Posted by
Bert Chapman on Wednesday, January 30, 2008 9:34:09 AM
With last night's victory, McCain established himself as the front-runner. He has a chance to essentially seal up the nomination with a decisive win in Tsunami Tuesday in 6 days. Where did all that rhetoric and purported public aspirations about change go? McCain's win last night and Hillary's "win" in Florida's pseudo-Democratic primary yesterday appears to give the most establishmentarian candidates the edge.
McCain's win was helped by the scurrilous push-pulling he and some of his supporters have launched toward Romney. The most egregious falsehood McCain and his cohorts have told is claiming Romney did not support the troop surge. That is totally false and neglects to remember that Romney has strongly supported our policies in Iraq and has a better geopolitical understanding of the war against Islamist terror than even McCain does. Romney would also bring a fresh energized approach to fighting the war that McCain does not. Another lie perpetrated by McCain supporters in Florida was that Romney favored restoring normal ties with Fidel Castro. Romney is a strong supporter of Cuban freedom and you would think Cuban-Americans would be intelligent enough to recognize that. McCain was also helped by the timely endorsement of Florida's Governor Charlie Crist and Senator Mel Martinez who, despite his many desirable qualities, is also a big-time supporter of amnesty for illegal immigrants and undoubtedly influenced McCain's thinking on this subject.
Romney needs to continue stressing his superior economic knowledge and management skills in tonight's Reagan Library debate and subsequent campaigning. He also needs to stress that only he can be counted on to appoint conservative judicial scholars to the federal courts including the Supreme Court. Conservatives need to remember that McCain thought Justice Alito wore his conservatism on his sleeve to much. That attitude is unacceptable for a President who is likely to get the opportunity to appoint Supreme Court Justices to replace aging liberal justice John Paul Stevens and potentially other justices. Mitt Romney, unlike McCain, understands the importance of quality judicial appointments. John McCain has not had an original economic idea during his senatorial career. He has opposed making the Bush tax cuts permanent and is to prone to make substantive legislative compromises with the ilks of Ted Kennedy in his desire to appeal to the liberal establishment and blogosphere.
Despite this, McCain is still preferable as President to Hideous Hillary and Obama who is being hailed as the latest incarnation of John Kennedy. Conservatives who may be susceptible to Obama idolatory, should think carefully about a man who's endorsed by Ted Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, and other prominent liberals and who, according to one report, has promised John Edwards that he will get to be his Attorney General if he becomes President. That last promise, alone, should be enough to scare the daylights out of any sane individual. Do we really want an ambulance chasing buffoon serving as the nation's top law enforcement officer? Frivilous lawsuits will be coming out of the Justice Dept. building faster than a blinding snowstorm or hurricane storm surge causing untold damage to the nation's economy.
McCain, however, needs to do more to reassure conservatives that he's committed to reducing the size of the federal government, promoting traditional moral values, will appoint conservative scholar justices, and aggressively fighting Islamist terror. His chances of winning depend on enthusiastic conservative support and he must address future national requirements instead of engaging in nostalgic recollections of President Reagan or posturing about how only he has the national security experience to be Commander-in-Chief. He needs to recognize Romney's strong appeal to conservatives such as me and making Romney his running mate, if he wins, would be a step in the right direction.
Currently Romney and McCain do not get along. There is, however, precedent for such a linking of disparate personalities on the national ticket. John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson did not care for each other at all but they were able to work together as the Democratic ticket during 1960. The desire to avoid the calamity of another Clinton presidency or an Obama presidency with John Edwards as Attorney General, should be enough to cause the GOP to support the strongest possible ticket that can intellectually annihilate the Democrats resurgent presidential dreams.