Posts with the tag 'Conservatism'
The headlines are all focusing on McCain’s “victory in 2013″ statement, but his whole speech is a lot more important than just what he says about the war:
The size of the Army and Marine Corps has been significantly increased, and are now better equipped and trained to defend us. Long overdue reforms to the way we acquire weapons programs, including fixed price contracts, have created sufficient savings to pay for a larger military. A substantial increase in veterans educational benefits and improvements in their health care has aided recruitment and retention. The strain on the National Guard and reserve forces has been relieved.
Round about a century ago in what was then the world’s lone super power - Great Britain - Haldane in charge of the War Office and “Jacky” Fisher in charge of the Admiralty gave Britain a larger and more power army and navy, at less cost than the country had been spending. Waste was cut and organization improved and more powerful weapons and forces forged simply by intelligent application of good ideas. There is much wast an inefficiency in our defense sector - not the troops fault, but its there and it can be corrected by a man determined to confront the entrenched interests at DoD and Congress (ie, the Murthas of the world) who like things fine just they way they are.
After efforts to pressure the Government in Sudan over Darfur failed again in the U.N. Security Council, the United States, acting in concert with a newly formed League of Democracies, applied stiff diplomatic and economic pressure that caused the government of Sudan to agree to a multinational peacekeeping force, with NATO countries providing logistical and air support, to stop the genocide that had made a mockery of the world’s repeated declaration that we would “never again” tolerant such inhumanity.
Long time readers know that I’ve been in favor of something like the “League of Democracies” for years now - and I’m delighted that McCain seems determined to push forward with this…with the implied sidelining of the moribund UN and a resultant increase in the global community’s ability to actual do things about horrible problems.
Congress has just passed by a single up or down vote a tax reform proposal that offers Americans a choice of continuing to file under the rules of the current complicated and burdensome tax code or use a new, simpler, fairer and flatter tax, with two rates and a generous deduction. Millions of taxpayers are expected to file under the flat tax, and save billions in the cost of preparing their returns.
If this isn’t pure Reaganism, then I don’t know what is.
After exercising my veto several times in my first year in office, Congress has not sent me an appropriations bill containing earmarks for the last three years. A top to bottom review of every federal bureaucracy has yielded great reductions in government spending by identifying programs that serve no important purpose; and instigating far reaching reforms of procurement and operating policies that have for too long extravagantly wasted money for no better purpose than to increase federal payrolls.
You want government spending controlled? Then you’ve got McCain, or you’ve got nobody…and please note that McCain sees where a lot of this government growth comes from; a mere desire to increase federal payrolls. Given that the government employees union (AFSCME) is hopelessly corrupt and entirely in the DNC’s pocket, any increase in government payrolls helps the Democrats and thus the political left…anything which cuts the growth of government payroll works opposite.
Health care has become more accessible to more Americans than at any other time in history. Reforms of the insurance market; putting the choice of health care into the hands of American families rather than exclusively with the government or employers…
Once again, pure Reaganism…and in stark contrast to Obama’s semi-socialist and Hillary’s completely socialist plans for health care.
Scores of judges have been confirmed to the federal district and appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, who understand that they were not sent there to write our laws but to enforce them and make sure they are consistent with the Constitution. They are judges of exceptional character and quality, who enforce and do not make laws, and who respect the values of the people whose rights, laws and property they are sworn to defend.
This is the crucial battle for conservatives - if we get the judges, then we can eventually overturn the absurd liberal rulings, and then use the law to actually reform America back to the constitutional Republic originally intended. Fail to get the judges and everything else we do is worthless in the long run.
Border state governors have certified and the American people recognize that after tremendous improvements to border security infrastructure and increases in the border patrol, and vigorous prosecution of companies that employ illegal aliens, our southern border is now secure. Illegal immigrants who broke our laws after they came here have been arrested and deported. Illegal immigration has been finally brought under control, and the American people accepted the practical necessity to institute a temporary worker program and deal humanely with the millions of immigrants who have been in this country illegally.
I know a lot of you guys get burned up about the guest worker program - but the heck with you; and, at any rate, McCain has promised (again and again) to secure the borders first…so you’re going to get what you say you really want.
All in all, it is a progam that anyone who isn’t a kook lefty should love - and there’s more in it than just what I’ve noted. Failure to vote for McCain is not only dumb, but suicidal for conservatism.
Tags: Conservatism, John McCain, Reaganism
May 16th, 2008
Andy McCarthy over at NRO’s The Corner speaks for many:
The likelihood is not a post-Bush Republicanism but a post-Republican conservatism. Most of us care about the party only insofar as it serves the movement, not the other way around. If the party is no longer doing that — or, worse, if it is setting us backwards — then it’s time to abandon the party, not the movement.
Conservatism is all about first principles - so let us re-state for the record just what conservatism came about to do. There wasn’t in the days of yore a “conservative” society upon which liberalism started to work - there was the society, and liberalism came along in the mid-18th century and proposed a series of radical changes in how this society worked. Please note that - it came along in the mid-18th century…there was 18 centuries of this society; 18 centuries in which there was massive changes in society, but the fundamentals of that society remained in place and were generally accepted without question. Liberalism didn’t want to tinker around the edges, but wanted wholesale and fundamental change - a complete re-working in the relations between men, between men and government, and between men and God, if there was even to be a place in this new society for God. Conservatism arose after liberalism - it was a response, and it started towards the very end of the 18th century, as Burke observed the excesses of the French Revolution and started to carefully state what was right about the old ways, and what was wrong about the underlying beliefs of those who wanted to change it completely.
Conservatism, at bottom, is the defense of the old, Judeo-Christian civilization against all of those - for whatever reason - who seek to overthrow Judeo-Christianity and replace it with a new paradigm. In this conservatism is equally opposed to liberalism, socialism, fascism, Nazism, libertarianism, communism - but, also, to those elements in society which are not of the political “isms”, but are in direct opposition to Judeo-Christianity. These would be things like consumerism, welfarism, pornography - and in a certain but very real sense, against laissez-faire capitalism, that bastard outgrowth of 18th century liberalism which became, in time, merely an excuse for the rich to grind the faces of the poor. Having no problems with the free market and no objection to a man gaining great wealth through his diligence and hard work, it is still a Judeo-Christian principle that the mere piling up of money is immoral, and as the enterprising build their wealth, there must be care taken to ensure that they aren’t doing so without any thought to the needs of society as a whole.
The source of conservative trouble has been the so-called division of conservatism into “social conservative” and “fiscal conservative” lines - truth be told, the only real conservatism is “social conservatism”. Fiscal conservatism is the latching on to the political power of social conservatives by those who will take the conservative desire for low taxes and non-intrusive government and use it as a means of advancing the cause of mere money-making. Conservatives don’t want low taxes because it helps the economy so much as they want them because in Judeo-Christian principle, God makes the person contained within his family the steward of wealth - to pass the wealth of the family to government is to abdicate one’s responsibility. Fiscal conservatives want low taxes because this makes it possible for them to make money faster and in larger amounts - something no conservative really gives a darn about. The artificial division - which is really a marriage of convenience for political purposes - in the consevative movement is what leads to our current crisis of confidence - as fiscal conservatives bemoan things like McCain’s global warming plan due to its possible deletrious effects on economic growth, while conservatives remain fixed on what is really important to conservatism…the appointment of conservative judges, the winning of the war for this nation established by God to be the bastion of liberty and religion in the world, the prospect that the powers of government will be used to defend the family rather than attack it.
This is not to say that conservatives can’t or won’t take exception to various aspects of McCain’s global warming plan, or other efforts of his (notably things like CFR) - but the crucial battles for conservatism are not whether we’ll have “cap and trade” and absurd restrictions on campaign spending, but whether marriage will remain between one man and one woman; that parents will remain the ultimate authority in a child’s life; that religion will be permitted in the public square; that - God willing - we’ll one day end the scourge of abortion upon our nation. Next to such fundamental issues, how money is moved around in capital markets is trivial. McCain is a conservative in the most vital sense of the word - he’s for family, for God, for country and he’ll enact policies which will defend all of these. Obama is an ultra-liberal - in spite of his high sounding rhetoric about family, God and country, the fact of his policies is an unrelenting war on all three and, indeed, on all of the fundamental principles of Judeo-Christian civilization. Given this stark choice in November, conservatives won’t have to “hold their nose” and vote McCain, but will enthusiastically do so - and then be more than prepared to battle McCain over some of the things he wants to do (such as the aforementioned global warming proposals). But these battles will be carried on between ladies and gentlemen who are all of the same fundamental beliefs - and so real solutions can be found and compromise effected…unlike the impossibility of real compromise between liberalism and conservatism.
Between those who are conservative and those who are fiscal conservatives, there is a community of interests - most notably in the desire that government be restricted in its scope. When someone wants to help you out of a ditch, you don’t worry if he wants to help you out because of altruism, or because he’s hoping you’ll give him a reward - you just want out of the ditch - and so he’s your friend. Conservatism and fiscal conservatism can travel a long way together with no problem - and can politely agree to disagree on some things and battle for their own views in the public square. But conservatism cannot become an adjunct of fiscal conservatism - that would mean conservatism was abandoning itself. If someone out there wishes to work with me to lower taxes, then he is my ally on that issue - if after that he wishes to fight to keep abortion legal, then he and I will part ways on that issue…but I won’t compromise my basic principles - and I won’t ask someone else to do so, either - just to feel better about my prospects at election time. Fiscal conservatives will have to decide for themselves what they want in November - while McCain is not with them 100%, he’s certainly more of an ally than Obama will ever be, so a fiscal conservative failure to vote for McCain is the acme of silliness…but others will do what they think is best. Meanwhile, as a conservative, I will fight hard for McCain because he’s one of mine - in spite of disagreements on this or that policy, he is a kindred spirit and a man who defends the same things I defend.
It is my view that the American people are broadly conservative in their views - as all people have been at all times. People do prefer the tried and true to the innovative. Innovation there must be from time to time, but there’s never any rush and any change should be done with great care. We conservatives can, by sticking to principle, win the support of the majority of the American people - and fiscal conservatives can be helpful in this endevour. But as we speak of a general conservatism, we must never lose sight of the fact that this doesn’t mean a wholesale subscription to the ideas of the Chicago School of economics. The most conservative Americans in the world are ticked off at high gas prices - they don’t go for the stupidity of leftwing thinking on it (ie, an evil cabal of Big Oil making prices go higher), but the high prices are annoying, and if supposed conservative leaders want to offer a series of excuses for the high prices - even if the most carefully reasoned in terms of basic economics - then they are going to get blindsided by the guys who are proposing solutions, even if foolish solutions (such as those offered by the Democrats). One can disdain plans for lowering the price gas, but unless there is a plan for the party going into November, it will be a severe drag on votes…and such a drag is not just a risk to conservatism, but very much to fiscal conservatism, as well. Better to work out a plan - even if parts of it are in technical violation of laissez-faire capitalism - than to have no plan while the other guy does.
So think about it, fellow conservatives (social and fiscal) - for all our differences, we have far more in common with each other than either of us do with the other side. We can split into hostile camps and ensure the eventual socialist destruction of America, or we can unite and save what we hold dear - and then engage in friendly argument over those things we disagree about. If conservatism - both parts - hangs together and puts out a comprehensive plan encompasing economics and morality, then conservatism can carry the day in November and beyond. Each side will have to give a little (without given up on essentials) in the service of the common fight - and we’ll find out over the next few months whether there is this wisdom within our ranks, or whether we’ll be united only in our mutual defeat.
Tags: Conservatism, John McCain, poltiical ideology
May 16th, 2008
Bobby Jindal leading the way in Louisiana:
Jindal ‘bats a thousand’ at session
BATON ROUGE — The state Legislature on Friday wrapped up its second special session during the 2-month-old administration of Gov. Bobby Jindal by completing a full sweep of the governor’s proposed package of business tax cuts and $1.1 billion in surplus spending priorities.
Jindal and his legislative allies won all the initiatives they set out to accomplish during the six-day session, including a controversial bill to grant a partial tax deduction for private school tuition.
Flanked by many members of his supporting team of lawmakers at an evening news conference, the governor framed the results as a positive statement on Louisiana’s national image.
“This group should be proud of batting a thousand,” Jindal said. “The country’s watching us … we know they’ll like what they see.”
The session followed a February lawmaking period in which the governor passed a slate of new ethics laws. A regular spring session of the Legislature will begin March 31.
Lawmakers passed bills to eliminate a 1 percent sales tax that businesses pay on utilities, an estimated annual savings to Louisiana companies — as well as a loss of state revenue — of $69 million. They also passed an expedited phaseout of taxes on corporate debt and on manufacturing machinery and equipment. Those taxes were widely seen as burdens on companies that expand their operations, therefore placing Louisiana at a competitive disadvantage with other states.
What have you Democrats got as your “breath of fresh air”? Barack Obama - an ultra-liberal product of the corrupt Chicago Democratic machine…you can keep him; we GOPers have genuine change we can believe in. Bobby Jindal is just starting out, and he’s already done more real things for people than Barack Obama could ever dream of doing - it is in this youthful, idealistic conservatism where we’ll finally win all down the line, crushing the life out of that leftwing thought which has been desrtoying our nation for decades.
You can’t win, lefties - your worldview is built on lies and thus it never, ever works when put into practice. Sure, you’ll be able to win an election or two, from time to time, but not by running on what you are; only by hiding it…but we’re out there, telling people what we believe, and then putting it into place…and it works, every time we try.
Tags: Bobby Jindal, Conservatism, government reform, Louisiana
March 15th, 2008
Victor Davis Hanson over at NRO’s The Corner:
Most Americans simply cannot imagine their president as the topic of a two-hour encomium by Farrakhan, or why an unrepentant terrorist like Ayers would have once been associated with him. Those are legitimate issues, and the Obama campaign needs to come up with a comprehensive defense against them before they arise: e.g., “All sorts of diverse people are attracted to various causes under the umbrella of social change; what distinguishes Obama is his singular devotion to working within the system and avoiding the extremism that plagues the movement.”
Until there is some systematic preemptive exegesis, I think more and more of these disturbing hard-Left embarrassments will turn up — none of them alone a problem; all of them in sum finally devastating.
Our leftwingers have convinced themselves that America has turned decisively leftwards and will embrace a leftwing President. If this is true, then so be it - but I don’t think it is. What this means for Obama is that he’s going to be running in a center/right America as a liberal/left politician. As long as Obama can keep it to high sounding rhetoric, all is well - but just as soon as Obama is forced down into the nitty gritty of politics, his liberalism will prove an obstacle to winning.
Americans are tired of Iraq - but do Americans want to lose in Iraq?
Americans are tired of the mess in health care - but do Americans want socialised medicine?
Americans are tired of endless government debt - but do Americans want tax increases, or would they prefer spending cuts?
These are the sorts of questions we are going to answer between now and November and while Obama can, perhaps, answer them in a way which leads to his being sworn in on January 20th, 2009, the plain fact of the matter is that it won’t be easy - especially not easy against a seasoned campaigner like John McCain, who is popular, highly respected and has a vastly more substantial resume’ than Obama.
Tags: Barack Obama, Conservatism, John McCain, liberalism
February 26th, 2008
Yep:
I think what we are watching in the Democratic primary is historic. First, there has not been a candidate nominated for President more liberal than Barack Obama since George McGovern — not Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, or Kerry. This is unapologetic liberalism in the classic European-socialist sense, and for the first time in many years we will see its envisioned agendas without Clintonian trimming or apologetics — the flip side of the purist Goldwater in 1964. Obama will put the best face on this ultra-liberalism and the voters can freely decide. A real cut-and-dry choice.
Second, I don’t think there has been this much acrimony for so long in a Democratic primary since the Humphrey campaign of 1968, much more venom than Kennedy-Carter in 1980 or Hart-Mondale in 1984. But more importantly, the fault-line this time is not ideological so much as personal, with ugly undertones that will be hard to heal, given there can’t be horse-trading over policies. In the end, the Clintons are livid that the upstart Obama cut in front of the line and destroyed what was otherwise a near-decade long carefully planned and scripted return to power until 2016.
Our liberal friends are already convinced that they’ve won in November by a massive landslide - this is because liberals live in a dream world entirely divorced from reality (and in a really ironic twist, they call themselves the “reality based community”); but be that as it may, in a McCain/Obama contest, the battle will be between liberalism and conservatism in very stark terms. Ever since Dukakis was creamed in 1988 mostly due to the fact of his liberalism, Democrats have shied away from that label, but Obama is embracing it (though not, of course, actually spelling out what his liberal policies will entail) - and liberals are convinced that America has turned left, and are ready for an unabashedly liberal President and government. We shall see - so far, when we battle between liberalism and conservatism, the record is Conservatism 6-1…will 2008 make it 6-2? So far, only Goldwater failed to convert the battle of conservatism vs liberalism into victory for conservatism…but that was back in 1964, before liberalism poisoned itself with “new left” ideology from 1968 forward.
Tags: Barack Obama, Conservatism, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, liberalism
February 22nd, 2008
Peter Wehner over at Real Clear Politics give some sage advice:
Senator McCain’s line of attack against Senator Obama, should Obama become the Democratic nominee, ought to be on Obama’s liberal stands. As best as I can ascertain, apart from calling for merit pay for teachers, Obama is a conventional liberal on every significant national issue. Senator McCain needs to focus like a laser beam on that fact.
I should add an important caveat: invoking the liberal label is not enough. Especially against Obama — who is skilled, dexterous, and projects a sense of being non-ideological — much more will be necessary. Senator McCain needs to make deep, sustained arguments on behalf of liberty, limited government, constitutionalism, the family, and American strength and military power (from prosecuting the Iraq war to a successful conclusion to effective terrorist surveillance policies) in confronting militant Islam. He then needs to lay out a robust governing agenda based on those governing principles. And he needs to present himself as a reformer of our institutions, which is something that does come easily to McCain.
Making the case against Obama’s liberalism will bring howls of protest from reporters and columnists who once held McCain up as a courageous “maverick” and who took particular delight when he antagonized conservatives. John McCain’s days as the mainstream media’s favorite Republican are about to end. One can already anticipate the avalanche of columns denouncing McCain as a flip-flopping, unprincipled panderer.
The mainstream media will insist that using the liberal label is so 1980s. Such name-calling, we will be told, is anachronistic, “old and tired,” simple-minded, and a sign of desperation. It may have worked against Michael Dukakis in 1988, they will argue, but we are a better and wiser nation now.
McCain should reject such counsel.
If Obama should win the Democratic nomination, John McCain should go straight at his record — with precision, without rancor, and relentlessly. John McCain will not win a personality contest against Barack Obama; no political figure in America could. McCain will have to base his campaign on a set of creative, forward-looking ideas that meet the challenges of our time. He will have to make this a race about ideas and about ideology.
In making the race about ideas and contrasting center/right, bedrock Americanism against Obama’s ultra-liberalism more in step with Europe than Mainstreet, USA, McCain would not only give himself his best shot of beating Obama, but also do a service to the nation by laying out clearly just what the issues of 2008 are. For Obama, the key to victory in 2008 (should he beat Hillary - and that isn’t a done deal yet at all) is to cloud the issues and keep the debate to airy platitudes about hope and change. In other words for Obama - like all liberals running a national campaign - the key to victory will revolve around how successful Obama is at hiding just what he believes from the American people. It is McCain’s job to force Obama to declare himself.
There is no need to get down and dirty with Obama - we only need describe his record (which is very thin, but which is also extraordinarily liberal - like it makes McGovern seem conservative by comparison) and lay out just what sort of America we’ll have if Obama’s liberalism triumphs: an America of high taxes, high spending, out-of-control government, military weakness, social decline and America subordinate to UN and EU apparatchiks. Obama still might win even if exposed as the ultra-liberal he is - its clear that he has become a political phenomena not often seen, and which is not entirely subject to normal political realities - but the fight is still worth having, and even if we lose we’ll have laid down the marker against which Obama and the Democrats will be judged in 2010 and 2012.
As for me, I look forward to this fight - I love a battle of ideas; the sharp contrast between liberal and consevative is where I love to be debating, all the time and everywhere. And, of course, if Hillary does win the nomination, then such a battle will work even better against her. So, lets have at it with gusto and with confidence that the fact that we are right will make all the might we need.
Tags: Barack Obama, Conservatism, John McCain, liberalism, political ideology
February 19th, 2008
Bill Kristol thinks so:
Here’s the good news–and it’s really quite good. A reasonably conservative presidential candidate, leading a reasonably conservative party, has a good chance to win the general election. With a difficult task ahead of it–holding on to the White House for a third term, and in this case for the sixth out of the last eight–the GOP has lucked into having as its nominee John McCain, one of the most popular politicians in America.
What’s more, conservatism as a set of ideas is in pretty good shape. “Neoconservative” thinking on America’s place in the world has beaten back attempts to revive the crabbed “realism” of some congressional Republicans in the 1990s as a plausible approach for dealing with the world of the 21st century. And there is a resurgence of creative thinking on domestic policy, reminiscent of the neoconservatism of an earlier generation. Younger conservatives are displaying a welcome heterodoxy in their approach to health care, taxes, and family policy issues…
…Conservatives, in short, are adjusting to the times. This is a good thing, and is one of the neglected lessons of Ronald Reagan’s success: Reagan’s 1980 platform differed from Barry Goldwater’s in 1964. Consider further that 2008 is as far removed from 1980, as 1960 was from 1932. Movement liberalism in 1960 yearned for a purer, more orthodox FDR-style liberal than John F. Kennedy. Eleanor Roosevelt was appalled that the old guard had to give way. But it was surely better for liberals and liberalism that JFK called for a New Frontier rather than an extension of the New Deal.
And it may end up better for movement conservatism that we have McCain on top of the party, able to deflect the more absurd charges against conservatism (you know - the liberal shriek that we’re all a bunch of racist, sexist, homophobic theocrat-imperialists), while conservatism - as a political ideology - is able to advance. What we want is judges and bureaucrats who will adhere to the conservative line; what John McCain does on global warming is small beans compared to our ability to overturn anti-constitutional judicial rulings and use our regulatory power to actually de-regulate.
Think carefully, fellow conservatives, about what is at stake in November.
Tags: Conservatism, John McCain
February 12th, 2008
Matthew Continetti notes a fundraising letter he received from Howard Dean:
I just finished reading Howard Dean’s latest fundraising appeal, and it looks like the Democrats will have trouble against John McCain in the fall. Why? Dean’s letter attempts to portray a McCain presidency as a third term for George W. Bush. But it doesn’t hold up. Dean actually writes that McCain “looked the other way as Jack Abramoff bought and paid for the Republican Party and the Culture of Corruption.” Um, I wrote an entire book in which McCain was one of the few Republican heroes in the Abramoff affair. Besides which, whether you agree with the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, and I don’t, you can’t really argue that McCain is trying to make lobbyists’ lives easier. Quite the contrary.
Next comes immigration, an issue on which Dean says McCain has aligned himself “with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party.” Has Dean not been paying attention to American politics for the last two years?
Apparantly not - the letter goes on to moan about McCain on Iraq and abortion. Boiled down, Dean knows that McCain’s reasonable views on the issues is political poison for a Democratic nominee - be it Hillary or Obama - who has had to turn sharply left in order to fight out the Democratic nomination battle. In a year when all the political stars have aligned in favor of the Democrats, the one thing which can - and will - beat them is a GOP candidate who has crossover appeal against Democrats who have been forced to take up extremist, leftwing positions.
As I watched what worked out to be McCain’s acceptance speech at CPAC yesterday, it occured to me that whatever else one might think about McCain, the message he is carrying is one which will appeal to a very broad cross-section of the American electorate. Whatever McCain might lose on the right - and I think it will be relatively small, after all is said and done - he’s going to gain in the center, as well as amongst that minority of Democrats who haven’t gone off the deep end by means of anti-Bush insanity. I’m as close to a single-issue voter in 2008 as I’m ever likely to get, and on my single issue - the war - McCain is hands-down superior to Obama or Hillary…for the rest, I’m willing to politely battle it out with McCain for any steps he takes to the left should be become President. At least if I’m battling McCain I know I’m battling a man of conviction, not a finger-in-the-wind lefty. In my view, we’ve got the man who can win, as long as he can reasonably unite the GOP behind him; and he’s got 6 months to do it, during most of which time the Democrats will be attacking each other, and going ever further left.
All in all, a great day to be a consevative and a Republican in the United States of America.
Tags: Conservatism, John McCain
February 8th, 2008
Well, after a rough start (eg, flight delays, screwed up car rental, accidentally switching my laptop for someone else’s, etc…), we ended up having a great day here at CPAC.
Obviously, the big news is Romney dropping out and McCain de-facto becoming the GOP nominee for President. We’re still in the whirl of events, so I’ll only briefly comment for now:
Romney’s speech was excellent - a clear, concise explanation of what America faces and why it is time for all to unite behind the man who is our chance to keep Obama/Hillary - and their destructive and divisive policies - out of the White House. Romney has shown himself a good patriot, and made himself the most logical pick for McCain’s Vice President.
McCain’s speech was well-received except by a few, scattered Paul supporters. The McCain supporters were, naturally, on fire for their man, while the Romney supporters were in a “we’ve got to win” mood, and thus seemed willing to give McCain his chance. In the substance of McCain’s speech was two main things: a litany of conservative principles he’ll adhere to (low taxes, spending reform, winning the war, etc) as well as a re-affirmation that he does, indeed, have people who disagree with him and with whom he disagrees, but that disagreements should not lead us to shoot ourselves in the foot in November. To these sentiments I offer my heartfelt agreement.
As to the general tenor of the gathered conservatives - optimistic, determined, brimming with ideas and a passion for seeing them put into practice. The only slight hiccup in an otherwise perfect day at CPAC was Matt at the CPAC straw poll - he was stuck for a moment with a hanging chad in his ballot; we consider this, actually, to be a good omen about just how badly the Democrats are going to start ripping themselves to shreds over the nomination (this was also a well-expressed opinion at CPAC - we’re all “go, Obama, go” and “fight, Hillary, fight”; we enthusiastically back a long, drawn out battle for the Democratic nomination.
More later…
Tags: Conservatism, John McCain, Mitt Romney
February 7th, 2008
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