Liberals might convince me to vote for McCain!
Let me preface this piece by stating categorically that John McCain was not my first choice as the Republican nominee for President. Nor was he my second choice. Third? Nope!
Considering the choices left to me in this election, and barring a sudden John McCain leftward lurch toward Nanny-State Socialism (stay with me here), it has been my intention to set aside my principles and vote, very unenthusiastically for John McCain.
That said, the more I read from our friends on the left, the more enthusiastic I become for the man. While their intention, I am sure, is to energize their own base, their writings serve the purpose of creating a momentum for McCain.
In a piece entitled, McCain's Low Road To Victory, Drew Weston, writing in The New Republic has this to say:
Seldom has a presidential candidate faced such long odds. John McCain has repeatedly allied himself with the most unpopular president since the history of modern polling. He has embraced the most unpopular war since Vietnam. The U.S. economy continues its downward slide. Polls show generic Democratic candidates leading by double digits at all levels of government.
While I might point out to Mr Weston that the primary reason that the Iraq War is the most unpopular since Vietnam has a lot to do with the never-ending barrage of negativity from his own Party, it's elected representatives and the Mainstream Media, of which, nominally, at least, he is a member; I will not do that here.
Even so, I could read that first paragraph, and find elements of agreement. But then, I read his second paragraph.
And those are just the beginning of McCain's problems. He is caught between a rock and a hard place in the core narrative about what he stands for. Moderates are turned off every time he takes a right turn to bow to a base whose ideology has proven destructive, while the GOP base is distinctly unenthusiastic about a candidate they suspect is really not one of them. Add to the mix an extraordinarily charismatic candidate running against an extraordinarily uncharismatic one, and it's no surprise that Republicans are openly expressing angst.
Again, an element of truth exists, in that the base is, indeed, unenthusiastic with John McCain. But his conclusions that Conservative ideology has proven destructive, is entirely without merit. conservative principles work every time that they are used. Liberal policies are those that lead to ruin.
It is a conservative principle to cut taxes for everyone who pays taxes, resulting every time, in increased revenue to the government. It is a liberal policy to spend those revenues without thought to the consequences, bloating the federal budget, and creating deficits.
Weston then trots out his thesis that the ONLY way that Republicans ever win national elections, and the only way that McCain can beat Obama, is through FEAR.
With all that stacked against him, the only road that could take McCain to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the low road, one of the few pieces of infrastructure left in good repair by President Bush. His father paved it against Michael Dukakis, George W. Bush repaved it running against John Kerry, and the GOP repainted the dotted line in now-Senator Bob Corker's 2006 contest with Harold Ford. The path to success for McCain is to make the election a referendum on his opponent, by working in silent concert with 527 groups and media outlets such as Fox News to pursue character assassination, guilt by association, and, most of all, the effort to paint Obama as different, foreign, unlike "us," and dangerous (and did I mention that he's black?).
You see, it wasn't that Dukakis and Kerry were miserable candidates, with Socialist ideologies and proposals that have been proven failures all over the world. No, it was Republican character assassination, lies and inuendo that did those candidates in.
Now, this is the same John McCain that the Republican base is castigating for his refusal to engage Obama on his questionable associations with known terrorists and Hate-America-First clergy, as well as his contradictory stands on issues of major international importance to this nation.
When a State Republican Party ran an ad against Obama in North Carolina, McCain told them to take it down. When Soren Dayton pointed out a YouTube video linking Obama to the Rev Wright, he was fired by the campaign. To the Right, McCain is unwilling to fight! To Weston, he is the mastermind behind a sleaze campaign to malign Obama's character. Right!
Now the left, which demands that Republicans run positive ads, NOT attacking the Democrat candidate (an attack being defined as any mention of that candidates shifting positions, his misguided ideas, or complete lack of experience or substance.) Weston then slams McCain for running -- are you ready -- a positive ad about himself.
Over the last several weeks, McCain has been running "The American President," an ad with all the trappings of positivity, but that actually sets the stage for all future attacks.
Huh? It's positive, and by its very positiveness, it becomes an attack...
The name of McCain's ad itself suggests both its positive message and its more insidious subtext: What other kind of President is there? An un-American President, someone who is not really "one of us"? An anti-American President? Or perhaps just an African-American President.
There you have it. John McCain is a racist, because he is running a positive ad about himself entitled "The American President." This peak behind the curtain into the convoluted cesspool of the liberal mind is illuminating. In their world, up is down, good is bad -- and by all means, anything Rethuglican is evil.
So what is the message of "The American President"? The announcer asks, "What must a president believe about us?" This seems innocuous enough, until you realize that it implicitly sets Obama up as "not one of us" and lays the ground for the RNC and the 527s to remind Americans of Obama's "elitist" comments about average Americans, which McCain is already riffing on in stump speeches, and Michelle Obama's gaffe about being really proud of her country "for the first time," to which Cindy McCain responded that she has always been proud of her country. (Apparently her country's refusal to let black people vote for a century after the Civil War, including during her lifetime, never touched her sense of national pride.)
There you go. We all of today should still beat ourselves about the head and shoulders about slavery, which ended more than 140 years ago. We should never make mention of statements made by the candidate or his wife (who is out on the campaign stump -- making herself a part of the campaign -- and by extension -- fair game for criticism.)
The announcer goes on, "And what must we believe about that president? What does he think? Where has he been? Has he walked the walk?" Again, innocuous enough, but it plays on the question of what Obama must have been thinking in the (did I say black?) pews all those years while listening to Reverend Wright, or what he must have learned in the Muslim schools he allegedly attended in Indonesia. The ad ends, "John McCain: The American President Americans have been waiting for." Syntactically, that's an oddly redundant conclusion. Why not, "John McCain: The President Americans have been waiting for?" Because, of course, that second rendering would not imply that his opponent is not American.
Again, in the liberal mind -- an attack on Obama, suggesting he is Muslim? (just what little round puckered orifice did Weston pull that one from -- by way of a hint -- his conclusion stinks.) Is it possible that the ad is questioning whether Obama is "experienced" enough to hold the highest office in the land? Is it possible that McCain is suggesting that HE is, in fact, qualified -- having served his country with distinction for decades?
I am through quoting from that piece of filth, but the piece goes on to describe how Obama has been attacked throughout the campaign as a Muslim and unpatriotic. It details how the Michele Obama "whitey" video story has circulated throughout the media.
All of which were attacks by the Hillary Campaign -- NOT John McCain
Yes, there can be no doubt about it. The more I read from the ramblings of left-wing kooks, the more convinced I become to support John McCain. I might just send him some cash right now. How about you?
He's still reluctantly got my vote, but he da*n sure ain't getting a penny out of me. I read stuff like this and get fired up to go vote for him, then he goes out and meets with Mexican Congressmen in private to assure them he will work for CIR (when has he met with conservatives to ensure us that we'll get a G-D fence?) and I think, here's a guy that just flat out doesn't want my vote. He's got a biiiig hill to climb to get a thin, red dime from me.