Redstate

Remember how we elected Ahnold to change Caleefornia, but he became closer to libs than us. Shows how much we know.

I believe McCain moves right in the white house.

By the way, everyone here and in other places assumes hillary's the nominee. I've been saying since 04 that Obama was it. They didn't troll him out there at the Dem convention for nothing. And check out the NBC video of that where Russert gleefully sings "this guy could be president!!!" Its been staged 4 years in the making.

That should have been our concern all along, not Billary.

A-freaking-men!

It'll be a great day when she's as big of an outcast as Pat Buchannan. Because she's an even bigger idiot.

John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"

She occasionally makes sense, but in general she's only trying to get attention. If I could make it to CPAC, I'd walk out on her speech (she should not be invited in the first place).

and sell them. She is just like Malkin and Ingraham, who almost relish a Hillary! White House, so that they can have motivation for a new set of book contracts.

I also am starting to get the feeling that Limbaugh wants to resurrect the Clintons so that he can feel motivated to go on the air again.

But I do find it weird in one regard. Many on this site seemed less than upset with the 2006 results, because they advocated sitting out in 2006 to "send a message". Well, now some are back saying the same thing, whil some are urging party loyalty to prevent The Pantsuit from winning.

Which is it?

Anyone who "sent a message" in '06 or sent a message by voting for Fred Thompson after SC (yes all 22,286 of you in Florida) has little room to criticize Ann Coulter. She has just as much (nearly as much?) right/reason to want to send a message to the Republican party that she will not tolerate what the party is doing.

If you want to make the argument that the country would be worse off under Hillary, then fine. I can respect that argument.

If you want to make the argument that you'd rather purge the party of its anti-conservatives (like Jumpin' Jim Jeffords. He's the perfect argument why we as a party should not channel money to those who won't toe the party line), then fine. I can respect that.

But if you want to make the argument that Hillary will be some kind of nuclear holocaust to this country and that no amount of party cleansing could possibly be worth it, then you have no perspective on history. We survived Clinton I.

I'm willing to go either way on it. I'm waiting to see how McCain might court conservatives in the general. If he tells us to get lost, I'm sitting at home.

In summary: I don't care which side you pick, unless you were one of those "message senders". If you were one of them, Ann is doing the exact same thing so you have no room to criticize.

Oh, and eb1, I disagree with your assessment of Anne. I think she is a fantastic woman and I would love to bear her children.

"Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em. I'm a whale biologist."

with her personally. It's just that her desire for attention makes her somebody I have trouble taking at face value.

I always wonder if people such as her, Malkin and Ingraham are combining heart felt beliefs with a schtick to get their names out there for publicity.

her book on impeachment, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," was a fantastic book, but then again she wasn't in her full-throttle demagougery mode then, either.

Saying that Coulter is a silly self aggrandizing witch.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

conservative. McCain is not and when he has the power of the Prsidency, he's not going to suddenly become a friend to conservatives. He will stop waterboarding, close Guantanamo, pass an amnesty bill and worst of all pass McCain Lieberman and our party will get stuck with owning these disastrous bills.

*I will never surrender to John McCain*

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neither is McCain. A McCain presidency has the potential to be worse than Hillary or Obama because he can reach across the aisle and get things done - horrible, horrible, things.

*I will never surrender to John McCain*

He made deals wherever he could. Sure he vetoed some things. And frequently the vetoes were overridden, because Mitt accomplished nothing insofar as rebuilding the MA GOP.

Romney made deals with a hostile SUPRAMAJORITY because he HAD to.

McCain made deals with the hostile MINORITY against his own party because he WANTS to.

"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)

Sorry, but even if McCain is willing to "reach across the aisle," so will HRC. It's not like her husband didn't reach across the aisle to get things done (remember welfare reform?). After '94 there wasn't anywhere else to reach if Clinton I wanted to get anything accomplished (skip the Monica jokes).

Every new presidency has the "potential" to be disastrous. Coulter's argument that Clinton is more conservative than McCain is an incredibly stupid thing to say -- we have to take her at her word, after all she's a serious (gag) commentator and how many times did she say she was serious?

There's no point in letting dislike for McCain become a substitute for rational thought.

... signing of it after vetoing it two times and realizing that he was losing his re-election bid if he didn't sign it when it came to his desk the third time.

The credit for Welfare Reform belongs entirely to the GOP class of 1994.

Romney/Pace 2008

I don't blame you for not liking Clinton, and you can criticize his motives all you want (although similar calculations are common in politics at all levels and across the political spectrum), but if he hadn't signed it it wouldn't have become law.

You can argue that he wouldn't have won re-election, but you don't actually know that (and neither does anyone else), because voters are remarkably fickle and categorical statements about what would have been are a waste of time.

There is a notable tendency among some in this neck of the woods to award credit as follows:

1) Republican president/Democratic Congress
The president is responsible for all the good things; the Congress is responsible for all the bad things.

2) Democratic president/Republican Congress
The president is responsible for all the bad things; the Congress for all the good things.

3) Republican president/Republican Congress
Republicans are responsible for all the good things; Bill Clinton is responsible for all the bad things.

Sorry, but the world is a little more complicated than that, and I'm never going to buy into such silliness.

You're entitled to your personal brand of ideological purity, but I find it unhelpful and boring.

Note: Yes, I used the grammatically correct "Democratic," since it's always seemed rather childish to me to sacrifice language on the altar of political correctness just to show contempt for political opponents.

I do have a problem with people saying that Clinton had any responsibility for the legislation and its passage. In fact, he opposed it, attacked it and vetoed it twice.

But now, because it has been proven to be successful, the New York Times for example, which denounced it, questioned the humanity of the Gingrich-led Congress, attacked Clinton for being scared into signing it, now calls it Bill Clinton's Welfare Reform.

When people call the Civil Rights Acts, LBJ's Civil Rights Acts, I have no problem with it because LBJ fought for it, negotiated, cajoled, pushed, threatened until he got the bill on his desk. If he had done what Clinton did vis-a-vis Welfare Reform I'd be just as irked to see the Civil Rights Acts referred to as LBJ's work.

Romney/Pace 2008

and I want waterboarding stopped (it already has been though, in case you missed that) and Guantanamo shut down.

Who says you get to decide what "Conservative" means?

how John McCain is a conservative. There are multiple people who have already made the case that he isn't. If you can make the case that he is then you might just be the first.

*I will never surrender to John McCain*

your "list" of conservative values, but you are not willing to grant me mine.

You see, that is exactly what has gone wrong with the Republican party over the last several years.

Why is torture a Republican or even Conservative value? Do you know how silly that sounds?

Something that you consider highly important may not be on my list at all. No one person, not Rush, not Hannity, not Coulter gets to decide what "Conservative" means.

All of you whiners who want to take your ball and go home if the game is not played exactly to your specs.. just go.

...at the very conservative and very well-attended debating society of the University of Chicago Law School, the "Torture Terrorists" resolution (which basically meant "waterboard 'em") was voted down by a surprisingly large margin.

Which is my way of saying that opposing torture is not a "liberal" or "Democratic" issue. It's one thing to wince and look the other way in a 'ticking time bomb' situation, it's another thing entirely to formally institutionalize torture and abuse, even if it's directed against the worst people in the world.

You're not alone.

But it's hard to debate people who strap explosives to mentally retarded people and send them into oblivion. This squeamishness on waterboarding is a weakness that has to be stamped out or we are doomed. I'm tired of innocents being slaughtered while we debate whether we are being too mean.

What the hell is going on out here? - Vince Lombardi

Where exactly is your list? Where are you touting McCain's conservative credentials? I don't see it.

*I will never surrender to John McCain*

so that we can eschew waterboarding?

You want waterboarding stopped? So do I? And, I doubt the men in CIA who did waterboard did it because they took pleasure in it. (If you're implying that they did, I don't think you're much of an adult).

But, are you willing to risk NOT stopping a terrorist attack, in order to give up waterboarding? If so, say so. Place yourself on record.

And, please don't tell me that we have other techniques available to us. NO ONE is saying that we should waterboard if we have other, less offensive interrogation techniques available to us.

The real question comes when our interrogators determine that waterboarding is the only option left. I.e., the choice is to waterboard, OR to not waterboard and suffer whatever consequences arrive from not getting the information.

In that case, what do you choose? To spare the terrorist a brief period of great discomfort, or to risk the life of the Girl Scout selling cookies in the mall.

That's the choice. Don't insult us by pretending it's anything else.

Time to step up. Where do you stand?

"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)

Dead girl scouts? You've got to be kidding, right?

Who will you torture to save your mythical girl scout? Shall we just round up the usual suspects? Maybe do a sweep on all the rag-heads huh?

As for going on the record, yes, that is exactly what I am saying. I categorically denounce torture as a means to an end. We Americans are better than that. Once you start down that slippery slope you become no better than those you despise.

And as for Guantanamo.. If we have people there in custody who have broken US laws, then they need to be tried and punished. Do you really think they have any useful intelligence after being incarcerated for 5 years? We are a nation of laws, not a nation that condones government run gulags.

Hi there. If I ever catch you making an explicit comparison of the United States to Stalinist Russia again you will be removed from this website until we're in receipt of a 1,500 word essay from you, subject: the Soviet Gulag system. Do we understand each other, or do I need to use smaller words?

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

is an extreme term..

So give me a term to describe what's being done down at Guantanamo.. Concentration camp? No.. that has some negative connotations associated with it..

Long-term detention facility?

Whatever you call it, it stinks in my book. Kick me off the site if you like. If that's what conservatism has become.. if we cannot have a dialog about what is acceptable to each of us and what is not, then we are dead as a party and a movement.

IMHO, our facility in Guantanamo makes us look like a third rate dictatorship in the eyes of the world. A world that we are at the same time trying to convince that we have moral righteousness on our side enough to spread freedom throughout the world. It makes us look pathetic, in my opinion.

If we have no standards.. if we follow no rules.. how can we lead the world?

scooped up on a battlefield. Under the "rules" of war they are called spies -- and by rights, the US could have simply shot them as such.

Instead, we have humanely fed and housed them -- in better housing conditions than most of them have ever known -- and provided for the physical and spiritual needs.

kwitcherbitchin

========
Considering where the good doctor's head was, when practicing medicine, is it any wonder that the man has issues?

Please provide me with links as to these "rules".. and please provide me with links stating we are at war with all of the states whose residents we are housing in Guantanamo.

Thanks.. awaiting your reply..

It's yours, after all. 1,500 words. Write it up, send it in and we'll think about turning your account back on.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Apparently being a conservative is an all or nothing proposition. Disagree on any issue that every self-described "conservative" considers the conservative position and kaboom, you're no conservative. By that standard conservatives in this country are in danger of extinction.

McCain may not be your ideal conservative, but he is definitely conservative and a conservative.

for providing some sense to this. Most of the people here seem to forget that there are very few people who agree on every single issue. Many Republicans do not see the most conservative position to always be the right one on every issue. The Republican Party itself is not a perfectly conservative entity, otherwise there wouldn't be enough support for it to exist as a major party. That's the whole point of being a big tent party. Social conservatives don't always share the same views on economic and foreign policy as economic conservations and foreign policy hawks. The same is true for all of those groups.

The truth is that McCain is still conservative on the vast majority of issues, and is not far removed from the party line. No, he's not the "perfect conservative," and neither is Romney, but the American people don't want a "perfect conservative" either.

They'll point to his lifetime ACU rating and ignore the fact that the last seven years of his career have signifcantly pulled it down. We've done this before and it goes nowhere.

"Uncompromising" Conservative = Opposite of Ronald Reagan.

So yes, I agree, she's a joke who's not really conservative.

John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"

That they would rather have a Clinton presidency than candidate x.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

Conservatives aren't just a herd of cattle that will vote straight Republican without fail no matter how much that supposedly Republican candidate likes to trash us to the liberal MSM.

If McCain really wanted our votes, he wouldn't be doing things like shilling for the global warming hoax on Leno.

and if it is one between conservatives and non-conservatives, why was there only one conservative in this years Republican field, and why did it take him so long to enter the race and then to even act like he wanted to win? By your reasoning, rainbow, the conservatives have already lost.

McCain has admitted that he might be wrong about anthrogenic global warming, saying at the debate at Ronald Reagan's library that even if he's wrong about this matter, we will get great, new tech out of it.

Conservatives can and will win this battle, but only if we contribute to the effort, not if we hold our collective breath and stamp our feet.

Why not elect a conservative Congress to help McCain stay on the right track?

Calling a rose by another name does not mean it ceases being a rose. You can argue you character assassination tactic against Romney, but that in the end does not make him any less a conservative. He is the only Conservative left running; he gained that honorary by beating out Fred. Now, we can be fickle, which is your approach, or we can be real about the situation and decide if we want a conservative Republican Party or a moderate Republican Party. That is exactly the import of our decision this election cycle.

Go ahead, make your jokes, Mr. Jokey... Joke-maker. But let me hit you with some knowledge. Quit now.

-White Goodman

McCain has admitted that he might be wrong about anthrogenic global warming, saying at the debate at Ronald Reagan's library that even if he's wrong about this matter, we will get great, new tech out of it.

How exactly does this differ from Romney saying that he will invest $20 billion in research (which does not mean dumping it into the R & D coffers of the Big Three) into fuel technology, materials science, etc. to not only push the American auto industry ahead of the competition but also to reduce the impact on the environment?

I know Romney said it so it may be that it inherently makes it somehow "worse."

But I still don't see it.

Romney/Pace 2008

I like the childish insistence that only there was only one conservative in this race.

I'm waiting until things calm down here a bit to write a blog entry titled "Forget the presidency, let's win the House and Senate". (Though if someone else were to write one with the same idea, I'd happily recommend it instead.)

---
Finrod's First Law of Bandwidth:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takes the bandwidth of ten thousand.

Hmm. Name calling. How mature.

Well, instead of trying to shout them down like a Hollywood liberal, maybe you'd be better served by asking yourself how many of them there are, and how likely it is that saying things like that will change their minds.

Then ask yourself how likely your guy is to win without that many of what was the bedrock of Bush supporters, and who even then only barely got him over the line both times. After that, you can ask how likely it is that you'll make up the difference among people who after all, voted for John Kerry last time.

There's still time to draw back from the abyss. And calling names that anger an already disenchanted half of your own party will not help you when you go into the general with only half of your own half of the public.

For someone to whom the only thing that matters is winning, I'd have thought you'd at least be a little better at crunching the numbers. And the more you call enemies, the more numbers you lose.

------------------------

"Put your faith in God. I know *I'm* going to..."

-Taniwha

This has nothing to do with their being traitors. They may not be thinking clearly, but most will probably reconsider before the election, swallow hard, and choose ultra-liberal John McCain over genuine conservative Hillary Clinton. Then, they'll return here to BlueState, sit back and relax, and watch McCain turn the US into the USSA (United Socialist States of America). Cool.

...looking for a job, I find Ted Olson's endorsement to be very noteworthy.

Alan Colmes was the one who said that people who are suddenly endorsing McCain are all "ho's looking for a job." Ann didn't say it, although it does sound like something she might say.

*I will never surrender to John McCain*

is more apparent than real. He will nominate people whom his pal Arlen is comfortable with, so we get a Souter or at best a Kennedy instead of a Ginsburg, Granted it is a little better, but only a little.
Of course there is no telling if he even gets a chance, true there are a lot of old guys on the bench, but they have a knack for hanging on.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

Hmm, let's see, what Judge is Specter most associated with?

Clarance Thomas.

I can live with that.

John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"

he makes lots of noise about nominees that sounds liberal, but he always supports the scotus nominees from republican presidents

and the noise he makes can be very useful for calming the democrats by making them feel that their concerns are being heard and understood

i say we keep him around

a Party follower rather than believe in and pursue a conservative philosophy.

Formally known as Deagle... "Golf is a way of life..."

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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater

She can sell more books insulting President Clinton than President McCain.

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Hitting Democrats attracts a great many Republicans. McCain is too popular among Republicans for that to work as well. Especially when you factor in the War Hero angle.

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Has made no effort to pull any punches against anyone if she thinks it will make a headline.

McCain still has to make nice with people like her if he wishes to win.

"When someone preaches disunity, tries to pit us against each other through class warfare, race hatred or religious intolerance, that person seeks to rob us of our freedom and destroy our very lives. And, we know what to do about it..."

Nail meet hammer.

I think you're spot on there.
The only thing that AC has EVER truly cared about is her bank account.

This is just another turn at the trough before her irrelevancy becomes common knowledge.

But you have to ask yourself, how we as conservatives, could not produce, in 8 yres, a better candidate than John McCain? We rejected Romney because he flipped flopped, like none of us never changed our minds on anything in our lives; Rudy ran the most bizaar campaign known to man; Fred Thompson never engineered enough excitement for himself, never mind the electorate; and I don't even want to ventur a thought about Huckabee. So now we're left with an unquestionably brave but very old John McCain, whose done nothing but create angst for conservatives for the past seven years, but now everyone needs to forget that stuff because only John can save us from Hillary. To think we knew for eight years this was lying in the weeds waiting to happen, and effectively sat back and let it happen is nothing short complete unadulterated capitulation.

It's 30 years of bigger government regardless of whether the R or the D wins the general.

McCain's nefound enthusiasm for tax cuts will evaporate more quickly than a mid-afternoon drizzle in the Sahara after he is elected.

The only thing McCain is right on is the GWoT. He can do that as Sec Def, Sec State, or yes, even as one of two Senators from Arizona.

And no, I'm not a fan of Romney's either, but IF I'm choosing the lesser of two evils, he is it.

I don't understand how a guy who supported Rudy, a true social liberal, can then turn around and support Mitt because he thinks McCain is too liberal. Plus, doesn't Rudy support McCain now?

.

think about the motivation you just ascribed to them...if McCain wins, and then governs true to form, they get at least four years of "see, I told you so"...your dismissal of any possibility of principled (albeit ridiculous, in Ann's case) motivation is way overblown...

"Life IS pain, Highness...anyone who says different is selling something..."

If McCain does win they will take this approach. They'll have no other choice but to use the "I told you so" line.

But I don't see how anyone can argue that they want McCain to win. And this does not require speculation. This is what they are telling us.

I think Rush et al's priciples are to fight for conservative causes and issues and if that doesn't work then their ego kicks in and it becomes more about their own reputations then anything else.

you argued that their motivation for taking that stance was to sell more books and preserve their reputations as influence peddlers (my term, not yours)...I'm saying that they ARE opposing McCain on principle (though I don't agree with voting for Hillary) and that their income potential and credibility only rise when he gets in office and perpetuates the positions that have alienated conservatives...

I agree about their position...I take issue with your cynical interpretation...you can disagree with their position without denouncing them as unprincipled egomaniacs...

"Life IS pain, Highness...anyone who says different is selling something..."

They are not opposing McCain on principle.

Because if McCain loses that means the Dems control everything, will tilt the court left for another generation, will pass universal health care etc...etc...etc...

I simply cannot believe that they oppose McCain on principle when so much they despise will come to pass if he loses.

And I don't buy that McCain is so close to Hillary or Obama that it doesn't make a difference who wins. Given their voting records across the board that argument just does not wash. There is a definitive and substantial difference between McCain and the two Dems. Its just that on a number of hot button issues he is just not conservative. And it is the smoke of those issues that has clouded conservatives long term vision and are leading them into the wilderness for this election.

Therefore, I am left to conclude that Rush et al. are being so hostile to McCain to protect their own interests in being influential pundits that can shape public opinion. And I also believe they are protecting themselves from being laughed at by the MSM and accused of being clowns people tune into for entertainment value. Their egos simply cannot handle that.

As far as I know, Ann is the only one making the outrageous statement that she will vote for Hillary...Rush has said he MAY not vote in the general...and he has said for some time that he is through with "carrying the water" for a Republican party that has abandoned true conservatism...I think he is being true to his declaration, which was born out of frustration that supporting GHWB/Dole/GWB did NOT produce a rightward drift in the party, but rather resulted in the opposite...

think what you will, but there are those of us who are (finally) questioning just how much principle we should feed the GOP beast on the promise that they will embrace Reaganesque conservatism "someday"...

"Life IS pain, Highness...anyone who says different is selling something..."

Coulter et al simply cannot stomach having to face those lines of attack that the MSM will pound them with.

Whereas the rest of us can cheer wildly that conservatives are marginal in their own party.

Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.

After Reagan:

Bush Sr.
Dole
Bush Jr.
McCain

A majority of Congress for 6 years under a GOP president and no conservative movement. In fact, they acted like liberals on many issues - and were as corrupt as we ascribe to liberals.

Face it. We are marginal in our party and have been since Reagan. Nothing will change on election day. We won't be less marginal if McCain wins or loses.

Perhaps, if conservatives really do sit out en masse, McCain loses, and the polls show it was stay at home consevatives that cost him the race - that that will be proof that we can NO LONGER be marginalized.

Perhaps. But the more time goes by the more skeptical I get that voters and politicians who call themselves conservative really are.

I agree with you Werewolf.

If you go back to Reagan's time, conservatives were even marginal then. Reagan embraced the conservative agenda, but did not have a majority in Congress to really be effective.

Newt et. al., in '94, rode in to power on a wave of fear from the electorate after two years of Clinton. But even though conservatives held major positions, their ability to move anything forward depended, not on the majority of Congress, but the emotions of the electorate to influence Congress to grudgingly pass conservative legislation.

The electorate is fickle. It rides on the emotions of the time. The MSM plays it like a fiddle. The MSM was caught flat footed in 1994. It learned from that election and has been aggressively on the attack ever since.

Just like kids who don't listen to their parents until they get themselves in trouble, the electorate does not listen to conservatives until it gets itself into trouble.

You forgot Thomas Sowell and Mark Levin. Sowell is a giant. He's not doing this for any other reason than conservative conscience.

Ann's column suggests that President McCain would raise taxes. She concludes that his original opposition to the Bush tax cuts makes him pro-Taxes.

Using equally specious argument, I can conclude that Ann voting for Hillary indicates that she is pro-Abortion.

Furthermore, as it is apparent that she is using the narrow to determine the broad, I must therefore conclude that, being pro-abortion, she is a liberal and Democrat.

Further to that and still using her methodology for McCain, I must conclude that she has been lying all along about being a conservative Republican.

So by her evidentiary standards, Ann Coulter is a lying, pro-abortion, liberal democrat.

Stand to reason? Well neither does her position regarding Hillary. It's fine though, I don't believe for one second that she'd vote for, much less campaign for, Hillary Clinton. She is doing her thing. Reductio ad absurdum. That is Ann for better or for worse.

She is still hilarious and I still like her. But like George Will a few weeks ago, and Senator McCain many times, Ann is merely wrong. She's fallible like the rest of us.

absentee

I like Ann. But, this strikes me as pure publicity. This is shock-jock-schlock. I now ask if she has a new book coming out (didn't she just have one?) or some other venture she is trying to stump for.
Which is all well and good for her, but this is one of those moments where you have to stop and think and ask yourself, is this the best thing to say at this point in time?
R.J.

With Libs and wonks the only people endorsing McCain and a fawning MSM you think he moves RIGHT in the White House????

You must live inside the beltway where logic is irrelevant and perception is reality.

Man, I sure wish it was that easy for me to predict the future with 100% certainty. If you have any information about the NYSE or this year's Triple Crown races that you're willing to share, please let me know.

Then again, maybe you should consider the Democrats' uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

"and a possible electoral realignment in favor of socialists."

Now, you've convinced me. It is futile to vote against Obama -- obviously he's superhuman. In a country pretty evenly split between left and right he's going to engineer an electoral realignment making us a country of Stepford socialists.

Amazing. I may have to vote for him (not that my vote will matter since he's going to get 99.9% of the vote anyway) just to watch the show.

1.) RiNO is a bad word around here. Not because we don't recognize the type, but because the use of cheap labels and name-calling is the first sign of that the user has ceased to critically think. Who was it who wrote that "cliches are the sentries of ignorance?" Well, what he said.

2.) How on earth would Coulter necessarily "dwarf" anyone? Her legal credentials are adequate, I suppose, but since when does the ability to vomit up slopbuckets of verbal excresence like some right-wing Mr. Creosote mark someone as a "thinker?" She's a gifted, albeit wildly overrated, polemicist. Not a thinker. She shoots for controversy, not for consistency.

Coulter crystallizes the conservative viewpoint better than anyone on this site and way better than McCain. People point to statements that they think are outrageous but if you read her columns and books her logic is devastating and her points are backed up with facts and research.

Ann is a provocateur, she sometimes says things that sound controversial to make a point. Unfortunately we have too many people on the right who just want to be liked. Ann has correctly concluded that no conservative or Republican will ever be accepted by the MSM and the elites. So she says what she thinks and whether we agree or not I give her credit for being willing to say what she thinks and take the heat for it.

And sorry, anyone who supports McCain is a RINO. He meets the definition of that term better than anyone.

And sorry, anyone who supports McCain is a RINO. He meets the definition of that term better than anyone.

Horsefeathers, and you know it. Let's take this preposterous two-pronged accusation in reverse:

FIRST: If JOHN FREAKING MCCAIN meets the definition of RINO "better than anyone," then you were either born into this life 10 days ago or are, as I suspected, merely deploying the "RiNO" cliche as a sentry for your deeper ignorance. Linc Chaffee? He was definitely a RiNO. Jeffords, pre-switch? Textbook. Specter, Snowe, and Collins? You've got really good arguments on these ones, although it utterly ignores the fact that "Republican" =/= "social conservative," either now or in the past.

But John McCain? How on earth could someone with an overall fantastic record on abortion, gay marriage, social policy, war, foreign policy, fiscal policy, taxes, and judges conceivably be a RiNO? Does CFR alone undo all this? Support for immigration reform (in which case Bush is a RiNO too?) Voting against two ill-advised tax cuts in a 28 year legislative history? Criticizing Rumsfeld? Give me a break. If you wanted to make a more just accusation against McCain, you could say that he has "maverick" tendencies and doesn't always agree 100% with us, the base. But for chrissakes, calling McCain a RiNO just suggests that you're tossing around buzzwords without actually thinking too hard about them.

SECOND: For the sake of argument, let us grant the (highly dubious) proposition that McCain is a RiNO. It still doesn't follow that anyone who supports him is a RiNO. Perhaps a solid GOP conservative could think McCain a RiNO and support him nevertheless because he's so overwhelmingly right on the two most important issues of our generation: the war and fiscal conservatism.

Perhaps someone could even disagree with the importance of those two issues and still think he's a damn sight better than letting either of the two very liberal and very strong-willed Democratic candidates take office with a Democratic Congress behind them. The hateful legislation would start rolling off the conveyor belt at lethal speed, and you can't unring those sorts of bells.

Spare me the tosh about how "McCain loves to reach out to the Dems so much that there wouldn't be any difference!" You're being dishonest with everyone (yourself included) if you really think there would be no difference. For one (very important) thing to start, Johnny Mac would fight pork and earmark-laden bills in a way that no Dem would.

THIRD: Coulter is a provocateur, but the analysis stops there. I see no purpose or point which is served by calling Muslims "ragheads." If you can't distinguish between hating radical extremists and using disgusting racial slurs - or if you're the sort of fool who thinks that ANY rhetorical purpose could ever be furthered by a conservative making a racial slur - then we are living on different planets.

Sorry, this has been a very long post.

It is a known fact that McCain avoid voting on social issues, he mouths the words because his constituency in Arizona demands it but what has he really done to advance the cause of social conservatives. When he refers to evangelical leaders as "agents of intolerance" I guess I am not seeing how he is a social con.

As far as his record on fiscal matters, he has been there through all of the spending sprees in the last several years. What has he done? His amnesty bill would have cost us 3 trillion dollars according to the Heritage Foundation, so there goes that argument.

The third leg of the stool, national security, is probably his best argument but even there we have some problems. His grandstanding on torture, wanting to close Gitmo, constantly trying to undermine Rumsfeld, open borders, and yes even he spoke of timetables in January 2007 even as he now lies about Romney's record on that issue.

McCain is the ultimate insider, he is has a poor temperament and will never be able to unite our party. That is already obvious. In reality he doesn't want to unite us anyway, he wants to form a coalition of RINO's and Dems to get his agenda through. Voting for McCain is a vote for McCain Feingold, McCain Kennedy, and McCain Lieberman, 3 bills that couldn't be less Conservative. Count me out.

Feel free to enjoy the... works... of Ann Coulter; but if you emulate her tendency to use racial and sexual slurs here, you will be banned (so sayeth a site moderator). Do you understand?

I normally assume that this goes without saying, but since you are deliberately comparing her favorably to us, I feel the need to make sure that this has been made clear to you.

Answer in your next post, please. A simple "Yes, I understand" will be acceptable: in fact, it is recommended.

Moe

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

So is this a preemptive ban? I have not made any racial or ethnic slurs that I am aware of, nor have I endorsed hers. I find it amusing that after about 3 posts total, I am being threatened with a ban because I disagree with the McCain supporters and refuse to attack Ann.

So I need to condemn Coulter to stay in your good graces? Sorry I can't do that. I was looking to trim out some of my bookmarks and as I had Redstate in my "Conservative" folder I see now that was an error on my part.

Good luck with your RINO agenda, I hope you enjoy your amnesty, global warming hysteria, suppression of free speech to name a few of the hallmarks of McCain supporters. I am out of here.

He thinks moderation on a private website is an infringement upon Free Speech.

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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater

...would have sufficed.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

"John McCain has never been afraid to take the road less traveled, and he has fought wasteful spending at every turn along the way. He's saved taxpayers untold billions, and he has rightfully earned the reputation as the Senate's number one fiscal hawk. I trust that as president, John McCain will veto any pork-barrel bill that crosses his desk, and will make the authors famous.

"When it comes to ensuring the sanctity of human life, you will find no one stronger on the issue than Senator McCain. For twenty-four years, John McCain has been an unwavering voice in Congress for the rights of the unborn.

"For those reasons and more, I urge voters here in South Carolina and across the country to join me in supporting John McCain for president."

-- Senator Tom Coburn

"No offense to you guys at Red State, but Coulter dwarfs you in every respect in terms of being a conservative thinker."

Thanks for the laugh.

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No offense to you guys at Red State, but Coulter dwarfs you in every respect in terms of being a commercial success who'll say anything to get attention and make a buck.

about all that. You know.. those folks that think they are Republicans and conservatives no matter what you or Rush or this idiot Coulter says?

being the nicely behave minority they were for the 40 years before Reagan befriended conservatives and tossed out the wonks and country club Republicans. So (paraphrasing from the movie) being as you might be facing the 40 years of the most powerful forces for increasing socialism, increasing taxes, increasing racial quotas, and seriously decreasing civil liberties, do you feel lucky voting for McCain in the primaries? Well do ya?

and the wonks here and in the Republican party have been dismissing because they figure conservatives have nowhere to go but the back of the bus. It's an inherent part of McCain's strategy.

The only part I think your off on is that I still think you are underestimating how many conservatives will stay home instead of voting for McCain. One of the interesting stats I caught on Fox News the other night is that even in the Republican primary in Florida, McCain didn't win more than half of self-described Reagan conservatives. He won because 17% of the Republican voters in the primary were self-described Independants, and they were his margin of victory.

The truth is, McCain's negatives with conservatives are almost as bad as Hillary's. But the Republican party establishment can't face that fact. Even though they tried to use the same pattern of thought in 2006 and got creamed.

That's good reasoning, but I'm not sure that people so emotionally involved with their guy that they would call conservatives Benedict Arnold for opposing McCain from the right, are going to be able to follow it very well.

Maybe it is too late to pull this one back. Who thinks people that emotionally invested and willing to slander their own side in such personal terms, would turn out for Romney?

And we practically had it made, too, what with the race war going on on the Dem side.

------------------------

"Put your faith in God. I know *I'm* going to..."

-Taniwha

I do love punctuation.

Look, more seriously, I understand the fact that McCain causes angst among a lot of Conservatives. I also understand he is not the most politic of politicians in terms of reaching out to those who have concerns about him. But . . .

* McCain has consistently been strong on defense issues and strong on the war on terror. Ms.Clinton/Mr. Obama have not.

* McCain supported Alito and Roberts. Ms. Clinton/Mr.Obama did not. Past behaviour is often predictive of future behaviour, so I think its safe to say you have a somewhat better chance of getting a conservative nominee from McCain than Clinton/Obama.

* McCain has consistently been a deficit hawk. Ms. Clinton/Mr. Obama have not.

* McCain has a consistent pro-life record. Ms. Clinton/Mr. Obama do not.

I realize McCain has been problematic for Conservatives (or least some of them) on key issues like campaign finance reform and immigration, but Clinton/Obama have been downright hostile on almost every issue that is important to Conservatives. If you are protesting liberalism, why would you support (actively or passively) a liberal?

Look your choice is not between Ronald Reagan and John McCain, your choice is between John McCain (or Romney if he can actually start winning) and a flaming liberal. I think that should be an easy choice. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

NC

You hit the nail on the head. McCain supporters tell us we are idiots for not supporting him even though McCain has been telling conservatives to go to hell for years. I am not sure why a site that calls itself RedState has RINO's on it but oh well...

"relentless attacks on candidates Giuliani, Romney, and Huckabee by maniacal McCain supporters."

I've been here a while and the ratio of I WON'T VOTE FOR MCCAIN EVER!!! diaries to attacks on the 3 other three is pretty high.

Could you find some diaries from McCain supporters that attack Rudy and Huck? Since they are so numerous and all. And remember that until this week, the only front page people behind McCain were Charles and myself.

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Try RedState.com.

I'm sure you've seen the plethora of the "Anybody but Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee..." blogs. We naturally notice the blogs attacking our candidate most.

Additionally, if Romney had won Florida, the I WON'T VOTE FOR ROMNEY EVER! diaries would be the ones outnumbering the other blogs. It is a fact of McCain's frontrunner status that he is receiving the most heat. Count your blessings.

I will still support McCain. But I am not excited. I don't envision my level of excitement increasing. But I do know that continued attacks on my candidate or on me as a supporter do not increase my level of excitement for John McCain.

So by your reckonning we have at least a 3:1 ratio of people who won't vote for McCain as opposed to won't vote for any other single candidate. And yet somehow

* we are supposed to believe McCain when he claims he "can unite the party"
* we continue to have posts proclaiming that we should all suck it up and vote for whoever has an R behind their names
* a house policy that nobody can write posts here that run parallel to what Anne says will happen if McCain wins the nomination

There's definitely some cognitive dissonance here. I'm not sure it's with the anti-McCain people like me.

Go ahead, make your jokes, Mr. Jokey... Joke-maker. But let me hit you with some knowledge. Quit now.

-White Goodman

...in fact, people need to attack McCain on some level, because politicians always need to be kept honest.

But to publicly declare that you'd actually CAMPAIGN for Hillary if McCain is the nominee? It's nothing more than Coulter's effort to seize headlines with the most attention-whoring reduction ad absurdum instantiation of the whole "I'm sitting out for McCain" line of thinking. This isn't about principle, it's about trying, once again, to put her own career at the head of the line by saying the most outrageous thing possible, going that extra mile. Do you actually think she means what she says? I don't. In fact, I know she doesn't mean most of what she says...I've spent time with her at cocktail parties in DC before, and I have all the confirmation I need to know that she's a cynical bomb-thrower, saying these things just to focus all eyes on her. And that's the worst thing of all, in my opinion.

Again, you want to vote Romney? Good god, of course you should vote your conscience. Attack McCain? Go ahead, please, it keeps us all honest as long as it's done constructively. Sit out the general election? I think that's needlessly destructive, but it's still a valid response if you really think 4/8 years of Hillary or Barack is what this country needs in time of war. But to CAMPAIGN for Hillary? Hey, you can do what you want...but don't pretend you're a Republican or a conservative at that point. You're just stubborn.

But to publicly declare that you'd actually CAMPAIGN for Hillary if McCain is the nominee?

Not me.

Again, you want to vote Romney? Good god, of course you should vote your conscience.

Ok, now that was to me. Yes, yes I do intend to vote for Romney.

Attack McCain? Go ahead, please, it keeps us all honest as long as it's done constructively.

Not me. Well, maybe once for flip-flopping on the Bush tax cuts.

Sit out the general election?

Not me. I'll vote for him in the general. I just can't get excited about it.

But to CAMPAIGN for Hillary? Hey, you can do what you want...but don't pretend you're a Republican or a conservative at that point. You're just stubborn.

Again. Not me. Not ever. About that I am stubborn.

I am guilty of lazy conflation. The post started as one directed to you, but took on elements of the general Coulter theme in editing. The "you" in the opening and closing segments was a combination of the general "you" and one directed at Ann herself.

BTW, I salute your attitude: it is the honorable approach.

Once again, sorry for misstating your views. I need to be more careful when I'm vomiting out these long rants.

You can have a stupid attack (one strikes every 15 seconds, you could be next) and still be a Republican and Conservative. All humans at one point or another are going to say/do something without thinking first. It's a fact.

I don't mind people calling McCain and the like moderates ('cause they are) but they aren't complete conservatives. That's fine. I have no problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the attacks on the supporters because they don't agree with you. You want my vote? Don't call me names or tell me I need an education or I'd believe the same as you.

Coulter has always been about the attention. It's about ratings.

"When someone preaches disunity, tries to pit us against each other through class warfare, race hatred or religious intolerance, that person seeks to rob us of our freedom and destroy our very lives. And, we know what to do about it..."

But rather due to attacks by McCain himself and by his allies like Lindsay Graham. I can take these jabs.... from members of the opposing party.

I have genuine sympathy for McCain supporters because they are caught between a rock and a hard place. They have taken upon themselves the disdain that McCain has earned from conservatives---earned precisely because he has heaped it on us.

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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater

I know my father hates McCain so much that he told me this morning he'd rather see Hillary as President than McCain. And he's been a Republican *every day of his life.*

That's how bad this choice is.

I know MANY people in my daily life that feel the same way.

McCain will lose MILLIONS from the right, and has no chance in the general due to that. But that observation falls on deaf ears.

It falls on deaf ears because it's complete and utter bullsquat.
Polls prove this. He's got as high of approval rating among Republicans as any other, higher then most.

And even those that are like that mostly live in safe states. If some guy in Nebraska or Alabama stays home, it's not gonna matter.

But in the end result, they'll be less then 1/2%.

Anyhow, win, lose, or draw, Republicans will vote in roughly equal numbers and percentages for McCain as they always have.

And I'll come back and laugh at you.

John Bolton for President
"FEAR THE 'STACH!!!"

And all of you guys who have taken every opportunity to do the Democrats' dirty work for them over the past year had better think again about the purple prose you're spouting for John McCain -- because you're turning the lifelong conservatives and Republicans off like a lightswitch with this crud. You guys have been pushing Romney under the bus since the day he announced his candidacy. Not ONCE have any of you had enough backbone to fight for the guy from your own party. Well, I'm not switching: John McCain can go to hell.

spoiled punks that don't get their way, whine.

Go start your own party...the Whinicrats. Some of US Conservative Repubs care about winning...

" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised

He's 64 years old. He voted for every Republican Presidential nominee that he's ever had the chance to vote for. He worked on the Poseidon Missile Guidance System and the Apollo Flight Computer at MIT. He was a Reagan donor, and he's a proud and vocal Republican in this, the bluest state in the Union. If you want to call him a punk, go right ahead. That's the kind of person you guys are losing by bending over for John McCain.

I think you and others are acting like total tools.

John McCain can go to hell?...Grow up Ko..it's sad to see someone that has been here so long act like such a brat.

You know what, I think Mitt is a spoiled little cake eater...but if he is the nominee, he'll get my support...because winning IS that important.

" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised

And there is the difference between the anti-McCain crowd and the anti-Romney crowd. Anti-McCain crowd hates McCain on ideological grounds - he drafts stupid legislation like McCain-Kennedy and McCain Feingold. AntiRomney crowd hates Romney because he "is a spoiled little cakeeater" or perhaps they don't like his hair, the fact is he is from Massachusetts ro the fact he is a Mormom

Romney is running on a straight conservative paltform, pretty much the same platform that Thompson ran. They just hate him for what he was, how he looks or where he's from.

There is only one conervative running right now.

I have spent my entire life around the uber wealthy, and yes, I do consider them cake eaters. That is my opinion. And when I have had the chance to see and hear Mitt, it's the same crap I've seen for a long time. Sorry, I don't think he is sincere, and don't think he truly cares about doing what it takes to lead this country...I think it is another thing to put on his resume. Again, sorry, just my opinion.

However, as I said, if Mitt is the nominee, I will support him, because the cause of winning is the most important thing right now. And while I'm at this point, let's go a bit further...In regards to the all the off the deep end, "I won't vote for McCain", I'll stay at home CONSERVATIVES, what does it say about your choice when MITT himself has said should he lose, he will still support the party nominee?

" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised

Tools of what? Tools of a campaign that doesn't believe Republicans should use Democrat talking points against one of their own? Tools of a guy who has been successful at almost everything he's done? Tools of a guy whose *actual governorship* in Massachusetts was closer to his Republican ideals than John McCain's ever were? Tools of a guy who would never put out robocalls saying that John McCain supports re-opening relations with Communist Cuba, even after he was a victim of those robocalls? Tools of a guy who has admitted -- publicly and effusively and credibly -- that he was "WRONG" about his earlier views on abortion? Tools of a guy who is youthful, with a fast mind, and who understands business -- globally -- in this global economy? Tools of whom?

The Mormons? Am I a tool of the Mormons, Jdub? C'mon. Please. Say it.

I think your wish above for McCain to go to hell is childish, and way over the top.

" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised

Instead of going to hell, John McCain can go to an early morning liquid breakfast with Ted Kennedy. Almost as good.

this bad.

Alex, you are a long time user here, respected even. How mad could you really be that you would ....

In any event, I'll support the party nominee. And, seriously consider following BS before the door slams shut.

Peace.

" Got to love the Lord for making things like that."
Morally Compromised

Tools indeed.

"Go to hell" to a former POW and steadfast Republican because he didn't bow down to the "conservatives" in the WH.

Pathetic.

Thats called mindless hero worship in my book. A tool. Oh, and Pathetic.

Go ahead, make your jokes, Mr. Jokey... Joke-maker. But let me hit you with some knowledge. Quit now.

-White Goodman

I was behind Romney until he stabbed me in the back in Michigan. He made a fool out of me, who defended him, by turning into the flip-flopper I'd argued he wasn't.

I defended him for quite some time. But I won't now. If I wanted to defend a big spender, I'd back Huckabee.

And at this point I'm still not backing Romney because of policy. I'm also not backing McCain because legally he's not a credible general election candidate. To spend what it takes will require him to violate his FEC matching funds statement.

I'm backing the nominee. I'll vote for either flipping one of them. And those who can't, I can take or leave.

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The only thing Romney said in Michigan was that there was a possibility of a stimulus package of modest dimensions for the auto industry and that he thought the American auto industry could rebound, which I agree with, if they really got together and started making cars that Americans wanted to buy. I see absolutely no reason why as President that's not a good thing to do.

And I don't see why *my* money should go to subsidizing cars Americans don't want. That's idiotic, sorry. If Americans wanted GM's cars,t hey'd BUY GM's cars. Only a socialist could see that clear rejection, and respond with confiscatory taxation to FORCE spending on GM Cars an yway.

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To the other elements of Romney's speech:

In a speech to business leaders and at an international auto show, he was especially critical of new fuel efficiency standards signed into law last month by President Bush. "Instead of throwing over a life preserver, Washington has dropped yet another anvil on Michigan," Romney told the Detroit Economic Club. "And now it's passively sitting back to see if car companies can swim, and the answer is: just barely."
...
"It is an indisputable fact that when Mitt Romney took office, Massachusetts was losing thousands of jobs every month and the state was facing a fiscal crisis," Fehrnstrom said. "Four years later, the state budget was balanced, the economy was adding jobs, and Wall Street responded with a credit rating upgrade."

Now I'm cherry-picking the quotes here. If you'd like the rest of the ammunition to use against Romney, and you're willing to buy into the New York Times you can go here.

But the big bone of contention seems to be this quote:

"I will roll up my sleeves in the first 100 days I'm in office, and I will personally bring together industry, labor, congressional, and state leaders and together we will develop a plan to rebuild America's automotive leadership," he said to applause.

He also pledged to increase from $4 billion to $20 billion federal spending on energy research, fuel technology, materials science, and automotive technology. Romney said there is "no one silver bullet," but said he is the only candidate with the business experience to revive Michigan's economy.

And what is wrong with that? The fact that John McCain says it can't be done? The idea that spending 16 billion dollars at the federal level to help prime that pump isn't a good thing to do when the American auto industry is suffering? It's not as though he proposed even 1/5th of the money that was allocated to rebuild New Orleans after Katrina. Bush did that.

Its a somewhat riduculous notion to think that (a) a President Romney would actually convene a group of industry, labor, congressional and state leaders to "rebuild" the auto industry and (b) that such a group of "leaders" -- the same leaders who seem to have run the industry into the ground -- could actually come up with a workable plan for "rebuilding" the auto industry.

But leaving that point aside, how in the name of William F. Buckley is Romney's proposal a conservative idea?? It seems like some sort of bastard child of a scheme conceived from the seed of fascist/corporatist Italy and the egg of a third rate follower of Keynes at Wayne State University.

There is, by the way, a successful auto industry in America, its just not in Michigan. Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and other states have all managed to build successful auto industries in their state by a providing a low tax, pro-free labor environment.

If the American auto manufacturers want to rebuild their industry they need to make cars (like the new Chevy Malibu and Cadillac CTS) that people want to drive, reduce their dependence on high cost, less productive, unionized labor and locate their operations in states with low-tax, pro-business enviroments. They should not look for a government life-line (as Romney is promising them).

The free-market can be a b****h in the short term, but in the long-term it produces better results for everyone.

Its also interesting to me that "Conservatives" are adamantly opposed to McCain's apostosies, yet they overlook Romney's heresies. Their reasoning seems to consist of either (a) he is just saying it to get votes and he does not really mean it or (b) he may do it, but his heart is really with the Conservatives (unlike McCain), so we will overlook his occasional liberal initiatives.

NC

... to you, Neil.

However, as we pursue new trade agreements, I'm far less interested in just getting an agreement signed than I am in getting an agreement signed that is good for America. I promise you that any nation that unfairly manipulates its currency, steals our patents and designs, dumps unsafe products in our markets, or stifles the American goods in their market place, will face a very aggressive President across the negotiating table.

I'm well aware that you've given Mitt more of a decent shake than I would have thought at first, but frankly here I think you're letting an already strong negative pre-disposition toward him to influence your reaction.

Romney/Pace 2008

"Romney will lose. He has no chance against the Democrats. It is hopeless for him. Take it to the bank - Romney will lose in November."

Romney/Pace 2008

to february. Of course you can toss the rest of us in with him.
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-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

If you want to vote for a liberal, DO IT. Vote for Hillary, not McCain.

You need to put down your Romney talking points and start looking at his whole record. He's not perfect, but you're butchering the word liberal.

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McCain's primary appeal -- and Adam, I respect you on this -- is to a lot of people who are non-ideological and who don't mind the fact that John McCain has been a switch-hitter at the national level in the Senate whenever he thought he could get some airtime out of it. You guys have successfully placed him on a pedestal as a result of that and you've also succeded in using your soapbox here (although not so much you personally) to tell scary stories about how Romney would have his *ass* handed to him and have the Democrats run up one side of his record and down the other, but never once has anyone prominent on this blog given a serious effort to making a good case for Romney -- instead we've seen the identity politics rhetoric "he's the whitest guy in the universe" and the class warfare rhetoric because he was a successful entrepreneur.

Well, George W. Bush was a failed businessman before he got the cheerleaders here on this blog to stump for him so vigorously, and John McCain has been anything but a loyal Republican in the past eight years in the Senate. All of your electoral calculations about Romney hinge on the premise that you're too scared, or too tired, to fight for him. This blog threw in the towel on Romney nine months ago, and almost everything I've seen here since then from the editors and directors have been variations on the theme that they're too scared of Romney's past statements to fight for him in the General.

Instead, you're asking people who are lifelong Conservatives like my father to vote for *JOHN MCCAIN* -- who until a year ago if you mentioned his name on this blog it had better had been with a single-finger salute. Now, suddenly, he's the go-to man to save the Republicans, despite his dirty tricks and despite the fact that nobody would have endorsed John McCain for dog catcher here on this blog three years ago.

Forget it. It's just pathetic, and I'm not changing my vote because someone's exit polling tells me McCain is more popular among Independents and that's why I should vote for him as a Conservative.

...and President of the United States by the time that this blog was started. I distinctly remember that, being here at the time. I should also note that, while we were of course all child prodigies and the epitome of humankind, to the best of my knowledge none of us were actually working in Texas politics in the 1990s; nor do we have access to time machines, more's the pity.

So I am absolutely at a loss to know what the heck you mean by "George W. Bush was a failed businessman before he got the cheerleaders here on this blog to stump for him so vigorously."

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

There are a lot of people who believe that Bush was using the power of eminent domain to blackmail the city of Arlington, Texas.

"...whether the public interest issue is taxes, size of government, property rights, or public subsidies of private sports ventures, Bush's personal ownership interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team has been wildly at odds with his publicly declared positions on those issues. And ongoing litigation over the Ballpark deal has revealed documents showing that beginning in 1990, the Rangers management--which included Bush as managing general partner--conspired to use the government's power of eminent domain to further its private business interests...
...
Bush and his partners hit what can only be described as a towering home run by selling the Texas Rangers to Thomas Hicks for $250 million. Bush [for his $605,000 investment will get] between $10 million and $14 million. [But] they still haven't paid the $7.5 million they owe the city of Arlington."

Eminent domain issues have been hot here on RedState in the past, but nobody brings this up, probably because it's too embarrassing. Now people are asking me to vote for John McCain, which is par for the course.

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

"nobody would have endorsed John McCain for dog catcher here on this blog three years ago."

I went into this primary season leaning toward him. I voted for him in 2000. I shied away because I thought he might have burned too many bridges. I leaned toward Rudy. But the ABG crowd seemed large as well and his ability to win moderates faltered. So while he was still a great executive, I didn't see him being any better at unifying the party and reaching out to new voters than McCain.

Then Fred came along. I created a freakin' Thompson For President MySpace page. I was all ready to jump on that train. Now I was ready because his record is very similar to McCain's but without the burned bridges. Then his campaign stunk. He bumbled everything. And by the time I was finally set to choose an endorsement (late December), he already had no path to win the nomination. I know it took others longer to admit it to themselves, but even before IA there was no chance he was going to win and it was his own fault.

So I endorsed McCain. Romney is a bad candidate with good credentials on paper. He is exactly the type of candidate who will lose badly in November. He is a stereotypical politician, his best known quality is how to pander to whatever crowd he is speaking to, and his conversions on numerous issues make him seem without conviction. If he spends the next 4-8 years doing something that advances those new views, it would be different. But it's too convenient.

All that said, I have repeatedly said that electability should not be the determining factor in one's endorsement or support. I do not ask for your vote because Romney would get clobbered (polls have Obama up 56-29).

I actually agree with Sen. McCain. I'm for good judges. I believe Pork is unacceptable. I think we are overspending and it has busted the R brand. I want to win the War. I think we need an immigration reform that secures the border AND gives people here some form of guest worker system or earned legalization. I think the government has some role in environmental issues. I think we had a bad strategy in Iraq and the surge was a good change. I think working with Democrats is not an evil. I think the Gang of 14 was a great way to avoid a complete Senate shutdown and guarantee the President a free hand (with no filibuster) when a Court seat opened up. I disagree with the Senator on campaign finance but it is rather low priority on my long list of issues.

I agree with him on school choice, on abortion, on Roe, on reforming entitlements, on opposing socialized health care, on cutting the corporate tax rate, on introducing personal retirement accounts, and giving veterans a choice in what hospitals and doctors than can go to.

So don't point at me and say I asked for your vote because "McCain is more popular among Independents." I will vote for the Senator because I agree with him and think he will make a great President. He's a true War Hero, an honorable man, and he makes me proud to be an American.

If you dad doesn't agree with the Senator and me on all those policies, then he can vote for Hillary for all I care. I'm done dealing with you fools who think McCain is some kind of liberal. If liberals were like John McCain we would be much better off. Most abortion would be illegal, parents could choose the school their children would attend, we would be unified in our support for the troops AND their mission, we would be returning to an era when Big Government was Over, we would end the corrupt pork barreling, and the judiciary would be tethered to the Constitution which would not be living nor breathing.

So take your g..d..ned hyperbole and throw your toys out the window.

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I actually agree with Sen. McCain. I'm for good judges. I believe Pork is unacceptable. I think we are overspending and it has busted the R brand. I want to win the War. I think we need an immigration reform that secures the border AND gives people here some form of guest worker system or earned legalization. I think the government has some role in environmental issues. I think we had a bad strategy in Iraq and the surge was a good change. I think working with Democrats is not an evil. I think the Gang of 14 was a great way to avoid a complete Senate shutdown and guarantee the President a free hand (with no filibuster) when a Court seat opened up. I disagree with the Senator on campaign finance but it is rather low priority on my long list of issues.

I agree with him on school choice, on abortion, on Roe, on reforming entitlements, on opposing socialized health care, on cutting the corporate tax rate, on introducing personal retirement accounts, and giving veterans a choice in what hospitals and doctors than can go to.

What in this litany of things doesn't apply to Romney?

On school choice:

Governor Romney Will Promote School Choice. He believes that when parents and kids are free to choose their school, everyone benefits. That's because competition and choice in educational opportunities – whether it comes from private schools, charter schools, or home schooling – makes traditional public schools better and improves the quality of education for all of America's kids. Governor Romney believes that it is especially important that students in failing schools be able to exercise school choice so that they can get access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed.

Governor Romney Has Proposed A Federal Home Schooling Tax Credit. As of 2003, there were nearly 1.1 million home schooled students in the United States. Governor Romney believes that parents who want to home school their kids should be able to do so. To help them, he will provide a tax credit to help defray the educational expenses of parents who home school their kids.

The rest of them are here. I guess all of that is g2*#@&Ued hyperbole, too.

"I guess all of that is g2*#@&Ued hyperbole, too."

This wasn't about Romney. It was about McCain. You called him a liberal. I said that was hyperbole. It was. At least be honest and admit it.

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First, you're moving the goalposts. You were whining about McCain and how horrid he is. You were calling him a liberal. None of that had to do with Romney. I just gave a long, detailed reason why he is far from a liberal.

I wish you could at least acknowledge that before moving the goalposts.

But since you asked, I don't believe Romney. I don't know what he stands for. I don't know what his convictions are. I don't know that he will keep his current views if they become unpopular. He wants to have it both ways on a lot of things from the surge, abortion, gay rights, guns, immigration, etc.

I haven't seen him take an unpopular position and defend it. He would rather flip to the popular position. In MI, he promised to bring back jobs that aren't coming back. That's pandering at it's worst.

He's the stereotype of a politician. He has the hair and the lack of core convictions. If he wants to establish himself and his new positions, he needs to run for something else or take leadership on some of his new issues outside of running for President.

Finally, he attacked every person in his path. He attacked Huck; he attacked McCain; and he would have gone after anyone else in his way. He did it deceitfully. He attacked McCain on "amnesty" after admitting that the plan wasn't amnesty. Then he denied in a debate knowing he was running millions of dollars worth of ads calling the plan amnesty.

In Florida, he did the same thing on prescription drugs. He ran robo-calls attacking McCain for voting against the Big Government Prescription Drug Bill. He pandered to the elderly by embracing Big Government, just like Bush. And then he denied it when asked about it later.

I'm a free market guy. I like seeing someone with a non-political background. I should be a natural supporter of Romney. But I don't trust him and increasingly I think he lacks core elements of character.

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I haven't seen him take an unpopular position and defend it.

That's not exactly accurate, and that's the problem.

What did he do against the Goodridge decision? What about when he vetoed in-state tuition for illegals? What about when he vetoed ESCR? What about 800 vetoes of bills passed by an 86% Democratic legislature?

I don't mind the hyperbole, but kowalski has a point; it went too far and for too long with Romney (from the moment he announced his intention to run for President, in fact) - we had people accusing him of running on positions he never held, changes in positions (flip-flops) he never changed, interpreting the most innocuous statements in the most uncharitable ways, attacking his family life, denigrating a business career that is everything we supporters of free markets have always claimed to admire.

I gotta be frank here. The same understanding you, Adam, on this blog regularly extend to people like Snowe, Collins and even Chafee for not standing with the party on difficult votes because of the states they represented, you have never extended to Romney - even though he was running in freakin' Massachusetts. And what makes it worse was that practically all his supposed wrongs were no more than rhetoric from his campaigns in 1994 and 2002. But when you look at his deeds as Governor, I doubt anyone would say that even Reagan could have done better in a state as Blue as Massachusetts.

For you, Jeff, Mark, etc. nothing the man did was ever not for a nefarious reason, everything he said was pre-concluded as false. His chances as a general election candidate were rubbished each and every single day. Any minor change of emphasis or difference from one speech to another was designated a "flip-flop" and highlighted as another example of why Mitt was the slimiest thing since toad s#!t. But McCain can go from opposing tax cuts to wanting them, changing history on why he said he opposed them in the first place, go from supporting de facto amnesty (with chump change fines as technical cover) to a virtual Tancredo-ite ...

So while I'm not exactly impressed with the way kowalski is going on about it here, I get exactly where he's coming from. You never really gave Romney a chance.

Romney/Pace 2008

I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful 100 percent.

The reason Ted Kennedy and John McCain worked so diligently to get that legislation passed was that it was a rush job being done under the noses of the American people. We had Michael Chertoff calling Ted Kennedy "awesome" for his backroom dealmaking in the dead of night. Until recently that was one of John McCain's proudest achievements.

If it's Hillary, no. That is why I get so frustrated with people who want to see Hillary lose the primary.

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

in NY on Feb 5th. After that, if McCain wins we will get D-D-D.

"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR

I was amazed at the number of people who called in to say they would never vote for McCain

This may be one of those election cycles where dissension in the ranks was going to hose us no matter what we did. The first noises of this sort that I heard were the SoCons saying that if the nominee were Rudy, they'd stay home. Next came the FisCons saying they'd eat nails before they'd vote for Huckabee.

I think it was clear to most of us that Fred could potentially thread the needle if he could ever get off the dime... but that never happened. My sense is that Romney came in second in the "I'd hold my nose" sweepstakes, although there were those who would never vote for him.

Now it looks like McCain will be the R nominee, and — surprise! — a significant number of Republicans are scheduling root canals for election day as a way of avoiding pain.

The good news is, the Donks have the same problem. Hillary has her fans, but there are plenty of Donks who will stay home if she's the nominee.

Drink Good Coffee. You can sleep when you're dead.

My exceedingly geeky metaphor for what the general is likely to be like comes from the end of Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan, with the two crippled starships in the nebula, flailing about blindly, both trying to land any kind of hit that might finally decide the battle.

Or, for the NFL fans, think of the 3-0 Steelers-Dolphins Monday night game this season, where the field was total muck and it was decided by a field goal with less than a minute to go.

It's going to be that ugly.

---
Finrod's First Law of Bandwidth:
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it takes the bandwidth of ten thousand.

She has more readers of her book than you have readers of your posts, and she gets PAID for it.

Seriously, I haven't ever heard anything brain-dead come out of her mouth, even what you are decrying here. You might not like the outcome of her logic, and she does go for provacative over gentle, but her reasoning is always sound after you take account of human nature.

HTML Help for Red Staters
"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater

because of his record and if you think he'll win the election without conservatives, you might want to open a window. If he's going to win the general he's going to have to pander to conservatives to no end - personally, he's lost my support forever but I imagine there are some he can appease, that is if he can ever admit he's wrong.

*I will never surrender to John McCain*

I know that the Mittbots have all glommed onto this notion that we have to defeat McCain for the good of the Conservative movement, but I find it hard to swallow that the champion of that campaign is Mitt Romney. His late conversion that coincided with the launch of his presidential campaign is not believable. He is the gumby candidate - he can flex in any direction that will get him votes. This applies not only to his past as a candidate for Senate in MA and as the governor of that state but also to his pandering in Michigan (fiscally liberal) and his slam against McCain in Florida because McCain opposed the Medicare part D fiscal disaster.

....I am becoming more and more galled by the refusal of some people to remember or acknowledge the fact that "conservatives" (however idiosyncratically the term is defined) are not the only wing of the Republican party. This isn't even particularly relevant to McCain, because he really IS a conservative as anyone would reasonably define the term (perhaps not an ultracon, but c'mon now).

Does everybody forget what we laughed at the Democrats for? Remember the days when we would sit around laughing at the Dems' hilarious, regrettable, self-destructive purity purging? How pro-lifers were kicked out, how JOE FREAKIN' LIEBERMAN, a man as socially liberal as they get, was suddenly somehow not worthy of being a Democrat because he exhibited sanity on defense policy? This is how the donks lost the south forever, this is why they failed again and again until the GOP politely self-destructed and gave them their opening.

Here's the thing: the GOP is a coalition. Always has, and always will be. The part of that coalition that isn't composed of movement conservatives (i.e. socon as well as fiscon and hyper-partisan) IS NOT ILLEGITIMATE. They're willing to compromise and work with us, just as we are with them. People who care about fiscal sanity, or strong defense, should be proud to call themselves Republicans without having others sneer at them. (As Rudy said in his FL concession speech: "I love this party, they let me be a member!") There are limits, of course: there's no reason the GOP should embrace people who believe in big government spending or weak defense, for example, but the Big Tent isn't a corrupting illusion. It's an ennobling reality.

My feelings exactly.

And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they may be exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round. ~ Winston Churchill

"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)

around your candidate. Yes, it is about more than any one individual. The vision of what it is about is what prevents us from uniting. We have different visions.

"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR

and these "talking heads" are trying to influence people to vote for someone who espouses conservative values. That is not McCain. They're trying to unite us around a conservative candidate, not just divide us.

*I will never surrender to John McCain*

Well said

Pundits and provocateurs never lose as long as they can keep their audience fired up and entertained. they are not leaders.

Ann's a billionaire.

Maybe that's why she originally supported someone with zero chance of winning the nomination and thus zero chance of winning the election.

and yet, even when she overshoots as she has on this one, I am glad she's on our side. No one drives the left more crazy than she does. She is unafraid to swing her knuckles. She's bloodied more liberal noses than we can count. I can't wait for her to start pummeling Hillary and Bill.

Does McCain think that just because he's the "frontrunner" that he deserves our vote? I have principles too and wonder how many conservatives will sit out the election if McCain is the nominee. He is not a uniter.

Democrats: Aborting infant democracies since 1961!

Two more SCOTUS nominees and the courts are ours for FORTY years.

McCain will reach across the aisle and clear any judicial choice he makes with Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer. So what we'll end up with is little better than what the Democrats would give us. I hightly doubt McCain would pick a justice who would vote to overturn Roe.

No one can know for sure, but I bet that if McCain wins he will pick a justice like Sandra Day O'Connor. So you may not get another Ginsburg, but what you will get won't be that far off. We know how McCain loves to reach across the aisle. Any nomination he makes will likely come after having consulting with Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy.

While I highly doubt it, another O'Conner would be vastly better than another Stevens.

WHile we didn't like O'Conner on a lot of things, she still sided at least 40% of the time with conservatives. Stevens (short of unanimous stuff) is more like 5%

Romney would help solidify several western states as well as possibly bring Michigan into the fold.

McCain / Romney would probably win, but I'll still vote for Romney on Tuesday in the primary.

You've convinced me -- he's no liberal, he's a communist!

You must be kidding yourself.. A Dem president with a Dem Congress will pass enough entitlement programs to guarantee themselves power for decades. Do you think the 20 million illegals who will be made citizens and granted the right to vote will vote to overthrow the ones who gave it to them? Do you think the majority of Americans who pay little to no taxes now, and whose ranks will grow even larger, will vote Republican in 4 years?

You, at least, will have your principles intact. Good on ya.

that many of us have little confidence that the remaining branch of government "controlled" by the R's would stand in the way of these programs. On the contrary, I can take JM at his word, as his past actions have demonstrated, that he would approve and sign the Immigration Bill Redux. And with the R's losing 1 additional seat in the Senate with JM's ascension, it's entirely possible that there won't be enough backbone to filibuster much of anything.

"The day you think you know it all is the day your trouble starts."

"A Dem president with a Dem Congress will pass enough entitlement programs to guarantee themselves power for decades."

One has to look no further than Jimmy Carter to prove this thesis.

95th Congress: January 1977 - 1979
Senate: 39 (R) 61 (D)
House: 143 (R) 292 (D)

96th Congress: January 1979 - 1981
Senate: 42 (R) 58 (D)
House: 155 (R) 277 (D)

Despite razor-thin majorities in both houses, the Democrats managed to forge an unassailable lock on government that lasted all the way to...(drum roll)...1981.

Imaginary fears may be the most frightening of all.

and have 20% mortgage rates and 11% inflation? Is that what you're saying?

I'm saying that making sweeping, categorical statements about future events over which you have no control and about which you have much less than perfect knowledge is silly.

McCain bashers?
Excuse me.. I have as much right to predict what a Dem win will do to this country as the McCain-will-ruin-this-country-or-at-least-the-GOP crowd. It's called an "opinion". Historical references that have no bearing on present day circumstances should be dealt with in a silly manner, as far as I'm concerned. And, comparing Carter's debacle to a potential McCain presidency is just plain silly.

I didn't say you didn't have the "right."

I just said it was silly.

"And, comparing Carter's debacle to a potential McCain presidency is just plain silly.

Let's see we know what happened in the Carter administration, because that's in the past. So, we can compare Carter with other administrations of the past.

However, a McCain administration is in the future (and possibly only in the imaginary future), so we really can't be sure what it will be like. We have no idea what challenges he'll face or how wisely he'll deal with them. (Although, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you predicted 9/11 within 48 hours.) We can hope that based on past experiences and what we believe we know of McCain that he'll successfully deal with whatever comes his way. At worst, we hope he'll muddle through.

My guess is that the American people have never elected a president thinking in advance that he would be a failure. Yet, surprise, we have failed presidencies. Sometimes, more rational, open-minded types can actually recognize when a president of their own party has failed. Others spend eternity rationalizing and blaming everyone else. If McCain is elected, I'm willing to bet that most Americans will have voted for him because they believe he'll be successful. However, history tells us that there are no guarantees. Otherwise, David Souter would be a conservative judicial icon. Certainly, it ought to be a lot easier to get it right with a judge than with a president.

I originally responded to this statement:
"A Dem president with a Dem Congress will pass enough entitlement programs to guarantee themselves power for decades."

You didn't say you think that's what will happen, you stated it as fact. A fact you can't possibly know. Further, the last time there was a full term Democratic president with a Democratic Congress, they didn't pass enough entitlements to "guarantee themselves power for decades." So, it certainly isn't a law that such a thing will happen. Since you don't know which Democrat will be elected or how that Democrat will govern, you can't possibly know that your statement is true. In fact, the likelihood that your statement is true is probably so small as to be laughable. But, Chi_Town_Jerry, you're entitled to your prediction no matter how ridiculous I think it is.

Next. I didn't compare Carter with McCain. The comparison, to the extent there was one, was between Carter and the mythical, all-powerful Democrat you seem to think will take office and with the help of a Democratic Congress will dominate the political scene "for decades."

Unfortunately, once again pesky little things cast doubt on your apocalyptic vision. First, you have no idea what the makeup of Congress will be. While it might still have Democratic majorities, it's unlikely there will be a large enough majority in the Senate for the Democrats to run roughshod over the Republicans. If the current Senate is a do-nothing Senate, it's largely because Republicans are united and skillful enough to thwart the appallingly weak and incompetent Harry Reid at almost every turn. And Democrats don't need to pick up eight or ten seats in the Senate, they will need enough to compensate for the Democratic senators who often vote with the Republicans. So, to get the kind of Senate that can pass your world-altering entitlement programs, they'll probably need 63, 64, or even 65 seats. And maybe more, depending on what kind of Democrats get elected -- the more conservative the incoming Democratic senators are, the more Senators the Democrats will need to pass those entitlement programs of yours. (I'd have to check each open seat, and each state, and combine that with the voting records of senators like Ben Nelson to get a better idea of what I think the number would be. But I consider that a waste of time, because I'll know the exact answer in November (or December or January or whenever the count is finished), and I won't have to make some wild, panicked guess. That's the job of our political punditocracy. And, yes, Chi_Town_Jerry.

And who said making predictions was reserved for McCain bashers? Anybody who wants to can predict whatever they want to predict. There are undoubtedly some responsible predictions that thoughtful people can make with a reasonable likelihood that they'll happen (yours unfortunately, was not, in my opinion, one of those).

So, Chi_Town_Jerry predict away. Have at it, man. You keep predicting. I'll keep laughing. And in time, we'll see.

Good news, CTJ, we do agree on something. You called Coulter an idiot. That wasn't a prediction, but a reasoned observation. And I wholeheartedly agree.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

A primary vote for McCain is a general election vote for Clinton.

lick Huckabee's gluteus maximus the way Micheal Medvid did.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

Hugh Hewitt is a complete and utter hack. He has shown he has absolutely no ability, whether or not he has the inclination to be the slightest bit unbiased. He should be investigated by the FCC for how inappropriately he has displayed man love of Romney over the air. There are children listening hugh! Not since Vitale talking about Duke have I heard one person talking about something that made my stomach hurt so much.

Son, stop before you hurt yourself.

"Strength and Honor."

"What we do in life, echoes in eternity."

And I believe its a bandable offense.

You don't deserve any other response after that.

You've got to be kidding. This is great news, but it means Romney has to be the nominee.

Just think, the Dems are going to choose either the first African American or first female candidate as the presidential nominee of a major party.

So, the GOP counters with the first Mexican-American nominee.
That nullifies the "historic candidate" talking point and all but guarantees a Republican win in November.

Thanks, Perch Rapala. If I doubted it before now, you've convinced me -- one can find everything on the Internet.

Mitt the Mexican-American. Who'd would've thought it? Does this mean that the moderators will have to make an exception concerning nicknames for candidates?

I'm going to warn on this one: deliberately attempting to inflame a racialist response in other posters is in fact against the Posting Rules, and will not be tolerated. Is that understood by everyone?

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Isaiah 1:16-20
"16 wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, 17 learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. 18 "Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. 19 If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; 20 but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword." For the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

The Lord was saying you are doomed to die, if you do not repent and accept my forgiveness. He then says be reasonable and accept my forgiveness.

In the context of this verse, I agree with you. We should be reasonable, stop resisting and rebelling, and accept the Lord's forgiveness through obedience to him.

I do not agree with you on several points, but I do agree that too many people have let emotion carry them to say things that should not have been said. McCain and Romney are our choices right now. It is quickly looking like McCain. Contrary to Anne's emoting, Hillary is not the better choice.

Here is a verse that is applicable:
Proverbs 10:14
"Wise men store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin."

That you ignored. Romney raised fees in the hundreds of millions. Under Romney, the amount of money citizens of his state paid to government increased in a comparable way to what happened under Huckabee in AR. That is a fact. You cannot avoid that because they were fees.

He also created a now failing MANDATORY health system. That is the OPPOSITE of a small government conservative.

By the way, do the moderators allow you to keep cutting and pasting your little *"facts" in thread after thread?

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

Given your list of offenses, it's hard to understand how McCain could have good ratings from a wide range of conservative groups, not just for his entire career but even for the last few years. Perhaps this tells us that your list is a bit selective.

I could produce a much longer list of conservative points in McCain's record.

Some of the points on your list are matters of interpretation.

The Gang of 14 is what got Alito on the bench and it's what got many other good conservatives into the federal judiciary who otherwise would still be held up in the Senate. I just don't get these attacks on the Gang of 14.

McCain's 2nd Amendment record is good overall. The most recent votes involved efforts to make gun makers liable for acts committed with firearms. McCain voted against that legislation.

McCain's stand on illegal immigration is not close to treason. That's way over the top. He has solemnly pledged to secure the border. I take him at his word. Let's suppose McCain-Kennedy had passed: At least we'd have these illegals documented so they'd be paying their share of taxes and would be getting at the back of the line. Personally, I'm very hawkish on illegal immigration (ala Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo, and Duncan Hunter). But McCain-Kennedy would not have been the end of the world, nor would there have been anything to stop us from taking additional steps on the issue as needed.

The Wisconsin amicus brief had nothingto do with the issue of abortion itself; it was about campaign activity by a pro-life group that ran afoul of McCain-Feingold. I agree that McCain-Feingold was bad legislation. Bush should have vetoed it, but he didn't. It needs to be repealed.

As for McCain's global-warming-based environmental proposals, I agree they're bad. But I'm not going to throw out the baby with the bath water here. We'll get far worse environmental legislation from Hillary or Obama.

Why do Republicans insist on eating their own? It's fine to criticize a candidate who's not your first pick, but the criticism should be factual and reasonable.

And I say all this as someone who would prefer Paul, Romney, or Huckabee ahead of McCain.

Mike Griffith
Let Freedom Ring website
http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/id47.htm

Romney/Pace 2008

He's gone and added Juan Hernandez to his team as his Hispanic Outreach adviser. Juan Hernandez is an open borders, mexico first, La Raza loving individual who would NEVER join McCain's team if he believed that McCain was going to secure the borders.
This is a man who berates anyone who disagrees with him and rarely if ever changes his mind.

FredHeads for Mitt!

She is outrageous because that is how she makes a living. There is NO reason to vote for Hillary for the conservative movement. It would put us back 20 years. The judges she would appoint could last well into this century. The movement toward universal health care could not ever be reversed. Ann is blowing smoke and giving out kool aid.

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Molon Labe!

I think it was Rudy's stand on abortion that offended the good Dr. Anyway, I remember Hannity interviewing Dobson, chastising him, telling Dobnson that he was guaranteeing a Hillary victory, which would be disastrous for the country. So much for Mr. "I stand by my principals" Sean Hannity.

Coulter was on Hannity this afternoon. Adding to her despicable "trapped in a tiger cage" remark from the clip above, she said that voting for Sen. McCain is equivalent to voting for Joseph Stalin just because he had an R behind his name. And of course, she thinks Hillary is a better conservative than McCain.

I just sent some more money to McCain, and I encourage others to do the same. :)

_strong. I know, how about making your own point and forgetting Mike Savage the loon?

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Molon Labe!

No, I'm just a good judge of talent and take the advice and wisdom of our bona fide conservative leaders seriously.

but I don't trust you to represent them. I know for a fact most young conservatives who hate McCain simply do so because Rush has a personal hatred, an animosity, that can is not simply based on politics. I know that, and you do not.

One thing I do know, is REPUBLICAN CONSERVATIVES support him, and he is winning, what are you going to do about that?

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Molon Labe!

I do not like McCain because he will concede the culture war, somethihng I feel very passionate about. I know that and you do not.