Tag: McCain

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National politics

The VP Picks

Now that both running mates have been announced I can share my reactions. In both cases I think that the candidate made a good pick for their individual positions. I have previously written positively about both of the running mates. I said that Sarah Palin, with a record of standing up to politics as usual, was the kind of candidate I would like to back (even though she was not among the presidential candidates). I said that Joe Biden had proposals that showed pragmatism and promise of rational thought.

Biden offers an image of experience for Obama. Palin offers an image of youth and augments the faded image of independent thinking that McCain once had. Some people complain that Palin is too inexperienced to be in line to succeed an aging president – that line of reasoning backfires on the Democrats since Biden is not at the top of their ticket.

The fact is that Obama and Biden appear to be well suited to each other and to complement each other in their individual strengths. Likewise, McCain and Palin appear to be well suited to each other and to fill the gaps in their respective resumes. Truthfully, by June of next year both the President and the Vice President (whoever they are) will have more experience in foreign policy than any of the candidates do now.

I agree with what some analysts have said – that the VP selection is more important in this election than in most – but even so I don’t vote for the vice president unless I can support the president.

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culture National politics

Patriotic Rivals

I really enjoyed Lyall pointing out the Op-Ed articles on patriotism from McCain and Obama yesterday. I think he was quite right to point out a major flaw in McCain’s statement that patriotism should come “before anything” but I don’t agree that without that flaw the editorial would have been perfect.

I really liked McCain’s reference to the patriotic rivalry of Adams and Jefferson. Though the stature of the rivals is not nearly so great, I consider the contest between McCain and Obama, like most presidential rivals, to be a contest between real patriots. These men almost universally have a great love for their country depite any individual flaws. McCain asks a very good question about our current American spirit of patriotism:

Would they (Adams and Jefferson) find that love of country was just as strong in the hearts of today’s Americans?

Unlike McCain I do not believe they would find our current love of country to be as strong among the nation as a whole. We certainly have patriots today – probably numerically more than in the 18th century – but overall and as a percentage of the population I think that they would find our patriotism to be comparatively lacking. The evidence is in the smallness of most of our individual thinking and in the bitter emptiness of most of our political dialog.

At one time I believed that Obama had the potential to be another Adams or Jefferson, but despite his gift for rhetoric he has been showing himself to be a modern politician, speaking of principles but standing on political expediency. Once again Obama demonstrates his ability to articulate truths which are hard to describe and even harder to implement:

. . . each generation must understand that the blessings of freedom require our constant vigilance, and that true patriotism also means a willingness to sacrifice . . . the liberty we defend {is} the liberty of each of us to follow our dreams. . . . the equality we seek {is} not an equality of results but the chance of every single one of us to make it if we try. (emphasis added)

Obama’s editorial was closer to perfect than McCains, but his actions are no closer to perfectly implementing those high ideals than McCain’s are.

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National politics

Signs of Change

I was excited by the news that Obama Declares DNC Won’t Take PAC Money. I think that Lyall shares a good point from a letter to the WSJ editor that the way to really rein in lobbyists is to rein in government. (I wish Lyall provided a link.) If Obama can understand that truth then I have hope that he can effect such a change of culture in Washington if he becomes president. For that matter, if he does not become president he still might be able to make a positive change from the Senate since he has shown his obvious commitment to do things differently and he has some influence that might be used to convince others to follow his lead.

I hope that Democratic lawmakers will follow the lead of the DNC (it may be too much to hope, but while we’re at it the Republicans should do the same thing). Maybe Obama could accept McCain’s offer to do townhall style discussions around the country on the condition that McCain put the GOP on the path of refusing PAC money.

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National politics

Primary Season is Finally Over

With the official end of the primary season I can finally end my self-imposed ban on posting about the primaries. Of course Maureen Dowd has already said everything that needs to be said about the current situation. So there are three options for my vote in November (in order of my preference):

  1. Obama keeps his promise to work out a deal with the republican nominee to stick with public financing for the general election and I vote for Obama.
  2. Obama breaks his promise on public financing but does not put Clinton on the ticket and I am free to vote for someone else.
  3. Obama takes Clinton on as his running-mate (which would almost certainly include opting out of public financing) and I vote for McCain (even McCain would have a better chance at uniting the country that Obama with Clinton on the ticket).

I did not start out in the Anyone But Clinton (ABC) camp but these last two months of the primary campaign have convinced me that ABC is the best course for this country.

I admit that it’s very easy for me to announce how I would vote my conscience far in advance because no matter what I do my vote in the Electoral College is 5 votes for McCain – like it or not.

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politics

Round Peg, Square Hole

I could never have been called an enthusiastic supporter of John McCain, but the more I read about him the less I would like to see him as president. Everything about his life and his time in office shows him to be the embodiment of a Washington insider who feels that he is above being questioned by the unwashed masses. The funny thing about this is that I was planning to write about what I had come to believe today. Before I got to it however, I got an email with a link to an article by Mark Levin which expressed my thoughts on McCain much better.

Let’s get the largely unspoken part of this out the way first. McCain is an intemperate, stubborn individual, much like Hillary Clinton. These are not good qualities to have in a president. . . To the best of my knowledge, Romney’s ads have not been personal. He has not even mentioned the Keating-Five to counter McCain’s cheap shots. But the same cannot be said of McCain’s comments about Romney. Last night McCain, who is the putative frontrunner, resorted to a barrage of personal assaults on Romney that reflect more on the man making them than the target of the attacks.

Not only that, but Levin also reminded me of what is so dangerous about voting for the “most electable” candidate this early in the race. It goes much deeper than the fact that polls this far in advance are virtually worthless.

Of course, it’s one thing to overlook one or two issues where a candidate seeking the Republican nomination as a conservative might depart from conservative orthodoxy. But in McCain’s case, adherence is the exception to the rule . . . Are we to overlook this record when selecting a Republican nominee to carry our message in the general election?

Political parties are (or should be) about a platform even more than about winning. Winning is a way to enact the platform, but to abandon the platform for the sake of winning is a sure sign of a party without character. The candidate must be more than a vocal advocate of the platform – they must also represent the platform. This is where McCain is a total loss for the conservative platform of the Republican party. Aside from the undeniable military background – this man does not match the message he would be expected to promote. Even where he agrees with the Republican party it is from the perspective of him being right, not from the perspective that the principles are correct.

Categories
National politics

Primary Season

The New York Times has a prime example of voters approaching elections the wrong way:

Senator John McCain has long aroused almost unanimous opposition from the leaders of the right. Accusing him of crimes against conservative orthodoxy like voting against a big tax cut and opposing a federal ban on same-sex marriage, conservative activists have agitated for months to thwart his Republican presidential primary campaign.

That, however, was before he emerged this week as the party’s front-runner.

Since his victory in the Florida primary, the growing possibility that Mr. McCain may carry the Republican banner in November is causing anguish to the right. Some, including James C. Dobson and Rush Limbaugh, say it is far too late for forgiveness.

But others, faced with the prospect of either a Democrat sitting in the White House or a Republican elected without them, are beginning to look at Mr. McCain’s record in a new light.

Once the parties have chosen their nominees (meaning not yet) it is important for voters who lean toward one party or another to look at the candidate for their chosen party and decided if that candidate represents them enough to earn their vote. The problem in the above example is that this should not be happening before the nominee is chosen. During the primary elections is the nest time to go vote your conscience. That is the time to speak up and cast your vote for someone you can support. If the eventual nominee was not someone you could support in the primaries then it is time to take another look and decide if they might be “good enough.”

Settling for good enough too early is what leads to elections where 60% of voters feel like they are choosing the lesser of two evils when they go to the ballot box.

I don’t have to hate John McCain (and I don’t) to oppose him in the primary election. He does not represent me close enough to earn my primary vote. That does not mean that I could not vote for him in November if he is the nominee (that depends on who his opponent is) but my vote is wasted if I give up now. If I vote for the front runner in the primary contest when only 10% of the delegates have been awarded merely because they are the front runner then I am guilty of letting other people choose how I will vote. If I am not going to choose how I vote then I have no business participating in the political process.