Quick Roundup 299
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
What the McCain Primary Victory Means
Ari Armstrong gives his thoughts.
As I write, The Denver Post reports that John McCain leads the Republican race with 525 delegates, more than twice as many as Mitt Romney's 223 delegates, and more than the delegates of Romney and Mike Huckabee combined. Romney might still come back, but at this point it seems that McCain has the momentum. Why is that? I suspect that a large part of the reason is that many Republicans are shying away from the strong religious overtones of Romney and Huckabee. And that is a very good sign. Generally I don't care what religion a president professes, but I do care when candidates for president promise to impose religious doctrine by force of law. [bold added]I would agree that McCain's sudden and very unfortunate air of inevitability owes itself at least in part to uneasiness by many Republican voters about the degree to which many Republicans are now willing to impose their religious beliefs by government force, although the fact that such a bad candidate came of it is a symptom of the blindness of that particular rebellion.
McCain's Vice President
A post over at Varifrank mentions something I thought about several days ago, but forgot about until this morning. John McCain's age makes his choice of a running mate more important than usual.
[L]ets say 71 year old John McCain makes it to President. What are the odds of his Vice President needing to take the helm at some point?Probably the reason I forgot about the greater likelihood of McCain's running mate becoming President was that I figured it might be Giuliani. While that would not constitute a reason to vote for McCain, it would not make it any more important to vote against him.
I know, its a tough thing to talk about, but its very possible. That means that the number two guy is going to have a more than average shot at being President.
Yes thats right, this is a "double-whammy" ticket.
First, McCain was supposed to be out of the race and into 'forlorn hope' months ago. Well that didn't happen...
And now I've just painted a very likely scenario where we would get a "President Huckabee", which we also said would never happen.
But McCain-Huckabee? Not only is that one of the most revolting combinations I can imagine from this year's Republican field, it removes the only weakness I can see from McCain's ticket: hoards of Christian "suicide voters" accidentally getting it right and voting for Obama or Mrs. Clinton in November.
McCain's support of censorship already makes voting against him a near-imperative. (Only Democrat noise about bringing back the "Fairness" Doctrine makes me at all uncertain on this.) But should he bring Huckabee on board as his Number Two, it will be a necessity, as much as I want to sit this one out.
Democrat Race too Close to Call
According to my newspaper, Hillary Clinton held a small lead over Barack Obama. Minutes later, the Internet proclaimed Barack Obama the leader by an even smaller margin.
Is this what we should be paying the police to do?
The double meaning in my question is intentional. The one in this headline may or may not be! (HT: Hannes Hacker)
Objectivist Roundups
Rational Jenn hosted last week's blog Carnival. Later today, this week's edition will be posted at Evanescent. (And when it is, the link will appear at the top of the left sidebar over there.)
Free Afghan Journalist Perwez Kambakhsh
Jennifer Snow told me about this petition recently. I think supporting it is worthwhile, but I am troubled by the fact that the current regime in Afghanistan relies so heavily on American support. Were our government prosecuting the war properly, it would not install or support governments that failed to separate religion from state, if it got into the business of running things in countries in that part of the world at all.
-- CAV
Updates
5-14-08: Added hypertext anchors.
6 comments:
I don't think you will see a McCain, Huckabee ticket. Huckabee offers McCain nothing by sharing the ticket. In the end, McCain will offer Huckabee some mid level job. He will not offer him the VP.
Huckabee is a regional candidate only. He's popular only with narrow minded religionist bigots, and like John McCain, he's a domestic enemy of the Constitution who proudly stands against free speech, the rule of law, property rights and individual liberty.
He, like McCain, Huckabee would also be a weak Commander-In-Chief. Each would use resources you earned to support illegals in accessing health care, welfare and education that they are not entitled to. They are doing that already.
Neither would use any and all means to protect the nation and our citizens. They would preserve the comfort of a terrorist at the expense and sacrifice of American safety out of a false sense of humanity.
Here's a news flash - in war, there is no such thing as humanity. You either fight to obliterate the enemy and its threat entirely, or you don't fight at all. Anything in between is doomed to failure, see Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq II because of our failure to commit during Iraq I.
McCain is going to "fight to keep taxes low" by voting AGAINST tax cuts? Here's another news flash. Taxes are too high; so keeping them low is not possible. Perhaps he, like most democrats, feels that even at the current levels, we are not paying enough tribute to Caesar? The buffoon has no clue about the economy or capitalism and yet, the delegate count indicates clearly that there are republicans who want to elect him. That tells me the Republican Party as it defines itself no longer exists.
It is a fraud. It has been transformed, and if John McCain is the new head of whatever this party has become; he no longer represents me, nor do his supporters and collaborators. Therefore, I am no longer a republican. I'm apparently something else.
In contrast, the religionist "republicans" like Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity preach values above convenience. Each espouses how one should never compromise his values in order to gain a pragmatic victory. Yet, both have already said that they will support McCain, even though neither feels he is a conservative in tune with their values. So much for conviction over expediency.
The Republican Party has been destroyed. Some will go with the flow, but many will not. I for one will not support a party headed by a McCain or a Huckabee regardless of who gets the number 2 spot.
I will not support a party that feels it must support foreign invaders over and above its own citizens. I will not support a party that has no desire to encourage risk taking in exchange for the right to keep what one earns. I will not support a candidate who would allow a WMD to go off rather than water board a terrorist. I will not support a traitor.
John McCain is the Benedict Arnold of conservative politics. He should follow Benedict to Canada and use their health care system to have his face fixed. He could even chair their "Human Rights Counsel" in matters of hate speech. He's more than qualified for that job.
Ouch! You reel off a long list of things that too many Republicans either support or are sweeping under the rug with overmuch gusto. The crown jewel being, of course, McCain's animus towards freedom of speech, without which our Republic can never hope to repair itself.
I hope you're right that McCain won't decide to use Huckabee as Veep. However, regional candidate though he be, he is strongest in the ("solid") South, the one region that Republicans must have to win, and the one Democrats always want pieces of when they run.
I didn't intend to scare you. LOL The facts are that this man is just a horrible human being who is universally disliked by anyone who gets to know him.
The Clintons are going to hit him with a barrage of dirt come the end of the primary season, if not sooner. Her comment about not being "swift boated" may have been an ominous threat referring to very damaging posts (by conservatives, I believe) that her organization may "leak" out. They are most likely untrue, but the truth didn't matter with Kerry and a lot of people actually liked him. Most people despise John McCain and I don't think he'll be given the benefit of the doubt as much as Kerry was and Kerry still lost. You can find the sites hereand here
In better days, there would be no perceived need to "swift boat" McCain: One could just reel off a litany like you did and let the freedom-loving public take care of the rest.
I want to make such "better days" become a reality again.
"McCain's support of censorship already makes voting against him a near-imperative. (Only Democrat noise about bringing back the "Fairness" Doctrine makes me at all uncertain on this.)
I think McCain is just as likely to impose the "Fairness" Doctrine as any Democrat - perhaps even more so. McCain is a VERY vindictive individual - and he HATES talk radio probably more than most Democrats do. I can see him ordering the FCC to reimpose it in a heartbeat - and that is just one of many reason that that evil man simply has to be stopped.
Sure, Hillary might try to do the same thing - but at least there will be people out there screaming to the roof that it is censorship and fighting it.
And, by the way, McCain is an even bigger liar than the Clintons. The way he misrepresented Mitt Romney's comments about Bob Dole recently (asserting that Romney attacked Dole's war record when he did no such thing) - well, that was something that probably made even Slick Willie blush.
I think McCain has one major thing in common with his self-proclaimed good friend John Kerry: Both are nihilists. Kerry hates the United States of America and seeks to sell it out any chance he gets. McCain hates the Republican party and seeks to undermine it and sell it out any chance he gets. I am all for going against one's party if one does so in the name of principle. But I have not seen any evidence of McCain acting on ideological principle when he goes against the Republican party. McCain has no principles as far as I can see. I think he is a petty, vindictive little man who undercuts his party for the sake of undercutting his party - he seeks its destruction for the sake of its destruction the same way Kerry seeks to undercut the United States for the sake of undercutting it.
I think is very appropriate McCain is good friend with John Kerry - both are cut from the same pathetic cloth. And I am sick and tired of hearing about McCain's war hero record. He makes as big a deal out of that as Kerry did the fact that he was in Vietnam. And I guess there is some sort of taboo about calling it into question. Well, to heck with the taboo. LOTS of people in the past 7 decades in this country have been war heroes. LOTS of people have been POWs. That doesn't make them qualified to be President. And I guarantee you that most genuine war heroes did not go around afterwards making a big production out of it. Most tried to put the war behind them and live a normal life and expected to be judged based on their current and future behavior. MAYBE John McCain was a hero of high character 35-40 years ago. But that's also a long time ago. Just because someone is of good character at one point in their life, that does not mean that they will automatically continue to be virtuous. You, me and everyone we know has it within our power to become immoral scumbags starting tomorrow. What needs to be looked at and regarded with McCain is NOT his character 35 - 40 years ago but his more recent past. And an examination of it shows him to be a person of very questionable character.
I see McCain persecuting his political enemies in a far more vindictive and dangerous manner than even the Clintons who are known for such behavior.
"I think McCain is just as likely to impose the 'Fairness' Doctrine as any Democrat - perhaps even more so."
That is sickening, but you are probably right. There may be no foreseeable circumstances under which voting against John McCain is only an option.
I must amend my last comment a bit, too:
In better days, it would not have been possible for a John McCain to become a serious candidate for President of the United States.
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