Posted on 01/23/2008 9:33:13 AM PST by Signalman
Genuine front-runners don't have to crisscross the country with a tin cup days before a crucial primary, but the Arizona maverick has no grassroots fund-raising effort like Obama's Romney's or Huckabee's, and no personal wealth to match Romney's. It is a foreshadowing of what the GOP will be up against from now until September if McCain is nominated --a poorly funded, aging, Beltway establishment figure with deep and abiding opposition among conservatives and no real ability to bring in the cash to compete with either Hillary or Obama should he draw the inside straight and gain the nomination.
Even fans of McCain have to admit his candidacy is built on the prayer of converting conservatives and then a second prayer of getting them to open their wallets. Because of the deep disagreements of the past, they won't be converting, and even if they resign themselves to his nomination should it happen, they won't be contributing.
Giuliani, Huckabee and Romney all can make a straight-faced argument that they can tap their opponents' donor bases between now and the Convention. But not McCain. His is a crippled candidacy desperately hoping to lock up the nomination on the strength of MSM-generated momentum against a strong and growing conservative headwind before the GOP wakes up fully to just how damaged a nominee he would be: Bob Dole without the charisma or the money the former Majority Leader had in 1996 on his way to the decisive defeat at the hands of a Clinton.
UPDATE: See Amy Goldstein's "Why They Hate Mitt Romney" in today's American Thinker. The money --both poersonal and in the fund-raising machine-- is part of the answer.
But Republicans who know what is ahead when the Clinton-Soros machine turns from taking Obama apart digit by digit goes after their nominee, and they know the ability to raise money as well as donate from personal wealth is crucial to matching the onslaught ahead.
Thinking about sending McCain some money?
Don’t you DARE!
What’s going on is the same since Iowa. Romney is trying to buy the election. He’s up on every station of any consequence in FL multiple times. It’s disgusting.
No money from me.
Well, like I alway say, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it”.
Yeah, not going to George Soros for election financing is really, really disgusting.
Don’t worry, I think Soros made help McCain out.
Soon it will be the guy with the record showing he’s a gun grabbing, pro-abortion, big government, open borders - Mitt - vs the advocate of limited government, Ron Paul.
Mitt’s recent record on the military? To say in a debate, he’d have to check with his lawyers.
Ron’s approach? The constitutional one. Congress must declare war.
You decide.
No, it has to do with Herr Doktor Goebbels’ oft-repeated line about telling big lies often enough that people believe them.
Ron Paul is a first-class liar.
I’d be happier if he made a dash for the exit.
Exactly. You can’t “buy” an election, no matter how much money you spend, if no one wants what your selling.
Don’t count Bloomberg out yet.
What does that statement mean, exactly? I've heard a few FReepers toss it out there like everyone knows, but when you really stop and think about it, it just doesn't make sense.
How does one "buy" an election? Are you implying some kind of bribery? Are you criticizing him for actually campaigning?
Campaigning is expensive, especially at the national level. Should he try to do that without spending money? Is it somehow immoral for him to spend his own money to campaign, and the money donated to his campaign to actually campaign???
What exactly is the problem here?
It must be hard for Soros and other Dims to figure who would hurt the GOP the most, McCain or Huckabee or Paul.
Suggest that anyone read the following list before donating to McCain.
McCain:
— adamantly against the Bush tax cuts (he now says that it was b/c there were not enough spending cuts, but when he opposed them, he took the Dem class warfare lie that it was “tax cuts for the rich”) (former Senator Santorum said that McC was “leading the charge” against the Bush tax cuts),
— led the fight in favor of amnesty for illegals (McCain-Kennedy),
— leader in evading the first amendment & getting the first substantial restrictions on political speech in U.S. history (McCain-Feingold, aka, the Incumbent Protection Act),
— ignoring the second amendment, McC sponsored the McCain/Lieberman gun show bill, which would have given the federal government the administrative power to prohibit all gun shows, and to register everyone who attends a gun show per http://www.trugop.org/Editorials/2ndAmendment.htm,
— sponsored the McCain/Lieberman Cap and Trade System to Reduce Greenhouse Gases, which would hurt consumers, drive up business costs, and drive business to China and undeveloped countries that don’t restrict carbon dioxide emissions (McC, willing to pay any price to fight GoreBull Warming, foolishly believes that such regulations create “green” jobs, in total ignorance of the famous Broken Window Fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window),
— a key RINO in the Gang of Fourteen, thus undercutting GOP fight against Dem improper filibusters of conservative judicial nominees,
— promises to close GITMO the first day that he is president so that he can move the world’s worst captured terrorists to the U.S., possibly to a neighborhood near you,
— is against waterboarding of even the most vicious terrorists, even when interrogation experts believe it is necessary or advisable to get info in order to save innocent American lives, and despite the fact that it is not torture, it is done routinely on some U.S. military during training, it has reportedly only been used 2 or 3 times against terrorists, and McC’s critique plays into leftist smears against the U.S. for torture,
— using the language of the socialist left, he now attacks the pharmaceutical industry, one of the crown jewels of the U.S. economy, and is trying to force drug re-importation (those vicious people in big pharma, who actually want to make a profit by helping cure people and alleviate pain, were the “big bad guys” per McC),
— is against drilling in ANWAR, McC comparing ANWAR to the Grand Canyon (ANWAR is “what hell would look like if it froze over” per the IBD) ,
— wants an economic stimulus bill, but incredibly says that it should be “paid for” by spending cuts in total ignorance of the theory behind any stimulus which is to increase govt spending and borrowing, thus to increase economic activity (”paying for” a gov stimulus bill negates the purpose, it means that it is no longer a stimulus),
— curries favor with his friends in the liberal media, even as they trash conservatives in McC’s own party, and
— toyed with the idea of accepting the VP nomination of his good friend, John Kerry (Kennedy, Feingold, Lieberman, Kerry, all liberal Dems, see any pattern?).
I probably left something out, but that will have to do.
Considering this atrocious record, no conservative should support McC in the primary.
McC is a true American hero for his war service. He was been strong and steady relative to Iraq and the surge. He should be given a medal & sent home to a rocking chair. Or he could be cast in a remake of GRUMPY OLD MEN, along with Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and Robert Byrd.
McC is not the right person to lead the country.
Soros’ front group MoveOn is backing Ron Paul in GOP primary race, probably in hopes that Paul will go 3rd party & be the Ross Perot of 2008.
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