The vote against Obama election?

By Hammer2008 Posted in 2008 — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

So I guess I'm supposed to be satisfied by casting a vote against Obama this November (by casting my vote for McCain).

A few questions:
Would McCain have won the nomination had GOP voters thought Obama and Clinton were "easy pickings" when contrasted against a vocal conservative? It appears (we) settled on McCain because (we) believed (we) needed a moderate republican to take on the Dems. Now McCain has taken the road less traveled... by campaigning in Utopian-speak, as liberals do?

If I am to understand part of McCain's "2013 speech", he wants to be treated like a prime minister, by having monthly Q&A with Congress. That's great. Why not just do away with the presidency now. McCain can run for Congress and then win the Speaker position.
Bill Clinton could have been titled "First Governor of the U.S.", will McCain be "the Senator of the U.S."?

We can't push pause on the election, November is coming. Support with reckless abandon conservatives at every level. If you are not a member of the local/county GOP, now is probably a good time to join, 2010 will be calling as soon as 2009 is here. Vote your concious, grab a GOP-repair kit and as Barry Goldwater admonished us... get to work.

As for me, there's 15 weeks until McCain's acceptance speech. A leader's character counts. Bush 41 made the disasterous choice to not attack Bill Clinton's character flaws. McCain follows the same pattern, although not distancing himself from Bush 43's anti-appeaser Tuesday speech was rather remarkable.

May the best man win. As for me, I do hope Obama loses. Would it be too much to ask that McCain be the first minority republican president? Winning with less than 50% of the popular vote as Clinton and Wilson did before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
"It has become more acceptable to describe yourself as a conservative, but not everyone who uses that term about themselves really is truly conservative."
--Jesse Helms

McCain: Conservative, 64% of the time
Tommy Boy: "I got a D+!"

Why McCain won by John Evans

McCain won because the more conservative wing of the Republican party was divided among Romney, Thompson, and Huckabee. McCain seemed to have destroyed Giuliani among the moderates early on, leaving him with the largest chunk of Republican votes. Basically, we stumbled into nominating him, but I think he is the strongest candidate to take on Obama, and I'll take him over Obama any day.

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5 by bs

Dead on. I was just thinking about this earlier today. "we stumbled into nominating him" is exactly right. But you are also correct by your last statement about being the strongest to take on the Obamination right now. Anyone who's entertaining a 3rd party run (or voting for a 3rd party) has a death wish for themselves and the GOP.

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Actually, Bush 2000 was the "first minority republican" by ZootSuit

Actually, George W. Bush was the first Republican President to win a minority of the popular vote in 2000. Although I do think he won Florida "far and square," he still lost the popular vote nationwide to Al Gore and thus had less than 50% of the vote.

But to address your questions, yes, I do think John McCain would have won even if Hillary and Obama were considered "easy picking" in the beginning. I even disagree with John Evan's above that the "more conservative wing" was split. As Adam C pointed out, McCain was always at least competitive with "Very Conservative" vote in the primary and usually won all other types of "conservatives." We all know (and rail against) McCain's flaws but we overlook the fact that the other contenders had even greater flaws:

Rudy Guiliani the social conservatives did not trust. Let's face it, socially he is a liberal (gay rights, pro-abortion, etc.). He tried to run as the "anti-terrorist" candidate but even one of his campaign manager admitted that they were going to let John McCain risk his campaign on the surge. The result was that to many, McCain started to look the tougher on terrorism than Guiliani; and when that happened, there ceased to be a reason for Guiliani's candidacy. People seem to forget that Guiliani's campaign was tanking before he started to withdraw from Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and South Carolina.

Fred Thompson could not inspire a burning man to get out of a burning building. I was an original FredHead but his failure was probably the easiest to explain: He heard his name mentioned, saw a few polls where he did quite well, and decided "okay, sure, why not." In my opinion, Fred was the "only" or "truest" conservative in the race but he just didn't seem to want the Presidency.

Mitt Romney few people really trusted. Personally I think the man is a political chameleon who will say or do anything to get what he wanted. He was a moderate as governor of Massachusetts but he campaigned as if he was the second coming of Jesse Helms; and then attacked the other candidates for not being as conservative as him. He was toast when he came in third throught the South on Super Tuesday (let alone his defeat in California). Literally the only reason he lasted that long was because he was the last candidate not named John McCain, Mike Huckabee, or Ron Paul.

Mike Huckabee is also not a conservative; he is a pro-life, pro-gun populist with pronounced ethical problems. What he said was either stupid (e.g. the "Fair Tax" will do away with the IRS), liberal (e.g. it would be better for the Federal government to keep your money and build superhighways), or dangerous and weird (e.g. "we must change the government to make it more like G-d wants"). Sorry, no thanks!

When you look at it, all of the candidates had major flaws. As hard for us to believe, John McCain had the least damaging.

And by the way, I actually like his idea of monthly "Q&A's" with Congress. I think it does promote openness of government and increases the chances of the President's legislative agenda being passed. And I say this knowing that there are many things in McCain's legislative agenda that I will oppose; just as there are many that I will support.

*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!

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your litany of candidates only tells me by kyle8

just how broken the Republican party is. It is as though now that Ronald Reagan, William Buckley, and Milton Friedman are all dead, the party has abandoned everything they ever stood for.
We have gone back to Nelson Rockefeller, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford.

Let me announce this to anyone too thick to get it. Such a party will NEVER be a majority party, and will NEVER be able to defeat the democrats on anything.

If a new group of solid conservatives and libertarians don't come into the party and start winning local elections there will be a third party, mark my words. and that will only be trouble.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

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I wouldn't go that far. by St. Louis Conservative

I've got no love for Nixon, but he did win the biggest landslide (popular vote wise) in history.

“.....women and minorities hardest hit”

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Solid conservatives exist! by Hammer2008

A new "group" of solid conservatives, libertarians and federalists do exist and thus far, I've witnessed RedState (and others) throwing endorsements/support behind them:

- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin
- Alaska Lt. Gov. Parnell, challenging useless AK-Rep. Young (http://www.parnellforcongress.org/)
- Michigan Rep. Walberg (www.walbergforcongress.com)
- Georgia Representatives Dr. Paul Broun (www.paulbroun.com) and John Linder (www.johnlinder.com) of the FairTax.org and book fame

There are more, many more. I offer that CPAC 2009&2010 and Newt's AmericanSolutions.com will be pivotal.

I consider this year's election to be that fork-in-the-road, where (we) need to pull the GOP to the right. Perhaps it's time to also work for a new RNC head, who is both conservative and combative. Howard Dean grabbed the lead of the DNC as a consolation prize and open the flood gates to MoveOn idiots. Should (we) not be doing the same?

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I agree, kyle8, except by ZootSuit

I don't blame it on the lack of leaders like Reagan, Buckley, and Friedman. I blame us "rank and file" for not speaking up. Seriously, when Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert, Tom Delay and (yes) George Bush were destroying conservatism and the Republican Party, what were we doing?

And unless you think this just another tirade against the President, I will say that of the four I mentioned, I still think Bush is the best man and probably even the most conservative.

But when they were giving us "No Child Left Behind" and expanding the role and scope of government (after dropping school choice as literally the first thing they compromised on), you didn't here a peep out of conservatives.

When they were passing and signing McCain/Feingold into law, yes we castigated McCain but where were the protest against President Bush for signing it (even after he said he thought it was constitutional)?

And when they were sheparding the Medicare, Part D, atrocity through and signing it into law, where were we to protest?

Indeed, I give great credit to John McCain for standing up against that boondogle.

And I am not saying that we should have voted against President Bush and the others. Many of the issues this country was and still is facing are simply too critical to hand us over to the even more liberal opposition. But I am asking why we did not even say anything.

But the bottom line is, about the only times conservatives really stood up and let their voices be heard in opposition was against the nomination of Harriett Miers and agsinst McCain/Kennedy. And even with Miers, I must say that although the conservative opposition was vocal, it was not unanimous.

As I have argued before, I am looking forward to voting for John McCain this November primarily for two reasons:

1) John McCain is more conservative than we like to give him credit for. He may be more liberal than most of us would like (including me) but he is still far, far better and far, far more conservative than either of the two possible Democratic candidates. This country is simply too important and too dear to me.

2) Conservatives are not afaid to speak up when John McCain veers from the Right path. Under John McCain, we will find our voices again. Indeed, if we had not lost our voices years ago with Frist, Delay, Hastert and Bush; I don't think either this country or our party would be in the mess it's in now.

*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!

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in the minority... by Hammer2008

True re 2000 election, thank you for the correction. Perhaps I should amend it to state McCain would be the first two-term minority president? But then with my obvious wait-and-see-what's next stance, I would hope that (a) McCain becomes ardently conservative and would deserve a 2nd-term or (b) presume a better conservative would come to challenge a president McCain in 2011...

~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Republicans believe every day is the 4th of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15."
--Ronald Reagan

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Fred could not inspire? by E Pluribus Unum

I could not speak to motivations of the proverbial burning man -- but the general statement that Fred did not inspire is a crock.

Dude, do you actually READ RedState? Fred had, and long after his demise continues to have, a large and near-rabid army of devotees in the blogging class (i.e., Republican activists).

The newsies and average-goe voters didn't 'get' him. But uninspiring? Wrong.

Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO

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Yes, Fred could not inspire! by ZootSuit

He had a lot of support here on RedState (including from me) because we came in agreeing with the positions he held. We wanted to believe in him. But winning the Presidency requires convincing and inspiring people who do not want to believe in you. In that area, Fred Thompson failed miserably!

As a South Carolinian, I got to see a fair amount of Fred and, truth be known, he is not inspiring. Indeed, Charlie Bird and absentee have made the same comments. Sorry, but it's true.

*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!

Reply To This — User Info — #10

He inspired plenty - just not you by E Pluribus Unum

And the comments from Charlie and absentee only prove that Fred did not inspire *them*.

Fredheadism runs amok on RedState. RedState is absolutely one of the biggest handful of online Republican communities in America. If Fredheadism is so rampant HERE, it is also rampant elsewhere where Republicans are active. I can tell you that the Tarrant County (Fort Worth TX, county population > 1 million) Republican Executive Meeting in May was a veritable Fred-fest, 2 full months after his weak campaign flickered out with a wimper.

Fred did not inspire anything resembling a majority, I am not suggesting that. But to say he did not inspire is wrong.

Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO

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Okay, EPU, I'll modify for you by ZootSuit

Fred Thompson was inspiring. He was just a lot less inspiring than most of the other Repubicans this year.

*****
Unrepentant Black nationalist, Unapologetic Black conservative!

Reply To This — User Info — #13

I'll settle for that Zoot by E Pluribus Unum

Even though you are really, REALLY missing it. He inspired *fewer* people, but his peeps are highly, highly amped up, and will long outlive, in both numbers and wattage, the acolytes of Romney, Huckabee, and Rudy.

But hey, you threw me a bone. I'll take it.

Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated. -- IMAO

Reply To This — User Info — #14

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