After hearing about Rush's comments on McCain I was thinking that it's only the right wing talkshow hosts who are mad at the prospect of McCain candidacy. But it turns out that I was wrong. The so called conservative "brains" are thinking the same way about McCain. I decided to hold my nose and visit National Review's Corner. Here is what I found:
Michael Graham calls McCain most liberal and least trustworthy:
Assuming there is no shocking revelation or health issue, the GOP nomination is over. Conservatives need to start practicing the phrase "Nominee presumptive John McCa....."
Sorry, I can't say it. Not yet.
Mr. "1/3rd Of The GOP Primary Vote" is going to be the nominee.
..
Florida has launched the one ship that Romney's money and Rush Limbaugh cannot stop: The U.S.S. Inevitable. It's gonna happen. Even if there were a realistic pathway to stop him, the media have seized control of the process now and are declaring him inevitable. He is, after all, the favorite son of the New York Times.So it is over. Finished. In November, we'll be sending out our most liberal, least trustworthy candidate vs. to take on Hillary Clinton—perhaps not more liberal than Barack Obama, but certainly far less trustworthy.
And the worst part for the Right is that McCain will have won the nomination while ignoring, insulting and, as of this weekend, shamelessly lying about conservatives and conservatism.You think he supported amnesty six months ago? You think he was squishy on tax cuts and judicial nominees before? Wait until he has the power to anger every conservative in America, and feel good about it.
Every day, he dreams of a world filled with happy Democrats and insulted Republicans. And he is, thanks to Florida, the presidential nominee of the Republican party.
And on that note, I'm off to climb into a bottle of Bushmill's. It's going to be a LONG nine months.
Mark Steyn calls McCain old and cranky:
If they nominate Obama, then (as Andrew says) it will be a "narrative" election. If the GOP nominates McCain, then it's young, gifted and black vs old, cranky and weathered.
Ramesh Ponnuru compares McCain to Dole and hopes for a different outcome:
It has seemed a bit like the 1996 race. McCain is Dole: the old war hero who has run before, who does not enthuse either economic or social conservatives but has a pretty conservative record. Giuliani is Forbes: the socially liberal, economically conservative New York candidate. Huckabee is Buchanan: the social conservative with rhetoric that scares economic conservatives. Romney is Gramm, the movement-oriented candidate with boatloads of money but difficulty connecting with grassroots conservative voters. (I'm not sure where Thompson fits in this scheme.) Romney has gotten further than Gramm, but much of the story is the same. The social-Right candidate takes out the movement candidate, the economic conservative ends up not playing a huge role, and the nomination goes to the old guy whom much of the Right distrusts.
I hope the story doesn't end the same way.
Mark Steyn calls McCain's win as win for amnesty, universal health care, and big-government solutions to global warming:
Looking ahead to Jan '09
Tonight was a big win for illegal-immigration amnesty, remorseless socialization of health care, and big-government solutions to global warming.
If McCain wins in November, he'll be eager to show he can "work" with a Democratic Congress. If Hill wins, she'll want to make a mark, fast. And, if it's Barack, ditto with bells on. A bipartisan consensus committed to change you can believe in.
Ramesh Ponnuru wants to defeat anyone who supports comprehensive immigration reform:
Well, opponents of "comprehensive immigration reform" have already beaten a president who wanted it. Maybe we can do it again.
and Mark R. Levin is still not ready to face reality:
Steyn is right, of course. And therein lies the problem. Now reality starts to set in.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is not ready for "Life with McCain" and is trying her best to push her man plastic Mitt by quoting what callers to Bill Bennett's show are saying:
"I've been getting a lot heat from listeners for defending McCain, even though I acknowledge the many disagreements I've had with him. I've been getting a constant barrage from my audience. It's getting really heated," Bill Bennett said yesterday.
"I admire the heck out of John McCain and disagree with him on at least half a dozen serious matters," Mr. Bennett said. "He is a war hero, he has been consistently pro-life, he put his campaign in hostage to the success of the surge in Iraq, he's been a consistent hawk on pork-barrel spending, and can win in November."
But the former drug czar and education secretary said the intensity of the anti-McCain calls to his radio program show he does not have the support of his party's conservative base.
"What rankles me the most is his tendency to criticize our side first. Why bash us, why not bash Hillary Clinton? He's got to have some of the fire that Democrats have for Republicans, but we don't see it," he said. "If he is the nominee, he's got to fix things with the base of the party, because you can't have a convention with these kinds of feelings."
Kathryn does not believe McCain on immigration reform:
"Foolishness" Is how Senator McCain just described people worried about his immigration answer on Meet the Press (he said he'd sign McCain-Kennedy), on Bill Bennett's show. He emphasized that he is going to "secure the borders first."
His straight talk is probably going to have to come with details and reconciliation. "Foolishness" I'd drop, my friend.
John Derbyshire is so mad that he wants Ron Paul to be the rethug nominee and describes how Paul is better than McCain:
On To The McCain-Kennedy Ticket
Oh, stop whining. So what if the likely GOP nominee believes in restraints on free speech, higher taxation, bigger government, open borders, and 100-year U.S. armies of occupation everywhere from Albania to Zimbabwe? Romney believes in those things too — at least, he does when he's in a room full of people that want him to.
You already have a genuinely conservative candidate on offer. He's just not slick enough for you. What, he has positions you don't agree with? More than the other guys? Actually, I have heard very little complaining about Paul's positions. What I have mostly heard is (a) He's funny looking, (b) He can't win, and (c) He has a lot of icky supporters.
The answer to (a) is to put aside the New York Times "Style" section for five minutes and think. The answer to (b) is, that if conservatism is going to lose big in 2008 anyway (newsflash: it is), it should at least make a stand, to inspire future generations. The answer to (c) is, get in there and swell the ranks of non-icky Paul supporters — there are plenty of us — to drown out the nutsos.
While you guys are crying into your light-blended crème frappuccinos, I'll be making a campaign donation to help Ron & Carol celebrate their 51st wedding anniversary Friday.
They also quote a Romney supporter reacting to McCain's comments on Bennett's show:
"Foolishness" for conservatives to think that John McCain will do anything but kick us in the teeth on all the same issues that he has always kicked us in the teeth on? He’s consistent like that you know. His relish for attacking Democrats will never match his relish for attacking his own, calling them names, calling them corrupt when they disagree with him, etc. And this is why: 1) he will not be able to unite the base and 2) will not be able to sufficiently go after a Democrat and contrast. (Not to mention his only significant contrast will be on the least popular issue, the war)
Kathryn is scared of awful campaign that is in store for rethugs and is scared of what will happen at the convention:
I'm not going to even start sharing — not this morning, anyway — some of the e-mails I've been getting — non-stop emotion. Folks despairing. Folks angry. And the anger comes from folks who oppose McCain and folks who support him.
So my basic point: This party is in need of some serious uniting (and, no, "foolishness" isn't going to cut it), or this if going to be one awful campaign. And don't even get me started on the Republican convention...
Derbyshire calls the DoubleTalkExpress "John McAmnesty" and wonders about who will show up at the convention:
Plenty of Seats Available
Kathryn: The Republican convention? With John McAmnesty as the nominee? Will anyone show up?
Derbyshire gets answer from his followers as to who will show up at the convention:
Several readers have responded to my rhetorical question
"The Republican convention? With John McAmnesty as the nominee? Will anyone show up?"
...in the same spirit as this one:There'll be no problem packing the hall with illegal immigrants.
The next problem for wingers is whether McCain will attend CPAC. They are sure that McCain will get booed if he attends.
David Freddoso:
If you're McCain, you're considering a trip to CPAC at this point. You need to consolidate your support on the Right — mend some fences.
Only problem — he was booed in absentia last time. The story of his attempt to meet with participants in private, passed along by John Fund, doesn't go over well, either. So do you send your candidate to an event where he's sure to be booed again? It sounds like a losing proposition.
They all are still living in la-la land as to why Mr. 9/11 lost. They think that Rudy lost because he was pro-choice and did not stand on knees in front of social conservatives.
Rich Lowry:
The one blatantly obvious lesson from his candidacy that is going oddly unremarked is: Don't run as a pro-choicer for the Republican presidential nomination.
Stanley Kurtz:
Rich, the argument I make in my piece today, "Original Sin," is that Rudy lost, not because of bad primary strategy, personal scandal, or shifts in the war, but because of his refusal to give social conservatives their due.
Rich Lowry refers to McCain's Inside Straight to winning nomination without winning self-identified republicans:
Has this ever happened before? This is kind of amazing. I'm looking at CNN exit polls at the numbers for self-identified Republicans. McCain lost self-identified Republicans by a point in New Hampshire (oddly, he won registered Republicans); he lost self-identified Republicans by 14 points in Michigan; and he tied among self-identified Republicans in South Carolina and Florida. In other words, McCain is close to the presumptive nominee GOP nominee without having won self-identified Republican voters anywhere. What an extraordinary—and utterly unlikely—path to the nomination. Presumably, with his front-runner status enhanced, McCain will now begin to win self-identified Republicans, but he has pulled the political equivalent of an inside-straight to get here.
Ponnuru is worried how clueless McCain is about economy and calls him Bush ver 2.0:
If he's the nominee, I actually don't think repairing relations with conservatives is going to be his biggest problem. His biggest problem is going to be the one that Romney has identified over the last few weeks—he doesn't seem to care about economics enough to have developed and internalized a compelling message on it, and he isn't a particularly credible messenger either. He may have a weakness on domestic policy as a whole. He has played a big role on some issues, but typically his interventions have not required a great deal of study. I'm not sure he can pull that off all year.
Most observers, including me, have been stressing the ways in which McCain differs from Bush. But in some respects McCain is more like Bush than Romney is like either man. Neither McCain nor Bush gets into the weeds of policy. Both can be stubborn. Personal loyalty plays a very big role in their decisions. We'll see if it works out better this time.
more turmoil from Ponnuru:
John Hood writes, "The larger significance? I’d say we are seeing the return of the Republican party of Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford. The Republican party of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich will sit on the sidelines for a bit, perhaps to rest up for the next game."
What do you mean? Are we going to get wage-and-price controls, another Justice Blackmun, and a few new Cabinet agencies? Or something less alarming?
And here is what Investor’s Business Daily, a conservative economic publication, is asking this week, "Can McCain Control His Temper?"
John McCain claims his temper is not an issue. "I don’t think I would have the support of so many of my colleagues if that were the case." Who are these supportive colleagues?
They certainly do not include Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. Over the weekend, he announced he cannot endorse his colleague for the White House and is endorsing Gov. Mitt Romney instead.
"The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine," Cochran said. "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."
Perhaps Cochran can’t appreciate the maverick in McCain. But the same can’t be said of Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a noted reformer and friend of whistle-blowers. Grassley said in a recent interview that he was so upset by a McCain tirade that he didn’t speak to him "for a couple of years." McCain got in his face and shouted an obscenity at him. [...]
It seems McCain goes ballistic on anyone who disagrees with him. And he’s not just verbally abusive, but physically threatening.
and how does McCain's refer to his senate colleague when he does not agree with him? McCain calls him "a f*cking jerk". As reported in the New York Post reported last year:
an argument between Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and John McCain became very heated over the immigration deal, and McCain proceeded to curse out Cornyn, yelling "Fuck you!" and calling Cornyn's objections to the legislation "chickenshit stuff," a cover for Cornyn's unalterable opposition to the bill. Cornyn shot back, noting McCain's chronic absenteeism from the Senate, telling McCain he wasn't allowed to "just parachute in at the last minute and begin making all these demands."
Oddly enough, these outbursts are not terribly uncommon for McCain. Several years ago, Jake Tapper reported on an incident in which McCain got into a shouting match with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). Eventually, a seething McCain told his GOP colleague,"You know, senator, I thought your problem was that you don't listen. But that's not it at all. Your problem is that you're a f**king jerk."
More recently, former Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on Republican policy committees, said, "I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues. He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that."
So, republicans really really don't like the DoubleTalkExpress called McCain.
America also does not want a very old, angry, stubborn, abusive politician who wants to continue Iraq war for 100 more years and start new wars in middle east to be in the White House. Americans are looking for a real change that only a Democrat can bring!
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