Florida, Then There Were Four
UGH!
Florida, how could you do this to us? Whoever said losing feels worse than winning feels good got it right. There's still hope for the only non-careerist option but the battle just got a whole lot tougher. I can't be the only one enjoying the irony that it's private funding that's making this more difficult for McCain. He's the chief scold on the evils of money in politics after all.
There's so much analysis and so little time, and it changes too damn fast to keep up. Suffice it to say that McCain's single most conservative-alienating issue, immigration, won him Florida. To suggest he planned it that way with his open borders stance last summer would be to give him more credit than he deserves. Flip. But if he did, it would make him a world class conniver, why, almost Clintonian in his triangulatability. And to do so while calling his a opponent a flip flopper, wow, only a career politician could pull that off with a straight face. . .
Jennifer Rubin opines in the New York Post, and shows a fairly stark lack of knowledge on the roll of talk radio in this piece at Real Clear Politics What Will Talk Radio Do Now?
Aside from the smug glee she seems to derive from anti-McCain talkers, presumably, getting egg on their face, her cluelessness, like most MSMer's about talk radio, presupposes that talk show guys drive opinion. They don't, they reflect and give voice to their audiences opinion. It's called tapping a market. The Rush's of the world can't grow and keep an audience by telling people what to think, they do it by repeating what people already think.
The other point that caught my eye, and ire, was this little gem...
"And frankly, G.O.P. primary voters simply may find Mr. McCain’s heretical support for campaign finance reform a lot less significant than personal character traits like honesty, courage and persistence."
Notice the benign terminology; "campaign finance reform", as though it has no connection to free speech watsoever.
I could not resist the comment, yet to be published if accepted, that, first of all, no one will deny it took courage to endure being a POW four decades ago, BUT, it was incumbency cowardice - - not courage - - that gave us the speech-abridging McCain-Feingold bill. Secondly, anyone who can blithely dismiss McCain forsaking his senate oath to protect and defend the constitution has a curious and rather contorted notion of honesty. Persistence? OK I'll give her that one, he's been a persistent pain in the ass to real conservatives ever since he found out trashing his party gets him gobs of ink, and now possibly, the presidency. Do you think for a second a President McCain won't use the same ploy to buoy his approval ratings?
So now we are down to four, and still, in both parties offer a stark choice between the status quo and a dynamic alternative. I will truly be at a loss if McCain wins because I may be be forced to sit out. Voting Democrat would be to compromise almost all of my principles but voting for McCain would be to forsake the ultimate principle of constitutionalism.
But what about the Supreme Court you might ask? I can only answer with another question; can we trust McCain to appoint judges who will overturn McCain-Feingold as any true constructivist judge would be bound to do? I sincerely doubt he lacks the humility to ever put that question to the test. Cliff Thier at American Thinker muses on that subject here McCain and Supreme Court.
So what started out to be an exciting race is, I fear, heading toward just another choice between the lesser of two evils - - again. Worse still, a McCain/Clinton choice forces us to decide which to compromise, the party or the country. That's a lose/lose gamble. On the one hand I am confident the country can survive a single term Clinton Presidency, but I am not so confident the conservative movement can survive a McCain Presidency - - within the GOP at least. To think that a maverick, the very definition of divider, can establish, let alone maintain, that already fragile coalition is way beyond my usual optimism. If he pulls it off they are as stupid as he thinks they are.
Florida, how could you do this to us? Whoever said losing feels worse than winning feels good got it right. There's still hope for the only non-careerist option but the battle just got a whole lot tougher. I can't be the only one enjoying the irony that it's private funding that's making this more difficult for McCain. He's the chief scold on the evils of money in politics after all.
There's so much analysis and so little time, and it changes too damn fast to keep up. Suffice it to say that McCain's single most conservative-alienating issue, immigration, won him Florida. To suggest he planned it that way with his open borders stance last summer would be to give him more credit than he deserves. Flip. But if he did, it would make him a world class conniver, why, almost Clintonian in his triangulatability. And to do so while calling his a opponent a flip flopper, wow, only a career politician could pull that off with a straight face. . .
Jennifer Rubin opines in the New York Post, and shows a fairly stark lack of knowledge on the roll of talk radio in this piece at Real Clear Politics What Will Talk Radio Do Now?
Aside from the smug glee she seems to derive from anti-McCain talkers, presumably, getting egg on their face, her cluelessness, like most MSMer's about talk radio, presupposes that talk show guys drive opinion. They don't, they reflect and give voice to their audiences opinion. It's called tapping a market. The Rush's of the world can't grow and keep an audience by telling people what to think, they do it by repeating what people already think.
The other point that caught my eye, and ire, was this little gem...
"And frankly, G.O.P. primary voters simply may find Mr. McCain’s heretical support for campaign finance reform a lot less significant than personal character traits like honesty, courage and persistence."
Notice the benign terminology; "campaign finance reform", as though it has no connection to free speech watsoever.
I could not resist the comment, yet to be published if accepted, that, first of all, no one will deny it took courage to endure being a POW four decades ago, BUT, it was incumbency cowardice - - not courage - - that gave us the speech-abridging McCain-Feingold bill. Secondly, anyone who can blithely dismiss McCain forsaking his senate oath to protect and defend the constitution has a curious and rather contorted notion of honesty. Persistence? OK I'll give her that one, he's been a persistent pain in the ass to real conservatives ever since he found out trashing his party gets him gobs of ink, and now possibly, the presidency. Do you think for a second a President McCain won't use the same ploy to buoy his approval ratings?
So now we are down to four, and still, in both parties offer a stark choice between the status quo and a dynamic alternative. I will truly be at a loss if McCain wins because I may be be forced to sit out. Voting Democrat would be to compromise almost all of my principles but voting for McCain would be to forsake the ultimate principle of constitutionalism.
But what about the Supreme Court you might ask? I can only answer with another question; can we trust McCain to appoint judges who will overturn McCain-Feingold as any true constructivist judge would be bound to do? I sincerely doubt he lacks the humility to ever put that question to the test. Cliff Thier at American Thinker muses on that subject here McCain and Supreme Court.
So what started out to be an exciting race is, I fear, heading toward just another choice between the lesser of two evils - - again. Worse still, a McCain/Clinton choice forces us to decide which to compromise, the party or the country. That's a lose/lose gamble. On the one hand I am confident the country can survive a single term Clinton Presidency, but I am not so confident the conservative movement can survive a McCain Presidency - - within the GOP at least. To think that a maverick, the very definition of divider, can establish, let alone maintain, that already fragile coalition is way beyond my usual optimism. If he pulls it off they are as stupid as he thinks they are.
Comments