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University A Conservative Harvest: January 2008

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

A Boston Tea Party ...(It Is What It Is)

Oh! The horror! John McCain has won the Florida Primary and is now the leading candidate to win the Republican nomination for President. The result of last night has sent conservatives into a panic. Phone calls on local and national talk shows were filled with conservatives who said they would not vote if McCain were the nominee. Some callers even suggested there was no difference between him and Hillary Clinton.

First, let me say I am not supporting John McCain in the primaries. I was hopeful that Fred Thompson would make a much larger impact than he ended up doing. With Fred no longer in the race I had turned my attention to Mitt Romney and was hoping Romney could derail McCain in Florida. Because North Dakota is part of the February 5th Super Tuesday group of primaries, I realized very early on that the candidate I favored might not even make it to the day I cast my vote. I was even willing to accept voting for Giuliani had neither Romney nor Thompson have made it to North Dakota. Notice there is no mention of support for John McCain.

I did however support McCain in 2000. I liked the spending hawk that he was. While he is still a spending hawk, he has failed me on immigration and the gang of 14. I have never been more upset at a politician than I was during those two instances. I unlike some did not have a problem with McCain taking on Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on the execution of the Iraq war. It was obvious to many of us that this administration was not doing everything it could to win the war. This said, I continue to hope somehow, someway Mitt Romney can pull this race out or get to an open convention. But come on, comparing John McCain to Hillary!

There is a huge list of people I respect who have endorsed McCain. My favorite conservative Tom Coburn is supporting him. Others ranging from Sam Brownback to Jack Kemp to Phil Gramm and today Rudy Giuliani have also thrown there support to the Senator from Arizona. There has to be a reason why this is happening and I believe the reason is they feel he has the best chance to defeat whomever is the Democratic nominee.

If we political aficionados have learned anything from the last eight years it is even our side of the political fence will always do what they feel is best to stay in power or regain power. The Republican Congress operated in that manner. Tom Delay and the rest of them turned earmarks into an art form to help win elections. President Bush and Karl Rove thought the immigration compromise would help win over more Hispanics to the Republican side and the prescription drug plan would help obtain more senior citizen votes. I hated all of it and spoke out about this governing to win regardless of whether it was conservative or not. If we honestly look at how the Republicans have governed after the Reagan years, we should not be surprised McCain is now the leader. He is seen as the best hope for victory and the Republican Party has very few true conservatives.

There was a time when some thought Arnold was a conservative. Wrong! In 2000 we were told George Bush was a compassionate conservative. Compassionate, perhaps. Conservative, no. In today’s political landscape there are very few conservative to the core types. Our best hope is that somehow they are forced to govern in a conservative way as was done during the immigration debate or we begin to replace these “jello types” (thanks Rush) by running new people against them in state primaries. If not we are forced to support whomever is the Republican candidate. Ronald Reagan spoke of an 11th commandment “thou shall not speak ill of any Republican”. We can disagree with McCain on many issues but to compare him to Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, or Barack Obama is pure folly. It is what it is people, time to act like a grownup. I had to do the same in 2000 and will again in 2008.