Conservatives seem to hate John McCain for teaming up with Teddy Kennedy to write an immigration reform bill even though they don’t seem to mind that President Bush teamed up with Teddy Kennedy to write the No Child Left Behind bill, or the fact that Bush supported the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill. This is only one of several reasons why I can’t profess to really understand the conservative mind.
Why is it basically okay when Bush does it, but a mortal sin when McCain does it?
McCain’s nomination may not prevent a serious landslide victory by the Democrats in November, but it will prevent a Pete Wilson effect, where Hispanics identify the GOP as a mortal enemy for a generation of more.
In any case, this is what worries me:
“The thought of [McCain] being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), also a senior member of the Appropriations panel, told the Boston Globe recently. “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
Sounds perfect for a the job of leader of the free world with his fingertips on Armageddon.
Simple answer re the conservative mind.
Group think. Conservatives do not have long policy debates; they decide quickly which side they’re on and they all line up accordingly. In 2000 the herd decided to get behind Bush. Right now, the herd is outdoing themselves in proving they’re more “conservative” than John McCain, by gum, even if the policy differences are more ephemeral than actual. Whatever, the conservatives are darn tootin’ conservative and they’re ready to fight.
Which frankly is a lot more effective than Democratic politics.
And I guess I should acknowledge that the herd will soon get behind McCain after they have had their chance to dance around shooting their six shooters in the air and showing us how rootin’ tootin’ conservative they are.
Which is why it has been said that the Busheney Presidency has been both the worst in history as well as the most effective.
Actually, I call BULLSHIT on the lot of this. I believe that this is a game being played by the masters of games that is designed to prove to the “Independents” that McCain is still one of them – not a “party-line Republican”.
This whole thing is a Karl Rove masterstroke in the mold of GW Bush – compasionate conservative.
Yeah, you’re right, the conservative tizzy fit about McCain actually helps McCain look like a maverick. Truth is McCain is not very independent–just on a couple of narrow issues. And he always gives in to the GOP herd in the end. But Republicans are so used to everyone toeing the line that if one disagrees at all with the GOP herd you are an independent.
Jeb Bush endorses McCain
“Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, on Monday became the first prominent member of the Bush family to endorse John McCain for president, as the Arizona senator sought to shake off resistance from Mike Huckabee to seal the Republican party’s presidential nomination.”
Hmmmmm! a likely Veep? Nah.
The only way to sink McInsane’s campaign faster would be for him to seek Jeb as VP. Shit, the only people who’d vote for that ticket would have the last name of Bush.
I guess they’d have the baked bean vote locked in.
And singers named Kate. If shew was a citizen.
Even scarier would be Huckabee in the VP slot – especially given McCain’s age. Anyone who wants to change our Constitution to “follow God’s Laws” doesn’t understand the separation of Church & State.
I look forward to a McCain presidency because it guarantees at least another four years of BostonJoe’s “Dear Batshit Loopy Prez” diaries.
Of course, they’ll be written on clay tablets in the glowing nuclear wasteland of Planet McCain, but what the hell. I bet they’ll be even funnier then.
Isn’t most of the recent hate due to the fact McCain thought there should be limits on what could be done to the scary terrorists? Once he failed to follow the line on that “critical” (to the haters) issue, he was no longer part of the tribe.
He’s never been the most popular Republican, but that is the downside to the maverick narrative he’s allowed the media to perpetuate.
Hotheaded? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
He’s a hotheaded warmonger who fully embraces the failed policies of the current administration.
These two pictures alone should be enough to sentence McCain to poll results comparable to the Decider’s approval ratings.
I hate the second picture. I have no love for Senator McCain, but the way his children were treated by the Bush camp in South Carolina, in 2000, was reprehensible. The whole “McCain” has a black child whisper campaign was beyond the pale. Playing off perceived Southern racism because McCain has adopted children who have darker skin. When I saw McCain embrace Bush, I literally felt sick.
That’s the way I feel when I see that picture. Sick at the fact that McCain would do anything to be president, include hugging that piece of shit who did what he did to McCain and family in SC in 2000. And everyone knows it. Way to show your family values, McCain.
Gah. But of course, racism seems to be part of the GOP platform.
BooMan, like Dr.Strangelove’s other title, you’ll learn to love the bomb.
Why does Bush escape some of the criticism that McCain gets for the same exact policies? It’s all about the authoritarian mind and the chain of command. Authoritarian followers see the President as their CO, atop their personal chain of Command (somewhere near Jesus). McCain may be in the chain, but some distant lieutenant, not a direct report, and therefor fit for criticism.
That’s right. Authority necessitates hierarchy.
The Republicans have chosen to scapegoat an entire segment of our population (Hispanics/immigrants) for their failed economic policies, ignoring the tax inequities, the off shore exodus, the war.
What? Ya mean the Hispanics didn’t throw two trillion down the toilet or write the tax laws that give benefit to the companies that outsource? That’s too complex for the average Republican voter.
But McCain is not mentally well.