mmmmm mmmmmm mmmmmmm

[fieldmarshaldj]

Captain Strawberries is a monster that MUST be stopped.

[McKayopectate]

I’m beginning to agree, too, that Beck was right. With McCain, it would have been a slow death into Socialism. At least with Obama, it’s in your face, and we have stark examples to counter.

[DPMD]

This moron still believes he lost because he was too conservative. If the GOP even allows his stinking carcass through the door, shame on the party.

[GingisK]

Does he plan to transform the entire GOP into the reason HE lost? I suspect so.

[Truthsearcher]

Easier to fight the enemy standing in front of you with a gun than the one standing behind you with a dagger.

[nathanbedford]

I for one welcome these moves by John McCain. I know they will arouse a great deal of resentment, and justifiably so, from good, solid conservatives. But I welcome McCain's attempt to veer the party toward the left for the reasons set forth in a reply I wrote before the last election. We need to have a debate so that we can define ourselves. We need to have something against which we can distinguish ourselves. We need to have a fight for the soul of the party and we need to have a clear-cut winner. That is, a philosophy which triumphs and which is indisputably the guiding moral philosophy of the conservative movement and Republican party.

John McCain is unwittingly providing conservatism an indispensable service by opening a battle he cannot win but which provides conservatism the very contest it must have. Here is the reply:

Prior to the election, indeed prior to the first debate, I sat down my thoughts about the period of agonizing reappraisal conservative movement must now experience as we are cast into outer darkness. If we are to find our way back into the light we must be rigorous in the basics which build winning armies, winning football teams and winning political parties.

To me, that means that we must be ruthless in our search for virtue. This is not a time to paper over differences. This is the time when we have nothing to lose so we should come to a clear understanding of what it means to be a conservative.

As we conservatives drag the remnants of our movement into the wilderness with no idea how we will emerge or whether we will ever emerge as an electoral force in America which is recognizable by my generation, we must inevitably engage ourselves in the most soul- searing inquiry of what went wrong. This will be an agony but equally it will be effective only to the degree that it hurts. It will not succeed without bloodshed. There must be finger-pointing and bloodletting. We must carve to the bone. The process must be Darwinian. Those whose ideas are false must be bayoneted on the trail and left behind.

The object is to find our soul - nothing less. In a come to Jesus sense we must get absolutely clear what it means to be a conservative. Only at this point do we look to the tent flaps and open them. Those who cannot subscribe to the hard-won consensus, to a confession of faith as to what is a conservative, should walk out through that flap. Those who are attracted from the outside to the core message of conservatism should be encouraged to walk through the flap and enlarge the tent. What the left wants us to do is to expand the census in the tent prematurely and thus turn a movement into a menagerie.

We conservatives as early as immediately after the debate and certainly no later than after election eve will unavoidably come to grips with the desperate straits of the movement. The Republican Party at the end of this election cycle will be reduced to the citadel of the old Confederacy and a few Rocky Mountain states.

We will be virtually leaderless, President Bush has already been discredited in the public mind and John McCain will have been cast aside as an eccentric loser who is past his prime.

..................................................................

Events have borne out this prediction, John McCain has indeed been discredited and he cannot be rehabilitated by his own efforts or by the efforts of the media who have always been ready to side with him against the Republican Party. Let him bring on his crusade to move the Republican Party left. He will fail and the conservative movement will triumph.

[Gator113]

Screw you McCain.

[blf1776]

Sounds to me like John needs to start his own third party.

Any suggestions on what he should name it.

How about DNClite.

[Pilated]

This man needs to take a vacation and stay out of my life forever. It is time to leave, you have over stayed the position and you must go now. Go retire with all your money and stay out of politics. Thank you.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

If Steele allows this to continue

There is absolutely nothing Steele can do about McCain that you couldn't do yourself.

[mosesdapoet]

Kirk, voted for “cap-N-trade” and being pushed by certain forces in Illinois including WLS’s Don Wade & Roma am 890 on their morning show..Kirk is also a recipient of the Association of The Association of Pseudo Scientists Annual “Pope Urban VIII Keep The Faith Alive” award for 2010
http://www.theusmat.com/

[Neidermeyer]

Has anyone ever considered that there are a lot of hidden Democrat sleepers passing as republicans at the higher levels?
*****************************************************
When McStain loses his primary bid and gives up on this I want a copy of his mailing list and the candidates he is wanting to back ,,, it’ll be the best “negative indicator” we can get...we’ll know who to forever ban from any position of authority ,, they’ll never get a penny in funds...