Thursday, March 06, 2008
McCainicrats
Yesterday, an uncle of mine told me that he intended to vote for Barack Obama in the general election. I perked up my ears, because I have always known him as a pro-business Republican (even if relatively liberal on social issues), so I wondered if there were many more like him. Interestingly, Karl Rove says that there are, but perhaps even more Democrats who will vote for McCain:
The big development to watch is not the rise of the "Obamicans" -- Republicans who are backing the charismatic Illinois senator. The interesting electoral phenomenon is the emergence of the "McCainicrats" -- Democrats backing Mr. McCain. It's not just Sen. Joe Lieberman. In three recent polls, (Fox, LA Times/Bloomberg and Gallup), almost twice as many Democrats support Mr. McCain as Republicans support Mr. Obama. Three times as many Democrats support Mr. McCain as Republicans back Mrs. Clinton.
The rest is also good, real Rovian Evil Genius stuff. Among other things, he notes that the continuing fight within the Democratic Party is not unalloyed upside for John McCain. It will keep him off the front pages and out of the public eye, and if he uses his best arguments against the Democrats now to get some attention he will have no dry powder after Labor Day. On the other hand, if the Democrats stay locked until the convention McCain can shake just about every hand in the country for the next five months without having to deal with personal attacks or putting on that really pissed-off grin that he uses to chew away at some affront to his personal honor. And, of course, there is this: If Clinton and Obama have to spend three more months pandering to Democratic activists, they will create an awful lot of moonbattish soundbitery that Republicans will cheerfully edit into the ads of October.
8 Comments:
By 
Eric, at
Thu Mar 06, 08:46:00 AM:
As the Lieberman senate victory proved, there are disaffected Democrats - liberals - who do not support the slide Left by the party. I felt strongly enough about supporting Lieberman's position on the War on Terror that I travelled from NYC to help in his Connecticut Senate campaign against Ned Lamont.
As a liberal, I wish the Democrats were more supportive of the War on Terror, because we are using a liberal strategy that is rooted in the Democrats' liberal tradition rather than the Republicans' realist tradition. The Democrats are the rightful champions of the Bush Administration's strategic goals and the Democrats slide to the anti-war/anti-peace Left has been tantamount to a strangling of their own heritage.
For many reasons, I should favor Democrats and I still hope they'll come around on the war. Specifically, I should be a Barack Obama supporter. But the War on Terror - to include OIF - tops my priorities in this election, as it did in the 2004 election, and they scare me with their pandering to the anti-war Left.
By 
, at
Thu Mar 06, 09:15:00 AM:
TH: "is not unalloyed upside for John McCain" --> needs an "an"
I like what Neal Boortz said the other day:
"The best possible outcome? For me that would be no definitive outcome at all. Let’s hand out some delegates for both Obama and for Hillary, while leaving no commanding lead. The cause of liberty will be served well by a continuation of the pissing contest between these two. Take it all the way to the convention. Let them keep arguing over who is going to raise taxes on the evil rich the most. Let them keep playing a game of one-upsmanship on who is going to do the most thorough job of expanding government control over our free markets. Let them try to best each other over who is going to take the most money from our energy companies and pour it into the political pork coffers of the imperial federal government. Let Hillary continue to tout her imaginary experience in the White house while Obama’s folks continue to hand out "Change we can believe in" signs to people who really have no clue, other than celebrity worship, why they’re standing there at that rally in the first place. Let those who love freedom and celebrate individualism develop a growing sense of unease and perhaps even disgust at the statist rhetoric of these two anti-capitalists."
Nicely put?
Personally, what I want to know is what Tiger's spell-checker thought of "moonbattish" and "soundbitery". Quick, somebody contact Webster's. :)
By , at
Thu Mar 06, 12:02:00 PM:
Eric said something up above that got me to thinking. No, don't blame the lad -- I probably would have started thinking at some point, anyway. Certainly with two cups of coffee in me.
I wondered how many people reading his comment really understood its historical perspective:
"The Democrats are the rightful champions of the Bush Administration's strategic goals and the Democrats slide to the anti-war/anti-peace Left has been tantamount to a strangling of their own heritage."
So I decided to explain it.
By Escort81, at
Thu Mar 06, 12:54:00 PM:
Dr. Mercury -
I think your linked post captures the essence of the sentiment expressed in Eric's quote. I am impressed by Eric's thoughtful approach in reconciling his political views with the necessity of a forward-leaning effort in the War on Terror.
I should point out, however, that LBJ (not Nixon) was still in the Oval Office when Tet was launched in 1968, and Cronkite delivered his editorial on TV. LBJ famously said, "if I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America," and that led to LBJ's decision not to run again.
There was no anti-Republican or anti-Nixon bias that entered into Cronkite's editorial. He was simply taken aback that the VC and NVA could launch any kind of offensive, given the massive U.S. escalation since 1964 and more than 20,000 U.S. KIA at that point. It would probably be too much to ask of Cronkite that he be able to critically evaluate the success of Tet in its early stages -- there were no retired senior military talking heads that routinely came on network news shows to describe the reality of the strategic situation on the battlefield. He was his own expert, and had his WWII reporting experience (a much different kind of war, obviously) as an apparently solid credential, along with the significant amount of trust the American TV viewing public had in him.
Recall that a week in to the three week run up to Baghdad in 2003, many in the press had their panties in a knot about the "pause" and the bad weather, but cooler heads prevailed when the ex-military commentators explained what was going on -- and in retrospect, the 3 week campaign was a remarkable military effort, even if it was not perfect (regardless of how one feels about the way the beginning of the insurgency was handled).
From your various postings here, I know you are a stickler for detail, so you probably want to make the appropriate changes to that paragraph.
We all make mistakes -- and at least you are not the NYT with layers and layers of fact checkers!
By Gammer Gurton, at
Thu Mar 06, 01:08:00 PM:
My dear Tigerhawk:
That should be "creating soundbitage." "Soundbitery" is the activity of producing soundbitage. One would "generate" or "instigate" or "kick off a jamboree of" soundbitery, but "create" or "pile up a mess of" soundbitage.
You're welcome.
Advanced students may now proceed to consider the difference between "all y'all" (hortatory: all y'all get there and holler "ROLL TIDE") and "y'all all" (precatory: "y'all all come to Sally's party after the game).
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu Mar 06, 01:11:00 PM:
Now fellas - these are damn good posts. Yes indeed. Eric - you've got it spot on. The Republicans and Democrats have switched places from a historical perspective. And it's not just in the GWOT. Read the Geldof piece in Time on Bush and Africa. Note the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan. Note the Bush tax cut, like the Reagan tax cut, like the JFK tax cut.
That you get this is a fine thing. I think many traditional democrats do, and that's why I suspect McCain wins in a runaway when its all done.
One other point that is worth congratulations, and about which we have posted in the past - GWB mustered enormous and courageous political will when he most required it, and stuck out the 2004 election. And he won. LBJ bagged on the country. He blew away with Cronkite's wind, and that led us down a very sad road. Had he stayed the course, he would likely have won in 68 - and we may never have had to endure Nixon and Watergate and all the other sad things Nixon saddled us with.
The fact is, our President has to have a spine of steel. Like the peson or not, they must be proven stubborn and tough. GWB was that, and so is McCain.
By Escort81, at
Thu Mar 06, 05:21:00 PM:
CP -
Agreed that the POTUS needs a spine of steel. Perhaps McCain's personality will be better suited for the executive branch than the legislative branch? Intelligent compromise is important when you are 1/100th of an institution, but when you are the CEO, you'd better damn well show some leadership and be a bit less compromising.
LBJ was, in my view, a deeply emotionally troubled guy, and, while I agree that he was indeed a "Master of the Senate," he became one of the worst presidents. Yes, he passed the landmark Civil Rights Act, but I think there's a good chance that whoever was JFK's sitting VP could have gotten that passed as his successor (and LBJ was not his first choice in 1960). LBJ was obsessed with "the Kennedy people" early in his administration and hated RFK. Believe it or not, he even threatened to bail from the campaign in 1964 in the days right before the Democratic convention in Atlantic City, NJ. Read "Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes 1963-1964" edited by Michael Beschloss. He behaved like a petulant 9 year-old, saying on tape, effectively, I'm going to take my ball and go home. And he then wins the general in an enormous landslide! I mean, come on, you're the frickin' President of the United States, even if you have some normal and healthy self-doubt, man the heck up and show some fortitude. Hillary could do better than that, we can rest assured.
By , at
Thu Mar 06, 08:08:00 PM:
"man the heck up and show some fortitude"
Wow, that black slang is showing up everywhere these days...
