Posted on 02/07/2008 10:27:28 AM PST by Between the Lines
Does a John McCain Republican victory mean the demise of the "dittoheads?"
It is just one of a number of a fascinating back stories to the resurrection of the Arizona senator, a campaign that has had to swim upstream not against the Mitt Romneys and Rudy Giulianis of the world, but the right-wing "talkocracy" of the United States, the family-values wing of the party and some Republican members of Congress.
It has been bad news for the "dittoheads," the pejorative name given to the audience of Rush Limbaugh, the country's leading conservative radio voice, for their blind agreement with the views of the host.
Limbaugh's prediction of Republican ruination under McCain has many supporters on the airwaves, including Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, well-known media names in the U.S., and Dr. James Dobson, head of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family.
The 71-year-old McCain's list of alleged sins are long, all predicated on his "liberal" views and dismissal of the conservative base.
His critics see a candidate who would give amnesty to illegal immigrants; who would push global warming solutions costly to the U.S. economy; who refuses to drill for oil in a protected Arctic wildlife sanctuary; who once opposed the George W. Bush tax cuts because they benefited the rich; and who gives the back of his hand to the party's base.
They even say he's got a quick temper, uses bad words and "doesn't play nice in the sandbox" of Congress, as one former Republican colleague put it.
Super Tuesday played to that perception – McCain swept Democratic states the party has little chance of winning in November, while former Massachusetts governor Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee split Republican strongholds.
If he cannot find common ground with his critics, McCain may be heading for a Pyrrhic victory.
Canadians, at least, would find him plenty conservative.
He is the biggest proponent of the Iraq troop surge in Congress and has mused about an American troop presence there for a century.
He would back any move to overturn abortion rights enshrined in the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision and has criticized Canadian-style universal health care.
Yesterday, McCain told his critics to chill.
"I think they've made their case against me pretty eloquently," he said, "if that's the right word.
"I do hope that at some point we would just calm down a little bit and see if there are areas that we can agree on for the good of the party and for the good of the country."
Huckabee backed him.
"Some people should just switch to decaf," he said.
Limbaugh appears to favour espresso.
"I'll just tell you, there's far more apathy or anger out there than the Republican establishment knows,'' he said in the wake of McCain's string of victories Tuesday.
"One question I asked myself," he said, bringing up Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, "if down the road you think that the election of Obama, Hillary or McCain is going to result in very bad things happening to the country, who would you rather get the blame for it?"
On the eve of Super Tuesday, Limbaugh told his audience:
"Senator McCain successfully targeted the weak, the mushy, the squishy, the Jell-Os, some of the left, the Drive-By Media.
"The maverick ... here's the dirty little secret. The `maverick' is swimming with the majority. The maverick is not a maverick.
"Maverick, my rear end."
On Tuesday, Dobson released a statement saying: "I am convinced Senator McCain is not a conservative, and in fact has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are."
Today, McCain gets another chance to reach out, when he addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference here.
He is likely to receive a frosty reception, because conference chair David Keene is reminding participants that McCain last year "blew off'' the event as irrelevant.
Liberal groups are loving the show.
"The self-anointed kingmakers of the far right ... were rebuked by the foot soldiers of their own movement," said Mary Jean Collins, political director of the liberal People For the American Way.
"Have the leaders of the right – from Dobson to its talking heads – lost control of the voting bloc they helped create?"
I bet they are.
Dear MSM, go...what Dick Cheney said. ;)
Either one will cause amnesty.
You party boys got what you wanted. You purges us icky right wingers from your party so you could rebrand it as Democrat Lite with McCain.
Ok, now go win your election without us.
BWWWWWAA-AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!
Yup, left-wingers have been guaranteed a victory in November no matter what happens.
At the end of this election cycle, either McCain or the talk radio crowd will be left with greatly reduced credibility. Of course there are many here on FR who will tell you that McCain has no credibility now, but y’all know what I’m saying.
Just someone else trying to get attention from Rush.
Igmo wet dream
I am going to simply CALM DOWN.
In fact I feel sooo calm, that I’ll probably forget to vote for McLame.
This insulting stereotying presupposes that all conservatives tune to Limbaugh and nod in unison. Most conservatives whom I know are intelligent logicians who draw their own conclusions instead of pulling in tandem.
Ignorant jagdork.
Lest we forget, it’s also what McCain told our Texas’ Senator Cornyn:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1836017/posts
By November, Mr. Harper will be oinking about McCain being a hardline right-wing extremist.
Ted Kennedy smiles my boy McNuts wins now I own the white house.
“The self-anointed kingmakers of the far right ...”
Mythology.
If she is referring to Rush, he has REPEATEDLY said that he owes his popularity to simply voicing what conservatives have been thinking for years. He does not desire or pretend to lead, let alone act as kingmaker. This perspective is at root, conservatism to the core.
Oh and when a liberal says “far right” what they are telling you in their ignornace, is that ANYTHING to the right of their sick position, immediately falls off a steeep precipice into FarRightLand.
The artile is from the Toronto Star. It does not explain, now would it know why he did not win (or barely won) a majority of Republican votes in Arizona. Southern Arizonas, those who understand his policy on borders, immigration and citizenship, know him for the fourflusher he is. To put it kindly, there are one hell of a lot of Arizonas that hate his guts. Give America time. They will have lots of time to come to loathe him.
Ah, the "fascinating back stories"...
More fascinating, I think, would be the story of just how McVain was "resurrected" (interesting choice of words, I think, when so many similar secular terms are available). This "resurrection" is a contrivance, a whole-cloth creation of the MSM and GOP elites. Scr*w them.
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