John McCain 08 = Bob Dole 96
By Erick Posted in CPAC | Special Events — Comments (24) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The buzz at CPAC is swarming around John McCain, the haplessness of his Letterman appearance, and his snub of CPAC. Let's face it -- right now McCain is fairly well dead in the water. The media is treating him as yesterday's news. Conservatives are shunning him. And Rush Limbaugh is still beating him up to 20 million weekly listeners.
Now, there's this:
McCain's ambitions are no secret, but the venue was a surprise. There was a bit of risk in going on Letterman, if for no other reason than that Bob Dole did the same thing in 1995. No candidate running for any office on any planet should ever steal from the Dole playbook. McCain has particular reason to avoid the parallels. Dole's gambit was seen as an effort to come off as youthful, so as to head off questions about his not young age. McCain, who will be 72* on Inauguration Day, faces the same questions.
That can't be helpful.
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John McCain 08 = Bob Dole 96 24 Comments (0 topical, 24 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I thought it was about the wonderful job Liddy Dole did for recruiting and campaigning for '06 Republican Senators. Then I read the thing.
You’re a persistent cuss, pilgrim.
John Wayne to Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
There's very little denying it. He's old, tired, and doesn't have many good ideas. It's too bad Phil Gramm wasn't the GOP nominee in 1996, or Jack Kemp for that matter. Both would have been awesome.
I doubt John McCain will get any closer to the nomination than he was in 2000.
Kyoto Now! (Because only pollution from the US hurts the planet)
we can all take a deep breath and not vote for someone simply because they aren't McCain. We can start to look for someone who truly represents our values instead of someone who simply will advert electoral disaster. The downside is that McCain is petulant and erratic, and a very good candidate to launch an independent run if he doesn't get the big piece of cake. That's the 700-pound gorilla in the room for many of us although it is seldom acknowledged.
all about McCain and not the country. And the fact that many of us are wary of precisely THAT should underscore our sense of his unreliability.
"Besides, if McCain were elected President do you really think he'd nominate justices who'd overturn McCain-Feingold? Hmmm?"
While I'll never understand why McCain is public enemy #1 and Guilini and (especially) Romney get virtually free passes on all of their incongruities, I've long accepted that McCain will never be praised by the activist side of the conservative blogosphere. That unabashed bias aside, calling him "dead in the water" is, frankly, ridiculous.
The man has more money, more fundraising ability, and more boots-on-the-ground support in more key states than anybody else in the field. He can skip all the conservative get-togethers he wants and would still not be "dead in the water".
...when we get hit from every side as being "pro every candidate but [insert name here]."
You have no idea how often we are accused of being overwhelmingly anti-Romney, and as I recall, we've had quite a few "Giuliani is a very poor choice" diaries spend a good deal of time on the Recommended list.
So I'll take your comment as a compliment - and remember, you can contribute your own thoughts on any of the above to this community. That's what we do :-)
McCain gets far more criticism regarding his conservative bona fides than Guiliani. Which seems ridiculous on its face because , unlike Guiliani, McCain actuall IS a conservative.
All I can make of this is that some people think Guiliani is more electable than McCain, but Guiliani clearly has more personal baggage than McCain and, frankly, I think his GWOT credentials are hugely over-rated. Guiliani's greatest contribution to the GWOT was holding a stirring series of press conferences.
So Spiker, you are not the only one wondering why McCain gets such rough treatment here. I could understand the comparative treatment, if there were a Reagan conservative in the field. But with (currently two) diaries extolling the candidacy of the liberal mayor of New York City, this is hard to take.
because his "maverick necessities" so outweigh any little leans to the right that it just doesn't matter.
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Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. — J. Michael Waller
You can actually write that Romney has been getting virtually a “free pass[] on all of [his] incongruities” with a straight face. I agree though that McCain is far from “dead in the water” and there is an irrational hatred of him in the blogosphere including in Red State.
I'm not a South Park Republican, I'm a King of the Hill libertarian.
I certainly have my own beefs with him (and with every other candidate), and I, like anybody else, take my top issue extremely seriously.
Actually, McCain has the least amount of money among Giuliani and Romney. No money = no campaign = crash and burn.
Several of the candidates in the last few months have really turned me off:
-Romney with his pandering flip flops and then lying about Giuliani being 'pro gay marriage'
-Gilmore slamming everyone else as not being real republicans
-and McCain for slamming Rumsfeld, criticizing over the top on the war, refusing CPAC and saying our troops lives were "wasted". He is an awful candidate!
Only Rudy Giuliani continues to impress- he doesn't ever take shots at his competition and even went out of his way to defend Romney from anti-Mormon bias. We need to get behind Rudy and nip any infighting before we turn into the democrats..
United States Air Force
http://airforcepundit.blogspot.com
I agree that Rudy has been extraordinarily civil, but we need to support him simply because he doesn't attack anyone? How does that relate into his stances once he is President?
I think Rudy would be a good choice for national security, but there are several more issues which need to be taken into account. His lack of attack pieces is no way to decide how fit he would be in the White House.
Fides non in bonus intentions , tamen in bonus factum
For more common sense conservatism, visit the Show Me Conservatism blog.
I'll give Rudy credit for being sly. Apparently, he's a master of dodging and weaving. Rudy has not giving a straight answers. While Romney has gone into the most conservative parts of the country, been heckled, bee nscrutinized, fielded tough questions and has done interview after interview, Rudy is still milking his 9/11 image and getting away with vague innuendos and bypassing tough questions altogether.
Somebody who supports Rudy should start explaining why I should support someone as liberal as Rudy. It's not just abortion or just gay marriage. He is to the left of the Clintons on immigration and he is an environmental radical -just to mention a couple of issues. He is a litigious career lawyer, while Romen yis a practical career businessman. At least Romney is trying to win conservatives. I will never support Rudy if this is what he stands for:
Yes, it is bad enough being a lawyer, but did he have to make a career out of it?
And what do you mean by "litigious"? Do you think that he was especially litigious, more so than most lawyers? It isn't as though he were chasing ambulences or suing McDonald's for coffee burns - he was a prosecutor, making his reputation by bringing drug dealers, mafia bosses, corrupt politicians, and white-collar crooks to justice.
I am a miserable lawyer myself. What I meant was that Rudy was not afraid to use his prosecutorial powers to go after private enterprise in a ruthless and demogogic way. Party labels aside, he was like Eliot Spitzer in the way he wielded power and I despise Spitzer for his recklessness. The arrogance of lawyers is transcends prosecutor/defense/civil labels. I side with prosecutors, but even prosecutors can be reckless and trigger happy for media attention. Attorneys tend to run as a flock and think alike. I would be interested to hear his take on tort reform. I would bet that, deep down inside, Rudy has no problems with John Edwards grandstanding and the way he exploited millions from hospitals as an attorney.
Spiker you are wrong about McCain being able to raise money. He is having a tough time raising money and has only $500,000 in his account at this time. He has spent most of the money he has raised thus far on POLITICAL CONSULTANTS..guess what, they only have one vote like the rest of us. He is waisting his money and I for one will not donate to him because he is hiring all these big guns instead of reaching out to the grass roots. I think he made a HUGE mistake not going to CPAC to speak. Rudy or Mitt will be our next nominee, however flawed they may be. McCain is not going anywhere AND he is having a tough time raising money.
for McCain to announce on Letterman. He still has the status of the Pretend Thinking Man's Favorite Republican, so of all the Republican candidates he was the one who could get good exposure with the general public on Letterman. It may not help him with the Republican base but I don't see where it hurt him there either. He hurt himself with his "wasted lives" comment but if it weren't for that, from his perspective, it wasn't a bad mood.
An insult to Bob Dole, at least.
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"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - Ronald Reagan
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So libs, how's that Congressional Resolution to end The War™ coming along?