One-Legged Stool
by Mark R. LevinI wonder how many of us believe that if John McCain is the nominee, which is looking more likely, whether he will win New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and California. This was the Giuliani strategy. He’s losing the conservative vote in virtually every state other than New York and New Jersey. He had won South Carolina but last night lost all the southern states that were in play. He’s also losing some of the small but critical red states in places like the mountain states. Moreover, even though there are essentially three candidates in the primary race, McCain as the putative front-runner should be building enough strength within the Republican Party to win core Republican states (or at least more of them). If we look forward to the general election, it’s hard to see how he wins the popular vote and it will be very difficult to cobble together the right combination of electoral college votes.
The problem is that McCain has a number of factors working against him, including his own long career of hostility toward the people he needs to win the general election. If you can’t consolidate and motivate your base, you will not win the presidency. It has been his strategy to distance himself in numerous and provocative ways from his own party. He has used the tactic of alienation to pander to constituencies outside the party. And he has been so prominent and antagonistic in the execution of his strategy that it’s difficult to see how he can overcome his own record. This is one of the reasons why many of us have opposed him from the start, i.e., he will likely be an unelectable stand-bearer and a drain on the rest of the ticket. To say, from one’s computer keyboard, that the Reagan coalition should unify behind McCain to prevent the specter of a Clinton or Obama presidency is, I believe, wishful thinking. Even here, where the smartest minds are trying to make the case, some use the perverse argument that Reagan wasn’t all that conservative anyway, and that’s a reason to back McCain. Not only does this defy history, but it offends those who lived through that history and were shaped by it. Moreover, Republican voters won’t buy it. McCain is sitting on a one-legged stool, having broken the two other legs.
I think one important focus of Reagan conservatives should be to do all they can to protect as many Republican seats in the House as possible. There needs to be at least one elected part of our government that might be in a position to stem what could be a very unpleasant four years.
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McLame threw the other two legs in the trash. Protecting what we have and try to gain some seat is the best advantage we have. McLame will do say whatever it takes to pull the wool over the eyes of the conservatives, but their is only one problem with this thinking we know him and his actions.
For eight years he has been giving it to Conservatives and now he is getting back what he gave. He would have to fall into a coma and wake up with amnesia and an identity crisis before Conservatives would think he could be trusted.
Now I wonder how McCain enjoys the same treatment he gave us all these years? We are not vengefully motivated but we are motivated by trust and belief in core values. BTW you have to be either pretty stupid or believe that the voters are pretty stupid when you have Presidential plans and spend the eight years preceding that event not uniting your base? It is one thing to prevail in a primary by being right about the majority of the republican voters being stupid but it is another thing to lose an election by being wrong about the minority of republican voters that you also need to win because you are competing for all votes.
If McCain were a true American with the interest of his Country as his first core belief he would drop-out. Then he would change my mind.
One thing that I must say about Giuliani is that for all I found wrong with him he was an electable candidate and I, along with other Conservatives and some liberals, would have voted for him. He was the true uniter of republicans and many democrats when it came to the general election. His problems would have started after winning the election, not before.
This is one strange election where Republicans so dislike their potential candidate they vote for the opposite party and the Democrats so dislike Hillary that they are doing the same thing and the winner is decided by the party who hates their candidate most. Go figure.
You guys bring up some very good points. I ended up liking Mitt Romney because at least he has the guts to say he was wrong with some of his past choices and policies. He’s come around. With Rudy, he at least is up front about who he is. Not so with McCain or Huckaphoney for that matter. They lie and deny any of their past, controversial policies. I’ll wait and see how McCain acts at CPAC- I’m not holding my breath for anything good to come out of it. But if what we’ve seen so far is an example of his “bringing” the party together, and that’s by insulting and demeaning conservatives, I ain’t feeling the love.