A first(?) thread on 2008: McCain,Giuliani & the Republicans

So as a suggestion, you think it has merit? Despite the figures which show how many undocumented immigrants pay taxes so gutting welfare would not solve the problem of undocumented immigrants?

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Take your question to the other thread, Revel, and I'll take a shot at answering it from my point of view.

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McCain can defeat all Democratic opponents.

Guillian can defeat all Democratic opponents.

If....the majority of conservatives abide by them.

Both will garner not only the moderate but also a certain degree of the lefty vote (Just witness the commentary on A2K).

Obviously the problem for Repubs and Dems alike is getting through the Primary process in which the zealots of each party exercise great influence.

McCain is much more conservative than Rudy. Rudy probably doesn't have a chance in the Repub primaries. McCain does.

I hope, very much, that McCain will win the Republican nomination. I think he can and will, and that he will beat the hell out of Sen. Clinton.

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I bet Senator Clinton don't even run, but your right she would probably lose to McCain. Your also right on your other points.

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revel wrote:

I bet Senator Clinton don't even run, but your right she would probably lose to McCain. Your also right on your other points.

I'll take the bet, Revel. I think Hillary wants this very badly and so far the Democrats have so far put up no viable candidate that comes anywhere close to her popularity in the Democratic Party. If she does well in the early primaries, she'll run. And she'll be a formidable candidate. I am not convinced at all that either McCain or Guliani can beat her in a head to head race.

IMO, if the GOP was unified and agreed on what issues are most important, then it would be different. But the GOP is a divided party with a non-conservative wing that is thoroughly disgusting the true Reagan conservatives in the party. While generally liked and even admired, neither Guiliani or McCain are identified as Reagan conservatives.

Unless the GOP can turn it around and refocus on their base, I think there could likely be a voter boycott on election day and that could net a win for the Democrats. The unknown factor is whether Hillary can make herself less scary between now and then, though. If enough voters think ANYBODY is safer than she is, the GOP could still pull out a win.

The one person I'm watching is Dick Morris though. Despite his quirky demeanor and personal baggage, I think he has the best political instincts of anybody in Washington. And he is quite convinced at the moment that no Republican the GOP is currently offering can beat Hillary. He says the one person who can is Condoleeza Rice.

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They were predicting Hillary would run in 04' right up to the last too. But we will see, my money is on that she won't. (figuratively, don't believe in gambling)

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revel wrote:

They were predicting Hillary would run in 04' right up to the last too. But we will see, my money is on that she won't. (figuratively, don't believe in gambling)

She didn't run in 2004 I think because she needed to finish one term as Senator to keep from ticking off New Yorkers and she knew was at a disadvantage against a reasonably popular GOP incumbant. She doesn't have that problem this time, and Kerry helped her out hugely by losing the last election. I'm not much of a gambler, but I'll take the bet. Smile

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It's not worth going on about, foxfyre, we will just have to wait and see.

Personally I haven't see anybody from any political party to get particulary excited about one way or another, but it's still early.

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revel wrote:

I bet Senator Clinton don't even run, but your right she would probably lose to McCain. Your also right on your other points.

I too will take that bet, at any odds you might wish to give. It is a sure winner.

She will run (notwithstanding some unexpected revelation that she has been selling female children to lesbian slavers in Eastern Europe). The Rodham-Clintonian ambition is legendary.

She may or may not win the Dem nomination. Right now I would say she is a lock, but we all know that a lot can happen in a couple of years.

If she does win the nomination, she will be crushed by whatever Republican nominee enters the fray.

Hell, Jimmy Carter was president and so anything is possible, but Hilary will not sneak up on anyone.

She isn't making inroads on the Middle, and she is losing support from the Left for her efforts as respects the former.

There is a fair chance that the Dems will win the Senate and possibly the House, but they will not win the White House.

For some time I will be despondent if I am proven wrong in 2008, but I will take considerable solace from the fact that if a Dem should become president, I will have the pleasure of witnessing Liberals do an about face on their most strident and cherished positions.

Won't it be fun to see ebrown, edgarblythe, dyslexia, setanta, drewdad, cyclo, anon, joe nation, et al spin like tops to explain how a Dem controlled government are doing God's (or the collective secular) will.

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Finn writes

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Won't it be fun to see ebrown, edgarblythe, dyslexia, setanta, drewdad, cyclo, anon, joe nation, et al spin like tops to explain how a Dem controlled government are doing God's (or the collective secular) will.

One or two of these actually do see inconsistencies in stances people take on various things. Many good liberals, however, I think do not see or acknowledge even dramatic shifts in position by their political leaders or, if they do, find some way to rationalize them. Some are able to just block them out of any equation that is the talking point of the day.

I hope you're right about the GOP presidential prospects. Personally, I think the GOP has to get its act together a whole lot better to beat anybody at any level right now, but there are a few glimmers of hope that at least some are returning to sanity. The basics of GOP principles remain the most beneficial, constructive, and compassionate overall and, when properly marketed, are appealing to most Americans I think. We little people are pushing them hard to get back to them. But let's face it, even if they do, you don't often see Republicans and good salesmanship in the same sentence.

The most fun thing if the Dems do recapture the House or Senate would be watching them do a 100% reversal on the importance of a balanced budget and squirming when they are the ones who have to make the tough decisions re Iraq, Iran, etc. Being in the crtic's seat is always easiest and most comfortable.

And we might finally see President Bush veto a bill. That would be different.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Many good liberals, however, I think do not see or acknowledge even dramatic shifts in position by their political leaders or, if they do, find some way to rationalize them.

If you mean "the left" with liberals here, like it seems to be done mostly, than you as uncorrect as uncorrectness can be - at least, for socialdemocratic, socialist and Labour parties (centrist, conservative and liberal parties generally disput their differences and different views at first inside the party body): they are proverbially known to dispute the smallest shift of their leader(ship) ... in public and in the media.

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Perhaps in Germany Walter, but not in the United States. They pick up on ANYTHING they can criticize, especially any shift in position, in a leader they do not consider their own, but seem to be pretty myopic when it comes to their own. There are, of course, exceptions to all trends.

The 'far left' is considered the ultra liberal wing of American politics. This is a thread re the impending American election(s) so I didn't think I needed to specify that my comments were about American politics.

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Not only in Germany - I really meant generally.

(And actually, I've counted the Democrats as what they would appear in the political spectrum outsite the USA: centrists.)

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Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Won't it be fun to see ebrown, edgarblythe, dyslexia, setanta, drewdad, cyclo, anon, joe nation, et al spin like tops to explain how a Dem controlled government are doing God's (or the collective secular) will.

Thats a f*cking joke. Liberals and lefties of all stripes just love to bash their own party, especially if its in government. It's a tradition.

Even now, with the perfect enemy image in the White House that you'd expect to mobilise any opposition into closing ranks, almost none of the people you mention actually has much positive to say about the Democratic Party and its hotshots. Thats as much the nature of the beast - lefties being (in)famously critical and anal about all the "right" political positions - as it is to do with the poor quality of the current Democratic leadership. Hillary is famously loathed by Ebrown and opposed for the post of presidency by a bunch of liberals here (Sozobe being particularly articulate about it).

I'd take a bet at any odds that if a Dem is elected President in '08, within months, lefties here will start sniping (probably justifiably) about how (s)he's "selling out" and not achieving anything better than "four more years / of things not getting worse". Thats how leftie country singer Steve Earle put it in the mid-90s, in the Bill Clinton era. Bill was hardly much loved by leftists either, with his welfare reform; it's only in the light of what came after that he has started looking ever better. Things wont be any different now.

For further reference on how liberals will just not "rally behind the flag" at the behest of their party's leader, see Johnson, Lyndon B. (I mean, Dys? Set? Loyal defenders of a party line? Are you quite mad?)

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Foxfyre wrote:

The 'far left' is considered the ultra liberal wing of American politics.

I've no idea when and where any of the "ultra liberal wing of American politics" ever made it up to reported in the news - at least, I could find anything about anyone remarkable "ultra liberal" online.

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Has McCain just always been a conservative? TNR's Jonathan Chait disagrees:

Quote:

John McCain and his fiercest enemies all publicly agree: He is and always has been a right-wing conservative. McCain recently insisted: "I think my voting record clearly indicates that on economic issues, national security issues, social issues--I'm pro-life--so I think I could make an argument I've had a pretty clear 20-some-year record basically being conservative." New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, voicing a common liberal sentiment, wrote that McCain "isn't a moderate ... when the Bush administration's ability to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line."

Indeed, those of us who saw McCain as lurching to the ideological left a few years ago are now being portrayed as delusional romantics at best--and partisan schemers at worst. [..] There's hardly anyone left to defend the proposition that McCain had ever been anything but a conservative. [..]

Fortunately, we live in a free country, where one can access the written record through databases of old newspaper and magazine articles. Apparently I'm the only journalist who bothers to use them, so let me remind everybody of a few pertinent facts.

In the first two years of George W. Bush's presidency, McCain became, in the words of one prominent Democrat, "the leader of the loyal opposition." McCain voted against both of Bush's major tax cuts.

In addition to shepherding campaign finance reform through Congress--against the administration's efforts to kill it quietly--he co-sponsored a patients' bill of rights with John Edwards and Ted Kennedy; co-sponsored with Charles Schumer a measure to allow the importation of generic prescription drugs; co-sponsored with John Kerry legislation to raise auto emissions standards; and co-sponsored legislation with Joe Lieberman to close the "gun-show loophole" and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in compliance with the Kyoto accords. On all these things he sided with Democrats against the White House and virtually every Republican.

One McCain advisor told me: "Ideologically, we all changed." McCain began casting his views in the style of noted progressive Theodore Roosevelt. "We have had regulatory agencies always to curb the abuses or potential abuses of the capitalist system," McCain explained at one point. "This is not a totally laissez-faire country."

McCain also showed signs of abandoning his social conservative views. He came out in favor of government-financed stem cell research. During the 2000 presidential campaign, he declared "certainly in the short term or even in the long term, I would not support the repeal of Roe v. Wade." He said that if his daughter wanted an abortion, he would leave the decision up to her. (He did retreat from both these comments after conservatives recoiled in horror, but his real thinking on the subject seemed perfectly clear.) [..]

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I wrote

Quote:

The 'far left' is considered the ultra liberal wing of American politics.

Walter wrote

Quote:

I've no idea when and where any of the "ultra liberal wing of American politics" ever made it up to reported in the news - at least, I could find anything about anyone remarkable "ultra liberal" online.

That's because most of the media is pretty liberal. You'll see people refered to as ultra conservative but rarely ultra liberal in the media. Would you say that if it isn't a term commonly used by the media, it isn't a valid observation?

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Remember the Democratic Party gave Michael Moore a pretty warm reception at the last convention. Michael Moore is not exactly the poster child of anything even closely resembling a moderate. I use that as just one example of Democrats cozying up to "very ultra liberal" or left wing factions. When the party is being influenced greatly by the ACLU and MoveOn.org, most reasonable people out here in fly over country of America consider it pretty extreme. I think the Clintons, Kerry, and Gore are extremists that have benefited from the press portraying them as much more moderate than they really are. Many traditionally grounded Democrats are simply unaware of how far left the Democratic Party has gone, so they continue to vote Democrat because their parents voted Democrat. A significant percentage of the people are simply not very well informed about many things, beyond just a few superficial bits of information surrounding the issues.

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Re the article on McCain that Nimh posted--why isn't the quote mechanism working these days or is anybody else having trouble getting it to work?--

. . .it is the perception of McCain veering left then right then left again then right that has eyebrows raised among many conservatives who are looking for strength of conviction in their candidate. While changing one's mind with explanation of same can be commendable, a wishy washy style for political expediency doesn't play well with many. McCain may or may not deserve that rap, but it is there nonetheless.

It is strength of conviction that has kept George Bush's approval ratings respectable among his base, though many if not most of us are deeply disappointed that he got it right on the revenue side fiscally, but then turned out to be such a liberal in pork barrel largesse and social spending. He was that way all along of course--it wasn't false advertising--but we just didn't want to see it.

McCain is admired by many on the conservative side for various reasons and is the darling of liberals who aren't unextricably (is that a word?)tied to the Democrat Party. His coziness with Ted Kennedy and his chameleon side will likely hurt him in the GOP primaries however. It's a question of whether Reagan conservatives will vote for him as the lesser of two evils if he did prevail in the primaries. If the Democrats actually nominate a palatable candidate, they very well may not.

I am still watching George Allen, VA. If he is for real, he is a true Reagan conservative that could be turned into a champion by those hungry for that quality.

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okie wrote:

I think the Clintons, Kerry, and Gore are extremists that have benefited from the press portraying them as much more moderate than they really are. Many traditionally grounded Democrats are simply unaware of how far left the Democratic Party has gone.

Can you mention any specific policy, proposal or point of view of Bill Clinton's or John Kerry's that you would consider "extremist"?

Asking, cause I'm surprised - the Kerry election platform was to any standard, as far as I know, clearly to the right of what, say, Mondale campaigned on in '84. So I'm curious what, specifically, you are talking about when you say that the Democrats have gone "far left" in the days of Clinton, Gore and Kerry.

I mean, we are talking about Bill "welfare reform" Clinton, right, Bill "who balanced the budget" Clinton?

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A first(?) thread on 2008: McCain,Giuliani & the Republicans

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