I must apologize for my cynicism up front because I know it is not shared by many – at least not in polite company. But I just can’t help it.
There were times during that debate last night where I had to remind myself that these were actually Republican candidates for President. At times, it sounded more like a John Edwards political rally with talk of “evil” Wall Street companies and Huckabee’s “two Americas lite.” And Romney’s penchant for throwing a couple of hundred billion dollars at voters sounded more like some other Massachusetts politician except I’m sure Mitt is a better driver.
When the presidential selection process began, there were several candidates that any conservative could have supported if not enthusiastically then at least by giving lip service if they had ended up the nominee. Now by default, we are left with a man who ran for governor as a center left moderate, governed as a centrist, and then adopted a slew of conservative positions on the issues just in time to be seen as a viable candidate for the White House. For many, giving Mitt Romney the benefit of the doubt for what John Hawkins has refereed to as his “Road to Damascus” conversion to conservatism is a matter of desperation. There isn’t anyone left in the race who espouses bedrock conservative principles mostly across the board except Romney.
For me, the question has never been that Huckabee and McCain aren’t “true” conservatives. By the lights of most who read this blog, I am not a “true” conservative either. The question is one of conservative governance and in both men, there is a lack of commitment to some truly basic conservative principles that calls into question just what kind of president they would be.
Huckabee cannot see beyond class. He has wedged class in his campaign in a pale imitation of John Edwards by trying to demonize the wealthy and speak for “ordinary Americans.” He has further carved out support by shamelessly and constantly appealing to Christian conservatives, calling himself a “Christian leader” and invoking the name of God every chance he gets.
Since when is initiating class warfare a conservative campaign tactic? Pundits call his philosophy “conservative populism” but it’s really much simpler than that. He is using class as a political scalpel to snip away a portion of the Republican electorate while slicing the bulk of Christian conservatives away from more traditionally conservative candidates. There is no path to the White House for Huckabee employing these tactics. But he should be able to harvest a couple of hundred delegates on Super Tuesday by winning 2 or 3 primaries while picking up delegates for finishing second and third elsewhere. He will then be in a position to humbly offer his services as Vice President to John McCain who will, if things remain relatively unchanged, come out of Super Tuesday with a huge lead in delegates on Mitt Romney.
For McCain, I suspect his fealty to conservatism and conservative principles will last until he wins the White House. It will be at that point that we will get a glimpse of just how important he thinks his conservatism is by looking at his cabinet appointments and the manner in which he fills other important posts in his Administration. I daresay there will be many “maverick” choices – including Democrats – that will curdle the blood of most movement conservatives and dismay the rest of us.
Would Romney be any different? The former governor and CEO would almost certainly look for the most competent people he can find to run the government. No doubt we would be disappointed in some of his choices. At least we could be assured that his selections were not made to “stick it” to conservatives – a disease McCain seems to have acquired over the years as his contempt for the right has been demonstrated on numerous occasions.
McCain and Huckabee can say they’re the best conservatives in the race until doomsday and it won’t make it so. And Romney can call his conversion to conservatism true and honorable until the cows come home and there will always be that nagging doubt in the back of everyone’s mind.
In my PJ Media column today, I look at McCain, Huckabee, and Giuliani and see a Republican party that is moving inexorably toward the center.
There may be many moderate and moderately conservative Republicans, as Jennifer Rubin muses in The Observer, who wish the party to do something about climate change despite the adamant opposition of many in the base. It could very well be that there is close to a majority of Republicans who want to solve the illegal immigrant problem by closing the border and then granting some kind of path to legality to those already here.The proof is in the pudding, friends. John McCain supports those positions and is the presumptive nominee. All other GOP candidates opposed those positions and are toast.
While these positions would have been seen as “moderate†8 years ago, those McCain supporters who identify themselves as “somewhat conservative†may also hold positions on continuing the mission in Iraq, fiscal responsibility, pro-life, anti-gay marriage, and other issues where they would find agreement with the base.
Does this mean that the party has lurched leftward while no one was looking? Perhaps not as much as it would appear but more than the base is willing to admit.
Would independents and even some Democrats really support McCain in a general election against either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama? Not unless McCain made a conscious decision to virtually abandon the conservative base and adopt a more centrist platform. That’s because the country itself has moved slightly leftward in the last 8 years. On a variety of important issues including health insurance, the environment, and Middle Class entitlements, the American people appear ready to accept more government as the solution to perceived problems.
So in the end, it becomes a question of how many conservatives are willing to hold their noses and vote for McCain so that Hillary Clinton – the presumed Democratic nominee – is prevented from getting her clutches on the levers of government. I will probably be one of those conservatives who votes to keep Hillary Clinton out of the oval office. How many others would follow that example will determine the winner in November.
8:40 am
Why do conservatives believe a centrist Republican governor from an ultra-liberal state when he now says he’s a conservative? His record is clear. Why do conservatives seem not to care about his utter lack of integrity? It doesn’t matter now; he’s toast.
Why were conservatives not in a tizzy about W as he doubled the size of the Dept. of Education? Why is McCain to blame for the ‘amnesty’ bill but not Bush? Why does McCain get no credit for being a deficit/spending hawk while Bush gets no blame for being one of the biggest spenders in history?
Why do conservatives (e.g. Michelle Malkin) say they won’t vote for McCain over Hillary when McCain’s ACU record is 82 and Hil’s is 6?
You guys ain’t makin’ no sense!
9:11 am
Rick,
I would like to add this small tidbit of information for all to consider.
McCain ‘08==Dole ‘96
9:24 am
John McCain is a mean, spiteful, angry little man. Although, accusations of Mitt Romney being a flip-flopper are true, John McCain is out and out liar. Either that or he is just too senile to remember from one day to the next what his past statements on different issues have been. Last night during the debate, he sounded like John Edwards with his class warfare rhetoric. RINO’s like McCain have realized that they can score big points with voters by demonizing big business. Generations of ever increasing government intervention in our lives and bigger and bigger government control of the free market has spawned more and more people willing to vote for politicians who promise Big Daddy will stick it to the rich to make sure they get the benefits they are entitled to. What was it that Ben Franklin said about when citizens realize they can vote themselves entitlements that that spells the end of the republic, or something like that. At least Romney realizes the danger of demonizing businesses to the economy and the free market. It’s no wonder John McCain and Huckabee despise Romney so much, being the liberals that they are. I am not a huge fan of Mitt Romney, but there’s definitely one thing that he’s got that John McCain doesn’t, and that’s class.
So, despite the venom I have for John McCain, I will vote for him if I have to in November. The one and only reason is for the sake of our military. The idea of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama being CIC of the United States military is just nauseating. The 2 of them have pandered to and courted their loony Code Pinko fringe. And to anyone who’s been paying attention to the out and out hatred that that fringe group and others like it have for our military and the United Stated in general, they know exactly what I am talking about.
9:36 am
“Why were conservatives not in a tizzy about W as he doubled the size of the Dept. of Education? Why is McCain to blame for the ‘amnesty’ bill but not Bush? Why does McCain get no credit for being a deficit/spending hawk while Bush gets no blame for being one of the biggest spenders in history?”————-
zwhite, you obviously don’t read Michelle Malkin very often if you think she doesn’t blame Bush for the amnesty bill and being one of the biggest spenders in history. I had to laugh when I read that. Where have you been? Go back into Malkin’s archives and tell us again that she hasn’t gone after Bush on those issues. Do you read Rick Moran ever (besides this post)??? I mean he has lambasted Bush over his spending, and so has every other true conservative blogger I know. Have you read the conversative bloggers who claim that Bush isn’t a true conservative because of his spending and his stance on immigration? How about the ones who are disgusted by his compassionate conservative rhetoric which were nothing but code words for big government? I mean, come on!
10:40 am
I don’t believe the forces behind the media machine will let McCain beat either a Hillary or Obama.
Take a look at Guiliani who in the middle of Dec 2007 was the leader ‘who could beat Hillary’ in the national polls for quite a long time then less than a couple of weeks later Rudy was out of the game before it even began and McCain is now suddenly crowned the leader ‘who could beat Hillary’.
No matter how Liberal McCain sells himself if he gets the nomination the media will drive the narritive that he is a Republican Deranged Bushie.
zwhite, here is your reason as to why nothing makes sense.
10:44 am
“Would independents and even some Democrats really support McCain in a general election against either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?”
If Hillary is the candidate, then I think many independents, even liberal-leaning independents will vote for McCain. And I think many liberal Democrats may simply not vote.
Strange as it may seem to many on the right, Hillary is NOT liked by many liberals. If you doubt this, take a stroll through DailyKos.
Reactions to McCain from some on the right and some on the left are inexplicable to me. I echo zwhite’s confusion – why is it that some people across the political spectrum see McCain as a liberal? There’s certainly little evidence from his voting record. Unless you’re a conservative who demands 100% loyalty to each and every conservative issue, how can you say McCain is “liberal”. I hear talk radio screamers like Severin calling McCain a “Democrat”.
As a liberal Democrat myself, this is just nonsensical to me.
10:52 am
I think the problem is that the party has gotten fat and happy over the last 7 elections, with a 5-2 record in the big game, that the base seems to buy this ridiculous notion that we can nominate anybody at any time and he’ll win. McCain represents the sensible Republicans who say, “Give me the most conservative guy who can win,” where the base seems to be saying “I don’t care if he can win, we want the most conservative guy.” It’s bizarre to me, but then the liberal base engages in the same type of pouting as well.
This isn’t 1980. Yes, the country is hungry for change, but unfortunately for the GOP, a Republican is in the White House.
I also disagree that McCain would have to move the party left in order to win moderate Dems and Independents; part of the reason the party chose him is because he attracts those voters already.
10:57 am
Re: “Why is McCain to blame for the ‘amnesty’ bill but not Bush?”
Because Conservatives are not permitted by The Party to hold George W. Bush accountable for anything. Policies and blunders that eminate from the Bush Administration are like rain falling from the sky: Something that “just happens” and are, of course, not George W. Bush’s fault, ever.
11:39 am
The rebublicans don’t have a chance. The left could have a monkey run and beat the Republi-cant’s. The current criminal we have as president has ruined this election for the right. The right is not offering anything but more of the same. People want change. McCain is going to win on the right I believe that but he will never beat Clinton or Obama.
12:06 pm
[...] Right Wing Nut House » THE DEBATE OF ALMOST, MOSTLY, REPUBLICANS For McCain, I suspect his fealty to conservatism and conservative principles will last until he wins the White House. It will be at that point that we will get a glimpse of just how important he thinks his conservatism is by looking at his cabinet appointments and the manner in which he fills other important posts in his Administration. I daresay there will be many “maverick†choices – including Democrats – that will curdle the blood of most movement conservatives and dismay the rest of us. [...]
12:50 pm
[...] Rick Moran, Right Wing Nuthouse. [...]
1:12 pm
Re: “Since when is initiating class warfare a conservative campaign tactic?”
You are kidding, right? that is the modus operandi of the Right. Class warfare seeps out of the Right’s mind and mouth whenever they speak.
1:58 pm
It is ashame, but again we are left to hold our nose and vote.
My conservative brothers and sisters wanted someone who could speak well, someone who didn’t wear Gucci shoes, didn’t campaign in a golf cart, someone who got in the race earlier, someone, someone, someone, someone.
Isn’t it strange that early on we had a strong conservative someone in the race that in the end would most likely have brought all of the conservative factions together in a race against the Democratic nominee. We spent the year complaining of how bad each of our candidates are or listened to or read the media’s account of how bad each one was.
For whatever the reason many conservatives failed to get behind Fred Thompson but instead peeled away to the other candidates or just sat back and watched, probably hoping Romney would end up the nominee of the party.
It is obvious now, today that a good majority of my Conservative brothers and sisters are hoping for a Romney victory. I suspect they are same ones who were probably bashing Fred Thompson or who instead may have just been siting back awaiting a Romney victory.
Where were our Conservative leaders. Where were their praises of the best Conservative Candidate. Where were their endorsements when it mattered and most of all where was their financial support.
It appears now our someone will be John McCain but I highly suspect my Conservative bothers and sisters are looking for a different someone.
Maybe Romney still can pull it off. He remains the only candidate with almost unlimited financial resources available to spend at a time when so many so-called Conservatives are in high gear trying to derail McCain on his way the nomination.
Wouldn’t it be a coincidence though if the nominee of our party ends up being John McCain a candidate who so many conservatives riled against, but a candidate who does speak well, doesn’t wear Gucci shoes (to my knowledge),didn’t campaign in a golf cart and one who got in the race early.
Unknowingly, John McCain would be, I think the candidate many of my fellow conservatives were looking for…..the candidate with the real Fire In His Belly.
2:09 pm
The GOP has moved from conservative to center/liberal the last 5 years. That explains why it lost 2 houses of Congress – by a landslide 2 years ago. For those sleeping in their civics clases the US, like UK, has a bicameral Congress – meaning 2 houses; which means the GOP lost it all in 06! The move away from conservative law making has made the GOP, once again, the “New Deal Lite” party. Voters know who the real New Deal folk are and were not fooled 50 years ago and are not fooled now.
I agree with the UCLA law professor. Like the Jews, the GOP needs to wander in the desert – again!- for 40 years to find out that it wins elections by being different from those other guys!
As I have said here several times the last 2 years – it matters not who the candidates are the GOP will lose in 08. It will lose because it is the other guys only less so!?#@
Shouting “Read my lips!.... ..” will no longer fool the voters!
2:18 pm
Rick, I know you say you would vote for McCain in order to keep Hillary out of the White House, but, what if Obama is the nominee? And what if, in the general election, he shifts to the political Right and brings Leiberman on-board as a running mate? He did hint he could go that way by saying some nice things about Reagan.
Would you still vote for McCain or for an Obama-(fill in conservative Democrat here) ticket?
Just curious.
Thanks.
2:31 pm
I think it’s funny. Romney, Huckabee and McCain are all liberals. The Republicans are so afraid of losing, they’re going to nominate a Democrat!
2:32 pm
zwhite, so you think Romney is toast because McCain took 36% of the vote in Florida? And of that 36%, 17% declared themselves independents and 3% were Democrats? So now you think that Florida gave McCain a mandate? Who the hell died and made Florida the spokeman for the rest of the nation?
And maybe you should check out McCain’s CU rating for 2006. It was 60%, not exactly a stellar showing.
The way I see it, since Rudy has decided to stand on the podium with McCain today while the Governator endorses him,
the fix was in. Huckabee took votes from Romney in Florida
and while Huckabee will stay in past Super Tuesday, you can
look for it to come out eventually (history has a way of doing
that) that he stayed for no other reason that to guarantee a
cabinet position and to take votes away from Romney.
I have watched the Republican Party move farther and farther to the left over the years. McCain is the culmination of that move.
You can look for McCain, after he is elected, to tell the American people the same thing he told John Cornyn when Cornyn
opposed him with a simple F-you.
McCain has been cozying up to Democrats since his days of the fact finding mission in Vietnam. Why does no one talk about how McCain turned his back on American POWs left behind to lock arms with John Kerry? How about Keating 5? His infamous temper? You really want this guy in charge of the football?
2:33 pm
[...] I think Rick and I are of the same mind today, as he dissects the car wreck that is the GOP nomination process: Since when is initiating class warfare a conservative campaign tactic? Pundits call his philosophy “conservative populism†but it’s really much simpler than that. He is using class as a political scalpel to snip away a portion of the Republican electorate while slicing the bulk of Christian conservatives away from more traditionally conservative candidates. There is no path to the White House for Huckabee employing these tactics. But he should be able to harvest a couple of hundred delegates on Super Tuesday by winning 2 or 3 primaries while picking up delegates for finishing second and third elsewhere. He will then be in a position to humbly offer his services as Vice President to John McCain who will, if things remain relatively unchanged, come out of Super Tuesday with a huge lead in delegates on Mitt Romney. [...]
2:46 pm
“You guys ain’t makin’ no sense!”
Well, you knew they were conservative.
Goes w/o sayin…
3:03 pm
“Since when is initiating class warfare a conservative campaign tactic?â€
Beats me Rick.
3:58 pm
Retire05: “zwhite, so you think Romney is toast because McCain took 36% of the vote in Florida?”
No. I think he’s toast for a whole set of other reasons, including that he felt the need to explain to the press why he peeled the skin off his fried chicken (in the South, no less :). People know phony when they see it. Mr. I-was-for-gay-marriage-before-I-was-against-it is finished. Mitt is not now and never was a conservative—he’s just a shameless Clintonesque panderer.
4:29 pm
Geez Rick.
If you’re going to delete my comment at least put an editors note there.
Something like “Comment deleted because I gots nothing!”
4:31 pm
Sorry Rick. I see it now and missed it before.
Belay my last… But address my first if you don’t mind.
I do mind. Wasting time responding to someone who actually thinks Republicans play the class warfare card when it has been the modus operandi for Democrats since FDR would be absurd.
ED.
4:33 pm
Are you talking about the comment #20? You, know, the one I didn’t delete and thus made you look like a gigantic, foot stomping, tantrum throwing two year old?
4:44 pm
I can’t support McCain. If he won the Presidency he could force the Republicans in the Senate and Congress to side with the Democrats on immigration, anti-business legislation, tax increases, socialist health care, carbon emissions etc. etc. Better to have the GOP fighting Hillary every inch of the way. But it won’t come to that. The base won’t support McCain, except grudgingly, and the DNC/MSM will do to him what they did to the last old Senator the GOP put up. Why else do yu think the MSM have been so keen to label mcCain a shoo-in?
5:05 pm
Wasting time responding to someone who actually thinks Republicans play the class warfare card when it has been the modus operandi for Democrats since FDR would be absurd.
Just because the Dems do something doesn’t mean that the Repubs don’t as well. It takes two to fight a class war, and it’s not like the upper class doesn’t have any guns to bear.
5:25 pm
You, know, the one I didn’t delete and thus made you look like a gigantic, foot stomping, tantrum throwing two year old?
Really? ‘Cause he posted a wiki link that was on point? Your skin is so thin it is translucent. This is going to be a fun election season, for me, but not for the waaaaaaaaaaahmbulance. And the results in November will also be fun, for those of who are relishing a return to empirical thinking.
5:39 pm
if you think that comment #23 exhibits behavior of a “gigantic….two-year old”, you clearly have NEVER experienced a real 2 year old.
you know, all that misplaced vitriol could shorten your life considerably.
5:57 pm
Where is Newt Gingrich when we need him ?
7:09 pm
Reagan ran out the country-clubber class warfarers which are now firmly in the camp of Obama endorsed by billionaire Kennedy clan (he managed to raised #32 million in one month AND has billionare Oprah Winfrey)
That said a friend of mine returned from a visit to southern California a couple of weeks ago, after being away for some ten years she could not help but notice that it looks like a big garbage dump.
Oh billionaire Kennedy-clan Arnold he has have served his upper class so well, I’m glad he endorsed McCain.
9:31 pm
#21
OMG, Romney peeled the skin off his chicken, AND IN THE SOUTH NO LESS. Crucify him. Declare him unAmerican. If there was ever a lame statement, this one is for the books. So what if the press asked him about it? Just because most people in the south like their chicken deep fried with lots of batter doesn’t mean all of US in the south intend to load up our arteries with chicken fat. Now we are to pick a candidate on his eating habits?
Judgemental as hell, arn’t you? Or are you just looking for anything you can bash Romney over?
Care to discuss McCain’s fact finding mission to Vietnam with John Kerry where he pandered to Kerry and turned his back on American POWs, or is that too deep for you?
10:53 pm
Rick, if you see a “party that is inexorably drawn to the center” then who can you blame except Republican voters?
McCain is the best candidate to defeat any Republican, I must agree with the polls. What I fear is how much he will be swiftboated, to an extent where he is damaged overall. While I don’t really imagine more Republican votes for any Democrat, if the primary becomes more tawdry, the whole slate can go down.
12:20 pm
When the evangelicals and neocons began to dismantle the GOP in the ‘80s, I said “So long. Call me when the Constitution becomes important again.” Finally, in 2007 a Republican did show up amid all the RINOs. So I returned, only to discover that the first truly Republican candidate since Goldwater was despised by the media, the insider establishment, and the fearful. In short, RINOs and lovers of the corporate State.
Though McCain claims “outsider and maverick” labels, he’s been part of the establishment all his adult life: Born on a naval base as the son and grandson of admirals, lived on a military bases his entire childhood, went to the Naval Academy, served a full military career, immediately ran for congress in ‘82 after retiring, moved on to the Senate in ‘86, and has been there ever since. So McCain has been a paid employee of the US government for 54 years and grew up in an elite military family before that. You can’t get any more ‘establishment’ than John McCain.
So what if the likely GOP nominee believes in restraints on free speech, higher taxation, bigger government, open borders, and 100-year U.S. armies of occupation everywhere from Albania to Zimbabwe? Romney believes in those things too — at least, he does when he’s in a room full of people that want him to.
In stark contrast, Ron Paul is the private sector candidate, for all those productive Americans who are sick and tired of foreign wars, Federal Reserve bubbles, the police state, and excessive taxes. Only Ron Paul speaks for freedom, peace, and prosperity.
Without a strong economy, everything else fails as well. When Bush took office in 2001, gold was at $270/ounce. Today’s price is over $900—and not because gold has become more valuable; rather, you need more dollars to buy the same amount of gold. The economic failures hitting Main St. and the suburbs will grow and only Dr. Paul is addressing this core issue in an intelligent manner.
And ‘national security’ conservatives, please note that when the dollar finally crashes (a la the ruble in ‘80s and ‘90s), any sense of military security will crumble as well. How many soldiers will continue to defend Iraq, Germany, or Japan when the paycheck doesn’t arrive? Or behave as Russian soldiers did and sell military hardware to feed their families?
2:24 pm
Conservatives that have watched the last seven years unfold in horror have my deepest sympathy. Our current president couldn’t be more choice if he were a hand-picked liberal double-agent selected and elected to discredit the Republican Party forever.
For the Bush apologists, I welcome the return of CDS (Clinton Derangement Syndrome). Four years of listening to your veins explode will be sweet. I hope that Hillary Clinton develops a lisp and reverts to baby-talk during her short tenure of cleaning up the eight year Bush pile.
Only when Hillary exhorts us all to “Wuv ishamofashism” will you know how real conservatives (and everyone else on the planet) have suffered these long years.
8:03 am
That’s precisely the problem Conservatives have just watched the last 7 years. What a joke, the notion of Conservatism as a viable political entity unto it’s own. All that has happened is ridicule of the opposition and silence of criticism of Dear Leader. Conservatives haven’t done anything to support their own sales pitches that got them elected. What a ruse. The denial is astounding. It’s your own insignificance that is being revealed here folks nothing else. Conservative is an adjective, not a noun.
10:14 am
[...] Right Wing Nut House, “The Debate of Almost, Mostly, Republicans” [...]