Tag: McCain

If McCain Were President

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photo credit: Wigwam Jones

After another year of domestic turmoil and political shenanigans, a year of watching President Obama in office rather than out on the campaign trail, I find myself frequently having the thought “if only McCain had been elected President instead.”

The thought came again today but unlike previous times I feel like sharing what would likely have happened in a McCain administration to this point.

If McCain had been president he would not have received the Nobel Peace Prize and Justice Souter would not have retired so he would not likely have named any justices to the Supreme Court by this point in his presidency. As far as issues that he would have dealt with that Obama has been dealing with I would like to address health care legislation, auto bailouts, stimulus, and Iran.

Tags 2008, Elevated, McCain, Obama, president

life National

Write In “No Confidence”

Somewhere in the news yesterday I heard that voters are beginning to like Sarah Palin less as they get to know more about her. I thought that was interesting since I heard basically the same thing said about Barack Obama back in June or July. My own experience is that I am liking both Obama and McCain less and less the more I hear or see from them. On the other hand, if I had the option to mix-and-match from the two tickets I would be most supportive of (read "least opposed to") a Biden-Palin ticket (not quote sure who I’d put at the top).

Perhaps Hillary Clinton was onto something since she had maxed out her negatives before she even started campaigning. I had long ago concluded that I was not voting for one of the major tickets this year, but this morning I decided that unless I am able to get behind one of the third party tickets (which I have not been able to do so far) I will be writing in "No Confidence" on November 4th.

Tags 2008, elections, McCain, Obama, parties

National

McCain’s Words

As I said about Obama last week, I will measure a McCain presidency against his own words. Rather than trying to analyze what McCain said last night I will simply quote those portions which I would hope he is held accountable for while adding only those clarifications of how I interpret those words.

. . . after we’ve won, we’re going to reach out our hand to any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again, and get this country back on the road to prosperity and peace.

This had better not be the Rovian definition of "patriot" (anyone who agrees with us). And there had better be as much emphasis on "peace" as there is on "prosperity."

I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you.

I hope McCain understands what that means. Americans must take the responsibilities of liberty along with the rights. I may work for my children, but that does not mean that I spoon feed my five-year-old.

I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people . . . when we valued our power over our principles.

We’re going to change that. We’re going to recover the people’s trust by standing up again for the values Americans admire.

We believe in low taxes; spending discipline, and open markets. We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers and letting people keep the fruits of their labor.

We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don’t legislate from the bench. We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities.

I hope for an emphasis on "spending discipline" and I hope that open markets is broadly interpreted so that it includes more than financial markets. I hope that there is an emphasis on personal responsibility and I hope they recognize that "the values of families, neighborhoods and communities" are going to vary between families, neighborhoods and communities. The values of San Francisco should not shape, or be shaped by, the values of Tipton, MO (for example).

We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice, remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work.

When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have that choice and their children will have that opportunity.

Any education reform that runs through the NEA is guaranteed to fail as far as I can see. The monopoly must be broken. I like the line about helping poor teachers find another line of work.

I will draw on all my experience with the world and its leaders, and all the tools at our disposal – diplomatic, economic, military and the power of our ideals – to build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace.

We need to change the way government does almost everything: from the way we protect our security to the way we compete in the world economy; from the way we respond to disasters to the way we fuel our transportation network; from the way we train our workers to the way we educate our children. All these functions of government were designed before the rise of the global economy, the information technology revolution and the end of the Cold War.

One of my biggest beefs with McCain is that he honestly believes that these things shouldbe functions of government. Many of them should not be functions of government (fueling transportation, training workers).

I will ask Democrats and Independents to serve with me. And my administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability.

I’d love to see that, but I won’t be holding my breath.

Tags 2008, government, McCain, parties, Salt Lake Tribune

National

The VP Picks

Now that both running mates have been announced I can share my reactions. In both cases I think that the candidate made a good pick for their individual positions. I have previously written positively about both of the running mates. I said that Sarah Palin, with a record of standing up to politics as usual, was the kind of candidate I would like to back (even though she was not among the presidential candidates). I said that Joe Biden had proposals that showed pragmatism and promise of rational thought.

Biden offers an image of experience for Obama. Palin offers an image of youth and augments the faded image of independent thinking that McCain once had. Some people complain that Palin is too inexperienced to be in line to succeed an aging president – that line of reasoning backfires on the Democrats since Biden is not at the top of their ticket.

The fact is that Obama and Biden appear to be well suited to each other and to complement each other in their individual strengths. Likewise, McCain and Palin appear to be well suited to each other and to fill the gaps in their respective resumes. Truthfully, by June of next year both the President and the Vice President (whoever they are) will have more experience in foreign policy than any of the candidates do now.

I agree with what some analysts have said – that the VP selection is more important in this election than in most – but even so I don’t vote for the vice president unless I can support the president.

Tags elections, McCain, Obama

culture National

Patriotic Rivals

I really enjoyed Lyall pointing out the Op-Ed articles on patriotism from McCain and Obama yesterday. I think he was quite right to point out a major flaw in McCain’s statement that patriotism should come “before anything” but I don’t agree that without that flaw the editorial would have been perfect.

I really liked McCain’s reference to the patriotic rivalry of Adams and Jefferson. Though the stature of the rivals is not nearly so great, I consider the contest between McCain and Obama, like most presidential rivals, to be a contest between real patriots. These men almost universally have a great love for their country depite any individual flaws. McCain asks a very good question about our current American spirit of patriotism:

Would they (Adams and Jefferson) find that love of country was just as strong in the hearts of today’s Americans?

Unlike McCain I do not believe they would find our current love of country to be as strong among the nation as a whole. We certainly have patriots today – probably numerically more than in the 18th century – but overall and as a percentage of the population I think that they would find our patriotism to be comparatively lacking. The evidence is in the smallness of most of our individual thinking and in the bitter emptiness of most of our political dialog.

At one time I believed that Obama had the potential to be another Adams or Jefferson, but despite his gift for rhetoric he has been showing himself to be a modern politician, speaking of principles but standing on political expediency. Once again Obama demonstrates his ability to articulate truths which are hard to describe and even harder to implement:

. . . each generation must understand that the blessings of freedom require our constant vigilance, and that true patriotism also means a willingness to sacrifice . . . the liberty we defend {is} the liberty of each of us to follow our dreams. . . . the equality we seek {is} not an equality of results but the chance of every single one of us to make it if we try. (emphasis added)

Obama’s editorial was closer to perfect than McCains, but his actions are no closer to perfectly implementing those high ideals than McCain’s are.

Tags Adams, Jefferson, McCain, Obama, patriotism

National

Signs of Change

I was excited by the news that Obama Declares DNC Won’t Take PAC Money. I think that Lyall shares a good point from a letter to the WSJ editor that the way to really rein in lobbyists is to rein in government. (I wish Lyall provided a link.) If Obama can understand that truth then I have hope that he can effect such a change of culture in Washington if he becomes president. For that matter, if he does not become president he still might be able to make a positive change from the Senate since he has shown his obvious commitment to do things differently and he has some influence that might be used to convince others to follow his lead.

I hope that Democratic lawmakers will follow the lead of the DNC (it may be too much to hope, but while we’re at it the Republicans should do the same thing). Maybe Obama could accept McCain’s offer to do townhall style discussions around the country on the condition that McCain put the GOP on the path of refusing PAC money.

Tags lobbying, McCain, money, Obama

National

Primary Season is Finally Over

Post author By David
Post date June 4, 2008
4 Comments on Primary Season is Finally Over

With the official end of the primary season I can finally end my self-imposed ban on posting about the primaries. Of course Maureen Dowd has already said everything that needs to be said about the current situation. So there are three options for my vote in November (in order of my preference):

Obama keeps his promise to work out a deal with the republican nominee to stick with public financing for the general election and I vote for Obama.
Obama breaks his promise on public financing but does not put Clinton on the ticket and I am free to vote for someone else.
Obama takes Clinton on as his running-mate (which would almost certainly include opting out of public financing) and I vote for McCain (even McCain would have a better chance at uniting the country that Obama with Clinton on the ticket).

I did not start out in the Anyone But Clinton (ABC) camp but these last two months of the primary campaign have convinced me that ABC is the best course for this country.

I admit that it’s very easy for me to announce how I would vote my conscience far in advance because no matter what I do my vote in the Electoral College is 5 votes for McCain – like it or not.

Tags Clinton, McCain, national candidates, Obama, primaries

General

Round Peg, Square Hole

I could never have been called an enthusiastic supporter of John McCain, but the more I read about him the less I would like to see him as president. Everything about his life and his time in office shows him to be the embodiment of a Washington insider who feels that he is above being questioned by the unwashed masses. The funny thing about this is that I was planning to write about what I had come to believe today. Before I got to it however, I got an email with a link to an article by Mark Levin which expressed my thoughts on McCain much better.

Let’s get the largely unspoken part of this out the way first. McCain is an intemperate, stubborn individual, much like Hillary Clinton. These are not good qualities to have in a president. . . To the best of my knowledge, Romney’s ads have not been personal. He has not even mentioned the Keating-Five to counter McCain’s cheap shots. But the same cannot be said of McCain’s comments about Romney. Last night McCain, who is the putative frontrunner, resorted to a barrage of personal assaults on Romney that reflect more on the man making them than the target of the attacks.

Not only that, but Levin also reminded me of what is so dangerous about voting for the “most electable” candidate this early in the race. It goes much deeper than the fact that polls this far in advance are virtually worthless.

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 . . . Are we to overlook this record when selecting a Republican nominee to carry our message in the general election?

Political parties are (or should be) about a platform even more than about winning. Winning is a way to enact the platform, but to abandon the platform for the sake of winning is a sure sign of a party without character. The candidate must be more than a vocal advocate of the platform – they must also represent the platform. This is where McCain is a total loss for the conservative platform of the Republican party. Aside from the undeniable military background – this man does not match the message he would be expected to promote. Even where he agrees with the Republican party it is from the perspective of him being right, not from the perspective that the principles are correct.

Tags McCain, national candidates, parties

National

Primary Season

The New York Times has a prime example of voters approaching elections the wrong way:

Senator John McCain has long aroused almost unanimous opposition from the leaders of the right. Accusing him of crimes against conservative orthodoxy like voting against a big tax cut and opposing a federal ban on same-sex marriage, conservative activists have agitated for months to thwart his Republican presidential primary campaign.

That, however, was before he emerged this week as the party’s front-runner.

Since his victory in the Florida primary, the growing possibility that Mr. McCain may carry the Republican banner in November is causing anguish to the right. Some, including James C. Dobson and Rush Limbaugh, say it is far too late for forgiveness.

But others, faced with the prospect of either a Democrat sitting in the White House or a Republican elected without them, are beginning to look at Mr. McCain’s record in a new light.

Once the parties have chosen their nominees (meaning not yet) it is important for voters who lean toward one party or another to look at the candidate for their chosen party and decided if that candidate represents them enough to earn their vote. The problem in the above example is that this should not be happening before the nominee is chosen. During the primary elections is the nest time to go vote your conscience. That is the time to speak up and cast your vote for someone you can support. If the eventual nominee was not someone you could support in the primaries then it is time to take another look and decide if they might be “good enough.”

Settling for good enough too early is what leads to elections where 60% of voters feel like they are choosing the lesser of two evils when they go to the ballot box.

I don’t have to hate John McCain (and I don’t) to oppose him in the primary election. He does not represent me close enough to earn my primary vote. That does not mean that I could not vote for him in November if he is the nominee (that depends on who his opponent is) but my vote is wasted if I give up now. If I vote for the front runner in the primary contest when only 10% of the delegates have been awarded merely because they are the front runner then I am guilty of letting other people choose how I will vote. If I am not going to choose how I vote then I have no business participating in the political process.

Tags 2008, McCain, primaries