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Category: Republicans (Page 34 of 40)

Conservatives rallying against McCain

I won’t bother quoting entertainer Rush Limbaugh.

Instead, here’s a column by Mark Levin from the National Review.

Even worse than denying his own record, McCain is flatly lying about Romney’s position on Iraq. As has been discussed for nearly a week now, Romney did not support a specific date to withdraw our forces from Iraq. The evidence is irrefutable. And it’s also irrefutable that McCain is abusing the English language (Romney’s statements) the way Bill Clinton did in front of a grand jury. The problem is that once called on it by everyone from the New York Times to me, he obstinately refuses to admit the truth. So, last night, he lied about it again. This isn’t open to interpretation. But it does give us a window into who he is.

Of course, it’s one thing to overlook one or two issues where a candidate seeking the Republican nomination as a conservative might depart from conservative orthodoxy. But in McCain’s case, adherence is the exception to the rule — McCain-Feingold (restrictions on political speech), McCain-Kennedy (amnesty for illegal aliens), McCain-Kennedy-Edwards (trial lawyers’ bill of rights), McCain-Lieberman (global warming legislation), Gang of 14 (obstructing change to the filibuster rule for judicial nominations), the Bush tax cuts, and so forth. This is a record any liberal Democrat would proudly run on. Are we to overlook this record when selecting a Republican nominee to carry our message in the general election?

The national polls show a dead heat between McCain and Romney, so I’m not writing Romney off just yet.

McCain gives up straight talk

I wasn’t impressed with John McCain’s performance in tonight’s GOP debate. Just like he did on Meet the Press last week, McCain ducked questions and was presented with several contradictions in his explanations for his votes.

If he gets the nomination he will be tough to beat given his appeal to moderates and independents, but his appeal might fade if he keeps this up.

Giuliani’s collapse

During his tenure as mayor of New York, I was a huge fan of Giuliani. Liberals hated him, and there were certainly areas where he deserved criticism, but I was amazed by the positive changes in New York City.

Everything changed after 9/11. Sure, Giuliani exhibited grace under pressure, but the idea that his perfomance translated to real foreign experience was always ridiculous. The Giuliani image was just as hyped up as the fear being peddled by the Bush Administration.

Giuliani bought into the hype. He campaigned hard for George Bush in 2004, going so far as to make the most idiotic comparison in political history when he compared George Bush to Winston Churchill. At that point it became obvious to me that Giuliani either had no clue about what was right for America or he was just another cynical and self-interested politician who was latching on to the popular cause of the day.

Many are blaming his strange strategy regarding the primaries for his loss. Obviously, it was a dumb strategy, but the real problem was Giuliani and his positions. His support for the failed Bush policies and his non-stop references to 9/11 just didn’t cut it with an electorate that had been fooled twice by Bush. The revelations of his bizarre personal life didn’t help as well.

He’s a social liberal who was running in a party that catered to the religious right. He claimed he would appoint “strict-constructionist” judges, though he was never able to explain how this was consistent with his own positions. I never agree with the religious right, but I respect those in that camp who refused to support Giuliani. He wasn’t one of them and they didn’t believe his B.S.

Rudy was a flawed candidate, and I’m not surprised his support collapsed once the GOP voters took a closer look.

Romney vs. McCain

I’m not sure it matters much who wins in Florida. The polls are fairly close, and the final results will probably be close as well.

Unless either one wins by a big margin, the GOP race should come down to a battle between these two candidates going forward. Joe Scarborough just reported that many Huckabee supporters are going for Romney because they don’t want to help McCain, and many war hawks are breaking from Giuliani to back McCain.

McCain probably needs a win more, but I think it will settle down to a battle between the two of them. Romney has more money, so he can weather a close loss better than McCain.

As I’ve been saying for weeks, McCain gives the GOP the best chance to win, but it’s also understandable why many Republicans can’t bring themselves to support him. Romney is a flake, but he’s a talented flake. He keeps changing his message and his positions, but the adjustments keep making him more acceptable to conservatives and primary voters. It’s actually funny listening to him talk about the three pillors of the Reagan coalition – economic conservatives, social conservatives and foreign policy hawks. He panders to each group as much as possible, regardless of anything he said in the past.

McCain looked pretty bad on Meet the Press on Sunday. He was basically caught in a lie about why he supported the tax cuts, and that is a deal breaker for many conservatives.

The fight on the Democratic side has been brutal, but the GOP fight is getting ugly as well. Both sides will have some challenges uniting their respective parties at their conventions.

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