Redstate

On this issue, McCain is in the Majors, Fred/Rudy/Mitt are in the Minors and Huck is in the Wiffleball League. This one issue alone is the only reason I consider McCain at least acceptable and also the reason I find Huckabee completely unacceptable.

Romney will win in a walk against Hillary. Against Obama, any of our guys would struggle and likely lose - all the more reason to root for Hillary right now, but that's a topic for another thread.

“.....women and minorities hardest hit”

The onld DNC candidate could beat is Kucinic, Dodd, and Biden (the later two b/c they dropped out)...

As 2004 has shown authenticity is crucial for general election voters. Romney does not have it.

If he does have it, but he has allowed himself to be painted has a Kerry-esque flip-flopper.

Romney would keep it close to HRC, but Obama would win in a walk.

WE NEED SOMEONE WHO CAN BEAT OBAMA. HRC will get our turnout up.

really predict accurately the outcome in November?

At this point in the 1992 campaign George H. W. Bush was considerably ahead of little-known Governor Clinton.

Any predictions regarding the outcome in November, at this point, are less than reliable.

Just like the Division I playoff in football, that's why they play the games rather than relying on polls (or not, in the case of Division I football).

(1) Are you responding to me? If so, please have the situational awareness to notice the "Reply to This" link at the bottom of my comment and click it, so that I can actually see that you are responding to me.

(2) Facing a recession. Look, I don't claim to know McCain's mind or heart (though plenty of folks here -- still looking at you, Anteater -- do claim to know everything about their candidate's inner workings). What I do know, since you brought him up (note that I never once mentioned McCain in my original comment) is that he has called for tax cuts and, more importantly, spending cuts. Those are the economic stimuli that make up the bread and butter of governmental interference in our economy (outside of the Fed, which acts almost autonomously). Like I said, we need a very savvy, experienced businessman as SecTres; it's the job of that person to recommend economic policy to the President, and a businessman like Romney would fit very well there, where he can use that economic experience and not have to make decisions on issues like national security and foreign policy that he is eminently unqualified to make.

(3) Where did I mention Iraq?

as someone who just recently made the very reasonable point on a different thread that conservatives should support candidates who have demonstrated "consistent actions over an extended period of time," aren't you allowing McCain to steal a base on taxes?

Regardless of what he's promising today, McCain's recent votes against the Bush tax cuts and estate tax repeal are the very actions you suggest we keep in mind, aren't they? Shouldn't those actions outweigh his campaign rhetoric and by your own standards, aren't they a better measure of where he stands on tax issues?

Just asking.

McCain has also, though, been a very, very vocal voice in the Senate for (a) eliminating pork and (b) eliminating other wasteful spending. He opposed the Bush tax cuts, true, and that's a point against him, absolutely. When speaking of "tax cuts with accompanying spending cuts" on the campaign trail, though, he has a record in spades of dedication to the second part of that.

All this to say, you're right on his tax issue record. What I was speaking to was much more his spending record, which I applaud.

as well as McCain's strong record against earmarks. I just wish he had exerted half as much verbage and effort towards reforming entitlements or substantive budget reforms, then I'd really be impressed!

If one can't be consistent, well, then one is simply the equivalent of another shill :-)

What stopped our Senators from sending Bush the spending bills with cuts included while we were in the majority? McCain was a part of those spending bills that passed, and all his talk about spending cuts now are just that, TALK!

McCain has been a US Senator for over 20 years. He worked hard to try to stop the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. But I have not observed a similar effort on the part of McCain in trying to shrink the federal welfare state.

McCain could have conditioned his support for the Ted Kennedy amnesty for illegal immigrants bill on a reduction in the federal welfare state, since many of those who would be given citizenship under the McCain-Kennedy bill would have required a significant increase in social-welfare spending.

But McCain actually voted to let the illegal immigrants to not only get citizenship (and therefore become eligible for all the freebees that our welfare state provides), he supported letting them obtain Social Security credit for the work they did while they were illegally in the United States and while they were using fraudulent documents, including fraudulent Social Security numbers.

How is that in line with keeping spending under control, given that Social Security is already headed towards bankruptcy?

Given that McCain co-sponsored an bill that would have given amnesty to illegal immigrants, one that the Heritage foundation claimed would have increased the size of the American welfare state significantly, how can we be sure that McCain won't "reach across the aisle" as he has promised he would in Republican debates?

If McCain is elected, he'll side with the Democrat Congress more than the Republican minority, if history is any guide.

McCain sided with Chuck Schumer on the validity of filibustering Miguel Estrata's nomination to the federal court of appeals. McCain sided with Tom Daschle against the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. McCain sided with Feingold on hushing up conservative voices in campaigns but letting the New York Times and Tim Russert continue unrestrained before elections. McCain sided with Ted Kennedy on amnesty for illegal aliens.

As National Review editor John O'Sullivan has said:

McCain has spent the last seven years spitting on conservatives — on taxes, on campaign finance, on immigration — and in the last few weeks some conservatives have been hailing delightedly this as rain. How will they like the downpour if McCain wins?

I was just thinking today that McCain would be doing just about as well if he ran for the Democrat nomination as he is doing running for the Republican nomination.

He believes he acted out of principle, but I am just not familiar with what principles they might be.

Senator McCain's zealous effort against wasteful spending deserves praise. Over his twenty years in the Senate, he has been at the forefront of the battle to eliminate wasteful projects and inject greater discipline and transparency into the appropriations process, often by introducing a slew of cost-cutting amendments. While many of these measures did not pass, they served an important role in shining a glaring light on congressional profligacy. These amendments include:

* A 2006 amendment to cut $74.5 million for various agriculture programs[17]
* A 2006 amendment to cut $6 million for sugarcane growers in Hawaii[18]
* A 2003 amendment to reduce funding for the Yazoo Basin Backwater Pump Project in Mississippi[19]
* A 2002 amendment to eliminate $2.5 million for coral reef mapping of the waters off the coast of Hawaii[20]
* A 1998 amendment to cut $78 million in projects from an emergency supplemental appropriations bill[21]
* A 1994 motion to kill an amendment to provide $40 million for the conversion of a New York City post office into an Amtrak train station[22]

Senator McCain has also voted against a number of pricey bills, even when most of his colleagues preferred to toe the party line. These include:

* A vote against the 2003 Medicare prescription drug plan[23]
* A vote against the Farm Security Bill in 2002[24]
* A vote against the 2005 Highway Bill, one of only four senators to object to the pork-stuffed bill[25]
* A vote against providing Amtrak with an extra $550 million for the fiscal year 2007[26]
* A vote against $2 billion in milk subsidies[27]
* One of fifteen senators to vote for Senator Tom Coburn's (R-OK) amendment transferring $223 million for the "Bridge to Nowhere" to the repair of a Louisiana bridge damaged by Hurricane Katrina.[28] Senator McCain was also one of only thirteen senators to vote for an amendment by Senator Coburn to eliminate $950,000 for a parking lot for the Joslyn Art Museum in Nebraska[29]
* A vote for welfare reform[30]

"Club for Growth"