Content by No King but God
Posted at 3:58pm on Feb. 8, 2008 Mickey Kaus rips McCain's speech
By No King but God
Like Kaus I noticed McCain's implication that immigration conservatives were racist. But I didn't notice McCain's weasel words on judges.
Well, we have several months to get McCain a little more willing to compromise, IF we don't shut our eyes now.
Here's Kaus:
1) He pledges to appoint "judges of the character and quality of Justices Roberts and Alito." [E.A.] "Character and quality"? What about legal ideology? John Paul Stevens arguably has the "character and quality" of Roberts and Alito. He's just a legal liberal. Is there any chance that McCain will appoint someone who would curtail campaign finance reform on First Amendment grounds?
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Posted at 12:12pm on Feb. 8, 2008 John McCain on Immigration at CPAC
By No King but God
Intro
John McCain made a real effort to reach out to immigration conservatives at CPAC. I don't think there's any doubt that in his own mind he's swallowing his pride and making concessions. I give him full credit for that, because the concessions he's making are real. But at the same time, his speech unconsciously reveals how distant from immigration conservatives and how much he still loathes us. Its the proverbial half a loaf and the bread is kinda dry and crusty.
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Posted at 12:44am on Jan. 29, 2008 McCain behind the scenes
By No King but God
Rick Santorum claims that however McCain might have voted in public, in private he railed at conservatives who wanted to bring conservative issues up for a vote.
Ramesh Ponnuru at the Corner was sceptical, but now has recieved confirmation:
McCain stood in the middle of the GOP cloakroom and yelled at several of his Senate colleagues because they deigned to have a vote — to have a vote — on Inhofe's "English As the National Language" amendment to the 2006 immigration bill. He accused conservatives of being "divisive" and "insulting" Latinos for suggesting that immigrants ought to learn this language. He was nasty and unhinged. About 10 staffers witnessed this. He delighted in telling the conservative senators there that they were destroying the party with these efforts. This is what Santorum is talking about. He had antipathy for social and cultural conservatives' efforts.
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Posted at 1:21am on Jan. 25, 2008 McCain-Huckabee. Are you willing to support that package?
By No King but God
Huckabee is clearly angling to be McCain's Vice-President. The two were slobbering all over each other. Romney and Rudy were also pretty lovey, but that's clearly a Florida-only thing (you'd never have to Northeasterners on the same ticket).
At this point I wouldn't vote for McCain unless I was *very* comfortable with Huckabee being the next in line for the Presidency, or was *very* sure that
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Posted at 12:52pm on Jan. 22, 2008 Civil War Parallels to Election 2008
By No King but God
I read a lot of Civil War and Lincoln books. I'm listening to Shelby Foote's 3 volume history of the Civil War on audio right now. And I'm seeing some parallels between Civil War personae and some of our candidates.
Mitt Romney George B. McClellan This was just an intuition that hit me. But there are parallels when you go looking for them. McClellan was a very handsome man of personal character who was enormously successful in his military career and as a businessman. But he had a tendency to overestimate how essential he was to the Union cause and to oversell himself in a way that was offputting. If this parallel holds, then we should expect that Romney will be very, very good at reorganizing and trimming and making competent the federal government. But that we probably shouldn't expect much in the way of big initiatives successfully pushed through to their conclusion in the face of strong opposition. (To be fair to Romney, because McCain is older, there's a good chance that he won't be able to push through all his objectives and will focus on the few that matter most to him, which unfortunately seems to be his massive global warming regulatory scheme).
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Posted at 1:22pm on Jan. 21, 2008 America needs Fred for Veep.
By No King but God
Fred's never been in it for ambition or pride. He was in it to serve his country by advancing conservative principles. Now that his campaign has foundered, how can he best do that.
He can stay in the race, but that probably just wastes money and makes enemies. Fred staying in the race doesn't pull the other candidates to the right since one of the basic premises of his campaign is criticizing the other candidates for switching to positions that Fred has had all along.
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Posted at 8:16am on Jan. 21, 2008 The end of Fred and the end of True Conservatism
By No King but God
Fred Thompson was the most conservative candidate on offing, especially when it came to a deep understanding of conservative principles. His campaign is also over for practical purposes.
So does the end of Fred mean true conservatism is also over?
No. First, while this may be difficult to hear for true Fredheads, a lot of Fred's problems were about his campaign and not about his principles. Waiting to get into the race, not competing in Iowa until late, campaigning only in moderation, disarray and drift in the campaign organization, a lack of passion until that last SC debate (whether real or only percieved and unrebutted)--all these hurt Thompson's campaign objectively and also by giving a bad impression to voters who might have otherwise been interested. I refuse to beleive that a conservative campaign has to repeat these same kinds of mistakes in the future. Heck, if Fred had more time he'd probably fix a lot of those things himself. So I refuse to believe that the end of Fred means the end of true conservatism.
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Posted at 11:22am on Jan. 18, 2008 Fred and the Messiah Complex
By No King but God
Conservatives know that one of the big temptations in politics, law, and government is to treat it as a substitute for transcendent religion.
In reality they are a messy, complicated business. No candidate or official is perfect. No plan or policy will ever work without a lot of muddle and unintended consequences. No voter is ever fully informed or without prejudices.
But you often still get politicians who think they are the Savior and you still get voters who believe that one politician in particular can save them.
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Posted at 2:15pm on Jan. 17, 2008 Vote Fred in SC, but drop him if he's 3rd or worse.
By No King but God
Recently Fred Thompson has become my preferred candidate. (For the reasons why I prefer Fred to Mitt, see here:
http://www.redstate.com/blogs/no_king_but_god/2008/jan/16/huckabee_has_l... ).
If I were lucky enough to live in South Carolina, Fred would get my vote. I just sent him my first donation. I really hope he pulls off the stunning upset. And, you know, he just might.
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Posted at 1:49pm on Jan. 16, 2008 Don't confuse having integrity with being principled.
By No King but God
I've been reading various comments that suggest that if a candidate lacks integrity, then we can't trust anything the candidate says or does. The latest comment I've seen is one saying that since Huckabee lacks integrity we can't trust him to support gun rights even though he's consistently been a big gun rights guy all his life.
Don't get me wrong, Huckabee is nearly my least favorite candidate. But this kind of reasoning is pretty confused.