That leaves The Scratching Post with a choice of whom to support. We care about controlling government spending and balancing the budget, lower taxes or not. We also care about winning the war decisively. Here are my choices from bottom to top.
Mitt Romney is a complete non-starter for me. He is a dishonest charlatan who was a poor governor when he was in Massachussetts. I might vote for Hillary over Mitt. If it came down to Mitt vs. Obama, I'd hold my nose and vote for Mitt.
Mike Huckabee can be dismissed immediately as well. I don't think he was ready for prime time and he never expected to do this well. He seems to thrash about on all sorts of issues and he's just running on folksy charm. I might take him over Hillary and definitely over Obama.
I looked carefully at both Rudy and John McCain. They both are committed to winning the war, so that one's a wash. That leaves us with controlling or reducing spending.
Ouch! Man, I wish Fred had done better.
When it comes to controlling spending, all these two talk about are earmarks. Congressional pork projects are just a drop in the bucket.
You can't control spending by going after such a tiny portion of the budget. Only Fred was willing to talk about such things.So where does this leave us? Well, who is more credible when it comes to controlling spending, John or Rudy? I have to go with John McCain. When President Bush, one of the best Democrat presidents we've had in a long time, tried to push through his tax cuts with no spending cuts, McCain stood against it and earned the wrath of conservative talk radio jocks like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. It was directly against his best interests to oppose the tax cuts, but he did it anyway because he felt he was right. That took a lot of courage and integrity and that's what we're going to need in the next president.
Boy, it hurts to take down my Fred links. I might work up the strength to do it later today.
John McCain for president?
Why pull down the Thomson links - he hasn't pulled out of the race, has he? Even if a candidate can't win, they can still influence the topic of debate.
ReplyDeleteSee my response to you over at Disconcerning Texan.
ReplyDeleteAnd then ask these guys how they feel about John McCain, especially since another BP agent just died in the line of duty trying to stop an illegal drug runner.
http://www.local2544.org
Kelly, he's done. Yes, he can influence the debate, but he can't do anything other than that. Continuing to support him might end up helping Mittens. Yuck!
ReplyDeleteretire05, thanks for the comment. I think that this problem is even bigger than immigration.
ReplyDeleteWho will tell people the truth about it? Romney? Hardly. It's got to be McCain or Rudy.
As for immigration, I really don't think McCain is that bad on the issue. He's not perfect, but he'll do. Fred was far superior, but he had one flaw. He could't win.
Here is my take on McCain.
ReplyDeleteSen. Santorum on the Mark Levin show really put Sen. McCain in prospective last week by describing him as a president that would go make deals with the democratic congress on domestic policy before even talking with his republican members.
So take a deep breath and think, would you like a republican president that would screw the party on almost every issue (except earmarks) and republicans would have to fight one of their own for 4 years on most issues and the party would be deeply divided, or would you like to have Hillary/Bill Clinton and unite the party and regroup and take on with a united power the democrats in 2010 and then in 2012? As one top republican fundraiser told me that the Republican Party needs a Clinton White House like cameo therapy.
It is really painful to think of the Clintons back in the White House but remember that the fight for the direction of the country goes beyond the White House, we have in 2008 36 or something Governor races that would shape the future of congress for the next decade and beyond, so step back and think, do we have a better chance to win the long term fight; with a McCain in the Whit House fighting conservative (on Immigration, taxes, campaign finance, judges, energy, environment, and so on) or a energized republican party fighting the Clintons! You choose…
(This is not said about any of the other republican candidates)
zoom, thanks for taking the time to leave a well-considered comment.
ReplyDeleteThat having been said, I've read Santorum's point of view on Hugh Hewitt's now-completely deranged blog. I'm not sold.
Santorum represents a religiously orthodox wing of the Republican party that may well be true, but cannot ever win a pluraltiy. Santorum himself got crushed in the last election. The fact that McCain can make deals with the Democrats and get at least part of our goals enacted is a plus for me, not a minus.
Just what did Santorum do? He held the line as a righteous conservative and lost. He was a member of one of the worst congresses, Republican or Democrat, of all time. They had all the power, the legislature and the presidency and they spent like drunken sailors.
Rick Santorum I don't need.
There is a big difference between making a deal and stabbing colleges in the back. Mitt Romney managed MA just fine and he did hold the line on a lot of issues. My point and I thing Santorum’s too (I did not red Hewitt’s blog) was that he would go to the other side before even talking to the republican as he was used to do in the Senate.
ReplyDeleteAnd please will go in to this spending craziness another time.
And I will argue with you on the “worst congress ever” after that. Don’t have all the time tonight.
I would never, ever vote for John McCain after McCain-Feingold. It's such a blatant violation of free speech. McCain is a RINO on just about everything but the war, so that pretty much rules him out for me.
ReplyDeleteK T,
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that I am not the issues voter that many fellow bloggers are. I will speak a bit of heresy here. The reason Romney might make a decent President has nothing to do with his stand on the issues. Yes, he has been a disingenuous flip-flopper, but his experience in the private sector and as a governor of a Democrat state will serve him well in office. Look at Bill Clinton, he never was a true believer in anything except his own re-election. Yet the hallmarks of his era were a balanced budget, NAFTA and welfare reform, fairly decent conservative goals. You argued elsewhere that we had Newt Gingrich to thank for some of that, but I think you also had a President willing to accept conservative outcomes in a basically conservative country.
However, since the choice profered is between Giuliani and McCain, I have to go with Giuliani. He knows how to handle himself in tough situations, he is a tough negotiator, and he clearly communicates why he took what are now unpopular stands when he was mayor. I don't get a good feeling from McCain in terms of temperament. I feel like Giuliani doesn't take things personally the way McCain does, and I feel safer with that attitude in the White House.
Thanks for the comments, all.
ReplyDeleteIf working across the aisle and compromising means you're stabbing your own people in the back, then you pretty much have to win 60% of the Senate in order to get anything done. Anyone out there think that's likely?
I can tell right away that this response is going to get too long, so I'm going to write a blog post instead. See you at the root URL for continued discussions.
I don't call it being "stabbed in the back", I just call it "horrible legislation".
ReplyDeleteI recall President Bush doing quite a bit of "working across the aisle" and "compromising" during his time in office. What did that get this country except out-of-control spending programs?
One would have thought that the "new tone" President Bush was attempting to initiate in D.C. would've bought him some good will in return with the Democrats and some "compromise" on their part.
Remember... Schumer, Rangel, Boxer, McKinney, et al... these are the people with which you are attempting to compromise. Good luck.
Use of the likes of Santorum and Mack as classic conservatives whose credentials can not be questioned harms the credibility of those who make such a claim. We all know Connie Mack IV is playing on his dads conservative name recogntion and credentials . Both himself and Santorun have a 88% lifetime ACU rating vs. Mc Cains lifetime 83%. A Whopping 5% betwixt as liberal as Hillary and a conservative whose credentials cant be questioned? I question the ones who make such hyperbolic claims
ReplyDelete"Ironically, in his attempt to hold onto public office, Rick Santorum hosted John McCain on numerous occasions in Pennsylvania. Many observers in the Keystone State are undoubtedly scratching their heads of Rick Santorum's sudden and dramatic change of heart towards his US Senate colleague of twelve years.
Then again, maybe not. While it may seem hypocritical for Rick Santorum to betray the man who campaigned for him in 2006, it is not the first time the ex-lawmaker jilted those who support him
In Pennsylvania's 2004 US Senate race, Rick Santorum opposed conservative Republican Congressman Pat Toomey's challenge to the far more liberal candidate, Arlen Spector. Many grassroots Republican activists from Pittsburgh to Philly were outraged at Santorum's - supposedly a fellow movement political conservative - refusal to support an avowed conservative candidate over a pro-choice, pro-Clinton Republican candidate."
Pat Toomey lost his US Senate race by two points. Today, Toomey is a leader of the Club For Growth, a highly effective anti-tax organization based in the nation's capital. Spector is chasing headlines for wanting a Congressional inquiry in to professional athletics' scorekeeping techniques.
Given Rick Santorum's betrayal of John McCain, Mitt should probably be aware that Santorum's definition of "friendship" is far more abstract than the accepted definition, even beyond the Beltway's already loose understanding of that word.
With "friends" like Rick Santorum, who needs political opponents?"
source: http://www.redcounty.com/sanbernardino/2008/02/former-us-senator-rick-santoru/
I also am supporting Mc Cain now that other candidates did not have the staying power to remain for similar reasons to yours.
http://nofishleftbehind.com