Republicans

9 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

bad advice

Republicans would be wise to ignore the advice of Dick Morris, who sometimes appears to be a sleeper agent for the opposition. When he’s wrong about something — such as the Condi-Hillary matchup he wrote a book about — he is SPECTACULARLY wrong.  He tries to make the case against Mitt Romney as a VP choice, and this part makes some degree of sense to me.  But the alternatives he presents are completely unacceptable to conservatives — including Mike Huckabee.  Morris thinks that he understands what conservatives want, when in fact he is absolutely clueless about that.   He continues to hype Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and Joe Lieberman as VP choices, presumably because this demonstrates McCain’s bipartisanship or something.  This would only serve to remind conservatives of something we see as a McCain weakness. Yeah…that’s a winner of an idea.

All of these options would be more of a mistake than choosing Mitt Romney.    He says that choosing Powell or Rice would give the choice a “WOW” factor.  “WOW” factors are just as overrated as most of Morris’ advice.  If McCain really cares about what conservatives want (and there isn’t much indication that he does), then he needs to look outside of Morris’ preferred circle of VP options, and disregard most of the media’s shortlist as well.

Who’s my pick?  If we rule out Palin and Jindal (and we have to, since they aren’t credible as the next in line to the Presidency just yet),  I have to echo the suggestion of some other conservative blogs and throw former Congresscritter and FNC guest host John Kasich into the mix.   If we must pick someone from Ohio, why not someone most conservatives already know from TV?  He’s a solid fiscal conservative and an effective defender of our worldview, and I would love to see him mix it up with Obama’s VP pick.  That debate would be very watchable.  Picking a relative unknown like Rob Portman doesn’t deliver Ohio for McCain.  Not that picking Kasich would necessarily accomplish that, but it certainly would have more of Morris’ famed “WOW” factor for conservatives than a Portman pick would.

I’m pessimistic about McCain’s inclination to pick someone who thrills conservatives, but I can settle for his choice — as long as he ignores Dick Morris’ picks and doesn’t pick his BFF Lindsey Graham.  Nobody really knows what McCain will do with his VP pick, so the best approach right now is to ignore most of the speculation, and wait to see what happens.

2 Comments Posted on Conservatives, Republicans

tony snow

Tony Snow

Tony Snow has died today due to complications from his colon cancer, Fox News is reporting.  This is a sad day for conservatives — who are losing one of the most passionate defenders for conservatism that we could ever have.  He was never a politician, even though he worked for Bush 41 and 43.  He was a good guy, and someone I wish I had known. He loved this country, and always saw the positive side of life, and we can always be grateful that this man was there to remind us that it’s never as dark as we think it is.  This death is tragic for all of us, and especially his family and close friends, but at least we know that his struggle is over now.  Tony Snow has gone to be with his God, and that’s the most deserving reward for a life well-lived.

Rest in Peace, Snowman.  We’ll miss you.

More links and tributes coming as they become available.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

stubborn

I’ve said from the very beginning that I don’t believe that John McCain ever changed his mind about comprehensive immigration reform, so Byron York’s column in The Hill doesn’t surprise me.  McCain is quoted as saying that he learned his lesson from the immigration fight.  On the other hand, he still says that he’s glad he proposed the reform and would do it again.  We should be perfectly clear where McCain stands on this because he still believes that he was right on this issue.  Don’t be fooled.

That said, Barack Obama might want to reconsider attacking McCain on this issue. There’s no way Barack can say he’s to the right of McCain on illegal immigration — although he might be able to claim credit for not writing any comprehensive immigration reform bills. He hasn’t demonstrated any ability to improve upon McCain’s sad record, and at one point even supported driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.  In addition to that, he voted for McCain-Kennedy before he supported some “poison pill” amendments to kill it.  Any discussion of McCain’s record on immigration would bring counter-attacks from the McCain camp about Barack’s record — and he might not want to go there.  John McCain and Barack Obama sometimes say the right things about securing the borders first, but I don’t believe either one of them, and there’s no reason to, based on their record in the Senate.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

reshuffling the deck chairs

This weekend there were several articles about new and potential additions to the McCain campaign team that could help McCain stem the pro-Obama tide and keep him from suffering a painful loss to Obama in the fall.  If only this simple thing would completely solve McCain’s problems, then I would feel a whole lot better about his chances in November.  It won’t.  There are a few things that the best strategists in the world can’t fix for McCain — although I’m sure that we will see significant improvement over the status quo.

The McCain campaign has blown the head start they had back when McCain first clinched the Republican nomination.  They had the opportunity to define Barack Obama and to explain the glaring differences between McCain and Obama.  Consider this a missed opportunity. They allowed the narrative about Obama to be more about his questionable associations than about his policy positions,  and this was a mistake.  The Jeremiah Wright association raised some questions about Barack, no question, but this by itself isn’t enough to keep voters from voting for Barack Obama.  Much of this lack of contrast should be blamed on McCain’s staff.

It would take some kind of miracle worker to transform McCain into the polished product Obama has become (at least when he’s on script).   McCain can hire all of the brilliant strategists he can afford and keep reshuffling the deck chairs on the campaign team, and maybe he can improve enough so he’s not as painful to watch.   One thing all these strategists cannot fix is that after all the tweaks and suggestions they offer — McCain is still McCain.  He will always be a drastic contrast to Barack Obama.  He is older, less personable, way too familiar with the Washington crowd, and he doesn’t really enjoy talking to people.  Even many Republicans find Barack appealing, although they may find some of his policy proposals alarming.

McCain doesn’t fare quite so well in the popularity department.  He is a bona-fide expert at losing friends and alienating people in his own party.  Some Republicans can’t stand him and they would rather roll the dice with Obama than reward McCain with the presidency.  Deep down they know what the smart decision is (at least in my view) but it will be difficult for them to follow through when their nominee disagrees with them on more than one key issue  — not only that, but he actively disparages their views while pandering to the moderates/ independents.  One thing that could save McCain is if my fellow Republicans swallow their dislike of McCain at least until after the election and vote for him in order to keep Barack Obama from being our next president.  Even then, it might not be enough to put McCain over the top in November.  Good luck to the present and future strategists tasked with saving McCain.  It won’t be easy.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

bad idea

Dick Morris gets too much attention for his views on politics in general and  the ’08 race in particular.  He occasionally gets the analysis right, but this time I think he’s giving McCain bad advice on VP choices.  His whole premise is that McCain needs a WOW choice, someone who will excite voters into giving his candidacy a second look.  So far he’s making sense.   Then he suggests three choices:  Condi Rice, Colin Powell, and Joe Lieberman.  Sorry, I’m not feeling the excitement here.  Condi Rice and Colin Powell would be minority candidates with long resumes, and would add diversity to the ticket, but they are also tied to previous administrations and the war in Iraq.  McCain needs to make a clean break from the Bush administration, and picking Condi Rice or Colin Powell would not accomplish this objective.

Then there’s the Democrats’ favorite non-Democrat Joe Lieberman.   Does Morris really think that independents and moderates will flock to McCain’s side because he picks Joe Lieberman?  Joe Lieberman is not even all that popular in his own party.  I can’t see him adding much of value to a McCain ticket.  Even though Lieberman is reasonably popular with conservatives solely because of his support of the war in Iraq,  he is even more moderate than McCain on social issues, and this pick wouldn’t help McCain hold on to the conservatives who have resigned themselves to our Republican nominee.

McCain should keep looking and expand his Republican prospects beyond Pawlenty, Crist,  Ridge, Portman and some of the other no-names on his list.  Romney’s not the guy, and I can’t see how McCain picks him after their heated primary battle and Romney’s lack of credibility with voters.  (Before I get too much flack over this comment, let me just say that this is the way I think the public in general sees Romney.  It’s not my personal view of the man, and I would be perfectly happy with him as the Republican nominee for President or VP.  Just not in 2008.)

5 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

silly democrats

Let me get this straight — John McCain’s military service doesn’t qualify him to be commander in chief, but John Kerry’s does?  That’s the unusual logic employed by Obama supporter, failed presidential candidate, and retired military guy General Wesley Clark.   Surely General Clark remembers his glowing comments about Senator Kerry and his war record, and let’s be absolutely clear about this — Kerry ran on that record until he was derailed by the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.  The Democrats seem conflicted about whether military service matters to presidential candidates.  Clinton = No.   Kerry=Yes.  McCain = Absolutely not.  Curious how military service only adds to your qualifications for commander-in-chief if you are a Democrat.

That’s ok though.  This is a debate I’m comfortable having with the Democrats all day long.  While it’s true that having military service doesn’t automatically qualify you to be President of the United States, McCain’s long record of public service, including serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee,  speaks to much more experience than Senator Obama has.   So Senator Obama’s surrogates like Clark want to question McCain’s experience. Ha.  Go ahead.    Do you really want to compare Obama and McCain on overall experience?  Good luck.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

there he goes again

We should be so proud of our Republican nominee.  He’s very good at sounding like a Democrat.  John McCain opposes domestic oil drilling in ANWR, and I’m guessing that would mean he’s not onboard with this offshore drilling bill that just got killed in the House.  It might actually get some traction if it had McCain’s support.  He also conveniently missed the Senate vote on a windfall profits tax. The House Dems continue to insist that even if we started to drill our own oil, it still wouldn’t make a difference with gas prices.  Are they serious about this?  Are they so beholden to the enviro-nuts that they can’t see how much sense this makes?  I’m at a loss here.  The American people want us to use our own resources to combat high fuel prices, as well as decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  If the Congress even bothered to ask us, I’m confident that the majority would support offshore drilling.

I should expect such behavior from the Democrats,  but John McCain has gone out of his way to parrot their rhetoric and copy their talking points.  Today he’s taking on the overpaid CEOs, just like Barack and Hillary before him.  Those CEOs make too much money and they need to be more accountable to their shareholders, McCain says.  While I’m not entirely opposed to more accountability for CEOs,  I’m not convinced that he has the best solution to that with giving shareholders a vote on CEO pay.  John McCain seems to think that he won this nomination without many conservatives, and therefore he can do and say whatever he wants — but maybe the reason for this mind meld with Barack on these issues isn’t because he wants payback from us.

My theory is that the whole point behind McCain’s strategy is to say loud and clear to the former Hillary supporters and others — “I’M NOT BUSH”.  See…I believe in global warming, windfall profits taxes, not drilling for our own oil, and punishing the producers in this country for their success.  I’m not so scary.  That’s McCain’s new message, and I hate it.  Maybe he can convince enough people of his own worth that he can become president in spite of himself.   But at the end of the process,  we are all going to go into the next 4-8 years with our eyes wide open about both candidates, and that’s not a bad thing.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

uneasy relationship

Bob Novak has a column today about McCain’s attempts to reach out to Christian conservatives.  He argues that McCain hasn’t managed to close the deal with them.  There are a variety of reasons for this, and Novak lists a few of them.  There’s one he overlooked.  McCain, despite his personal faith in God, does not have much in common with evangelicals.  He doesn’t speak about his faith very much, if at all.  He doesn’t speak their language, and he’s not George W. Bush (who was much more comfortable doing both of those things).  McCain isn’t one of them, and they knew that before he (out of political necessity) threw John Hagee and Rod Parsley under his bus.

McCain may have gotten popular with some Democrats and with the media by opposing some of the policies of the Bush administration, but those days are long gone.   It doesn’t help him to lose leading evangelicals from his camp, but losing conservatives would be far more damaging in November.  I hope that the McCain people recognize this weakness, and that they try to fix it.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

no concessions

Silly Democrats. You thought that Hillary would just fade into the background after Barack clinched the nomination. Ok, so it was only a small percentage of your party who actually believed that, but still…the rest of you had to be surprised by the tone of her non-concession speech.

Thanks Hillary. Your speech distracted all of us from how totally uninspiring John McCain’s speech was.

Posted on Conservatives, Republicans

congratulations mr. chairman

Get to know the guy in this picture.  He’s gonna be a star.

The smiling face you are looking at is the chairman of the York County GOP in South Carolina, Glenn McCall. (My apologies for the quality of the picture.)  He was elected on Saturday at the state convention to represent South Carolina Republicans as a member of the Republican National Committee.  Lord knows the RNC needs some more solid conservatives, and Glenn McCall is definitely one of those.  Hopefully he can knock some sense into those Washington-ites who have “gone native”.  I feel much better about the state of the RNC now that he’s going to be part of it.

Anyway, I just wanted to congratulate Chairman McCall on a much-deserved win, and to wish him the best of luck in smacking some sense into the national GOP.