Saturday, February 02, 2008
Another sign McCain Derangement Syndrome has peaked
Victor Davis Hanson has joined the growing list of conservatives who might -- just might -- show up at the polls in November if McCain is the Republican nominee:
Reagan’s pragmatism on taxes, amnesty, new federal programs and government expansion, was continued by both Bush I and II. In that regard, McCain seems a continuum, not an abject disconnect. His problem is mostly temperament — when he strayed he was blunt about what he was doing and sometimes gratuitously offended his base in a way that neither Reagan nor the Bushes dared. That is a legitimate concern of tactical aptitude, but not one so much of ideology.
He also never was a conservative idealist that voiced conservative themes on the campaign trail which he could not enact once elected. But in terms of judicial appointments, foreign policy and the war, and federal spending, he is not much different from any of the prior three Republican presidents, and might well prove tougher, given his age and occasional contrarianism. We worry over his immigration stance, but his former mistaken position was Reaganite to the core and reflected the Bush consensus. His new stance of closing the borders first would be a radical departure, and a conservative remedy.
In short, anyone who saw the Democratic debate Thursday night can envision the new future on their horizon: identity politics and self-congratulation over race and gender; tax increases (back to estate tax hikes, income tax rates go up, payroll tax caps lifted, etc); internationalism for the sake of internationalism (defer to the U.N., E.U., apologies for past conduct, contextualizing terrorism), more government (teachers, the poor, the middle class, etc. all need new government programs to add to those we have), and legislating judges (more Ginsburgs and Breyers).
Given all of the above, I don’t think it’s in the interest of conservatives for much longer to worry about McCain’s class ranking at Annapolis or how many planes he was nearly killed in.
And that's even without taking into account the advantage of regular pictures of Meghan McCain. (No, that was not an implied dig at Chelsea Clinton. I'm shocked that you would even think that.)
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
11 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Feb 02, 03:45:00 PM:
What a Great Idea for Republicans: Let the Dems nominate your candidate on the promise they they just, might, might, vote for him over the Real Democrat.
I'd rather have the Hillabama. At least, that way, We Might have a chance in the Next election.
By , at
Sat Feb 02, 04:43:00 PM:
Patterico, on the difference between John McCain and Hillary Clinton.
By , at
Sat Feb 02, 05:36:00 PM:
I can't make any confident predictions about all this politics stuff, but I feel extremely safe in positing that Meghan McCain will never drown face-down.
By 
Purple Avenger, at
Sat Feb 02, 07:35:00 PM:
The scorching hot daughter still isn't enough to get me to vote for him.
By , at
Sat Feb 02, 09:10:00 PM:
Then why not vote *against* the other side? Just because McCain doesn't live up to standards of ideological purity doesn't mean that you should then support other side. This is the first time in my life (as far as I know) that there have been bona fide socialists as major candidates for the Presidency. That's sort of a big deal. Sitting out the vote (or worse, supporting the other side out of sheer pettiness, like Coulter mentioned) will only hurt things.
Unless of course, you want the US to resemble Canada.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sat Feb 02, 11:25:00 PM:
There is an odd belief among purists left and right that if we "send a message" by remaining unexcited and not going out to vote for the lesser of two evils, it will work out next time by reverse psychology: things will get really, really bad (but not bad enough to do any permanent damage), and the electorate will have the scales fall from their eyes and vote for our great people next time.
There is no evidence that this has ever been true, anywhere. It is simply wishful thinking.
By Georg Felis, at
Sun Feb 03, 10:26:00 AM:
Guys. It's the Primary Season. That means you can vote for anybody you really want in your party. Me, I'm voting for Mit (who seems to have won Maine recently). I'm not a McCain fan, but I will vote for him in the General if hes nominated no matter how much he grates on me. The alternative is much worse.
Generally my opinion is close to Dave's comment on the Ace of Spades site "I swear the only satisfaction I'm going to get out of a McCain nomination is watching the MSM tear into him like a monkey on a cupcake."
By Christopher Chambers, at
Sun Feb 03, 01:55:00 PM:
The alternative is much worse. Ha! I love it. You of this right wing ilk need to fear McCain more than Obama and certainly Hillary. After all, Ike was the one who decided to back the Supreme Court after Brown (and he was the one who appointed Earl Warren). Ike decided that spending on infrastructure, on people, was the future--not feeding, the military-industrial complex. Oops, he, not some goateed Jewish liberal, made up that term. Get the idea? Indeed, it was Ike's sociopathic Vice President who, when he finally did invade the White House, invent affirmative action! John McCain's gonna be your Stalin, folks. And you all are Trotsky, so be afraid...
And Hanson's quote on what--"self identity politics and self congratulation?" Lord can this right wing racist dickweed be even more so? You need a thesaurus to keep up w/the lame code words and other doublespeak you all conjure. You all have been engaging in --"self identity politics and self congratulation" from the jump. Hey, sorry if we're just catching up.
Just wanna makes wanna stab that guy. Oops...I'm being too black here. Too self-congratulory...
By , at
Sun Feb 03, 03:13:00 PM:
It will be a cold frigging day in Hell when a foul phony-hipster bourgeoisie dickweed like Christopher Chambers writes one sentence worth reading or expresses one thought that isn't tawdry.
By , at
Mon Feb 04, 11:02:00 AM:
I get so tired of people spouting this "ideological purity" crap. Like it's impossible to have profound differences with the man's political principles? Like I can't believe he would make a terrible president?
If I have to be stuck with a politician that I really believe is going tom louse up the country, then I'll take the Dem I can blame it on.
By , at
Mon Feb 04, 05:51:00 PM:
That's juvenile. And if you believe that McCain and, say, Obama would be equally terrible then you are one seriously skewed cookie.
There are real, drastic differences between the parties. If you sit out the vote, you'll be casting tacit approval for universal healthcare and, if Hillary is the nominee, the government's right to take your income to feed that program rather you support it or not. For your own good, you see.
I hope you're ok with that, because it's possible that in a few years you'll look back and think, 'man, I really wish McCain would have won. That would have been so much better than this.'
