Splintered conservatives hurt McCain

[Suzie]

Splintered conservatives hurt McCain

By ALLAN J. LICHTMAN | 6/24/08 4:49 AM EST

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With America’s attention riveted on the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, few noticed that presumptive Republican nominee John McCain limped through his party’s late primaries. McCain won 73 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania, 72 percent in Kentucky, 70 percent in Idaho and 70 percent in South Dakota.

McCain’s problem with the Republican base is not his lack of conservative credentials. The Arizona senator’s 82 percent lifetime rating from The American Conservative Union is roughly comparable to the 86 percent rating for former Tennessee senator and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson, once the object of conservative dreams. Barack Obama’s rating during his brief Senate tenure is 8 percent.

But conservatives ultimately found Thompson and every other Republican candidate wanting. They have even turned on their onetime hero President Bush, a sure sign of a movement in disarray. In the unkindest cut of all, the late patriarch William F. Buckley said of Bush in 2006, “If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we’ve experienced, it would be expected that he would retire or resign.”

The problem for conservatives, as I explain in my new book, “White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement” (Grove/Atlantic, 2008), is more fundamental than failed leadership. Rather, the conservative era that began in 1980 is coming to an end, the victim not of liberal pounding but of contradictions from within.

Conservatives triumphed in 1980 in the wake of the liberal failure to meet the challenges of a declining economy and heightened threats from abroad. But conservatives also won the battle of ideas. They called for a “colorblind society” to replace the liberals’ racial spoils system of quotas and special privileges for minorities. They proposed market solutions to social and economic problems and promised to ease taxes and regulations that discouraged working and investing. Conservatives pledged to rebuild America’s defenses and confront foreign enemies from a position of strength.

The movement conservatives of the Reagan era rejected gradual change and sought to smash the liberal order and restore America’s commitment to traditional moral values, private enterprise and robust anti-communism. In their pursuit of power, conservatives could count on the resources of business and a coordinated movement of intellectuals, publicists, lobbyists, educators, business leaders, journalists, preachers, talk show hosts and grass-roots activists. During the 1970s, conservatives built the Heritage Foundation, the Conservative Caucus, the National Conservative Political Action Committee, the Free Congress Foundation, Concerned Women for America, the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family.




McCain is not a phony or apostate conservative. Rather, he is the heir to contradictions that have now splintered the once vibrant conservative movement beyond easy repair. McCain’s backing for nation building in Iraq — arguably the largest federal social engineering project in U.S. history — the Bush tax cuts and a robust national bureaucracy for homeland security undercuts his rhetorical support for limited government, fiscal responsibility and states’ rights.
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Lots of splinters.

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

From the article cited:
McCain’s problem with the Republican base is not his lack of conservative credentials.

Yes it is.

From the article cited:
McCain is not a phony or apostate conservative.

Yes he is.

But that's just my opinion,

[Maggie_T]

Splintered conservatives hurt McCain

CORRECTION: McCain splinters conservatives and he hurts conservatism.

[Suzie]

McCain’s defeat by the liberal Obama and the advent of a strengthened Democratic Congress would mark the end of the modern conservative era as clearly as President Franklin Roosevelt’s defeat of President Herbert Hoover in 1932 marked the end of the conservative 1920s.

My greatest fear.

[Maggie_T]

Well, maybe that's what it will take to wake the American people up. There is a saying in Spanish: La letra con sangre entra. Which losely translated means Nothing teaches like pain.

Maybe when Americans are given a taste of Marxism, they will wake up and realize what happens when they lose that which they always took for granted.

Yes, it will mean hard times. I'm betting on the American people's resilience to bounce back from tragedies like the Great Depression, WWI-WWII, Carter, and maybe Obama.

And if that does not wake them up, well, then we might as well know it sooner than later, and learn to tackle the problem.

[Suzie]

WV is still waiting for that maybe. 50 years of Democrats later and Conservatives no longer bother to run. I don't want to see the whole country become what this state has. No one will run under any conservative positions here because no one votes for any one who tries it, even if they have fewer conservative leanings than McCain so why would anyone bother to run if no one voted for the last guy who at least offered that. If they wont even vote against unrestricted abortion here once it happens nation wide we are doomed. They have their social programs and they want to keep them. Which is what we got with Roosevelt, and Obama has his healthcare New Deal.

[Maggie_T]

(shrug) As I said, better know it sooner than later. As Kathy30 said, Jimmy Carter gave us Ronald Reagan. Maybe HUSSEIN will have the same results.

Hey, I'm being optimistic, for once.

[Suzie]

I am not that optimistic.

Still, no one seems able to explain just how much we have to lose or what they are willing to sacrifice. Do we want it to come to war on our own soil because he thinks he can "talk" anyone out of killing us all ... tying the military's hands so they become targets and not defense? The stakes are a whole lot bigger than at any time in our nations history and enemies scattered across many lands waiting for another shot at us. We can lose a lot. People are fed up with the healthcare and are ready to jump on board and we know it will pass. The "Children's healthcare program" would have passed if Bush hadn't vetoed it. If they suck people into social programs in an industry where many people have had problems they are sold on it quick and that won't go away any faster than welfare ... food stamps... hud and all those other things. And on top of that no limits on killing the unborn.

You can't recover things that are completely destroyed. And I am afraid that is where we are heading.

[Penguin]

McCain and his sycophants would not need to keep talking about how "conservative" he is if he actually was a conservative. Actions speak louder than words and the kicking and yelling by he and his minions only mocks the whole movement.

[Naturalized-Texan]

McCain’s defeat by the liberal Obama and the advent of a strengthened Democratic Congress would mark the end of the modern conservative era...

Absolutely! And conservatism may never return during the lifetime of anyone who is posting here.

[DesertFox]

What Homes said.

What Maggie said.

What Penguin said.

McCain is back-and-forth on important conservative issues. He can't be trusted, and that's worst of all.

[Suzie]

So we just forget about Obama? I notice no one ever seems to mention him. We can list all of McCain's flaws in this thread and not discuss the article at all, but Obama is still going to win ... then what?

[Elgalad]

McCain is not a Conservative.

A McCain Presidency is not the "lesser" of two evils. Evil = Evil.

No matter who is elected, there will still be a United States of America in 2012.


-Elgalad

[Timberwolf]

Yup.

[RogerFGay]

The movement conservatives of the Reagan era rejected gradual change and sought to smash the liberal order and restore America’s commitment to traditional moral values, private enterprise and robust anti-communism.

If by "liberal" he means Democrat, and by "restore America’s commitment to traditional moral values, private enterprise and robust anti-communism" he means transforming the Republican Party into an alternative socialist party to the Democratic Party ... ok.

[Beowulf]

Originally Posted by Maggie_T

Well, maybe that's what it will take to wake the American people up. There is a saying in Spanish: La letra con sangre entra. Which losely translated means Nothing teaches like pain.

Maybe when Americans are given a taste of Marxism, they will wake up and realize what happens when they lose that which they always took for granted.

Yes, it will mean hard times. I'm betting on the American people's resilience to bounce back from tragedies like the Great Depression, WWI-WWII, Carter, and maybe Obama.

And if that does not wake them up, well, then we might as well know it sooner than later, and learn to tackle the problem.

Yes, Maggie, that IS what it will take. When the Libs who voted him into office see their own taxes skyrocketing, the IRS bullying them over it, their gas costing $6/gallon and progress completely halted in favor of saving a critter that doesn't need saving, then maybe they'll realize they screwed up. I think the tax part will be enough. Last I knew, anyone who gets hit in the wallet is giving the assailant their undivided attention.

[Lubbock]

Whar Fox said.

[MSGT]

Originally Posted by Elgalad

McCain is not a Conservative.

True

Originally Posted by Elgalad

A McCain Presidency is not the "lesser" of two evils. Evil = Evil.

disagree...A lie isn't the same as murder. There are degrees of evil.

Originally Posted by Elgalad

No matter who is elected, there will still be a United States of America in 2012.

True, but what will it look like in 2012.

Originally Posted by Elgalad

-Elgalad

I thought your name would be green by now

[Suzie]

People aren't the same as they were in WWI and WWII. They had to work hard to survive. The very thing that destroyed that is what we are facing again. And the more they are handed the less they will work to try and keep. People are weak, if everyone was like they were then we might survive this, but those kind of people are very rare now. We have had members here in the past who claimed to be conservatives living off some kind of assistance that they would have never had during that time and even they would have had to find someway to take care of themselves. Any more big programs like the one Obama will pass for healthcare will only weaken us more. I am living it on the state level right now and it can easily become nationwide. The people here are historically known as doing the hardest dirtiest jobs... that's a fable now.

[HooverWasRight]

Originally Posted by DesertFox

What Homes said.

What Maggie said.

What Penguin said.

McCain is back-and-forth on important conservative issues. He can't be trusted, and that's worst of all.

McCain is another dick from Arizona...but I wouldn't mention the other one.