For the past three decades the conservatives in this nation have been taking their party and assembling a conservative movement against political correctness, for conservative values in our schools (as defined as a focus on math, science, linguist skills, etc), a restoration of our culture and now, after being betrayed by one of the more liberal Republican presidents in recent history, we are actually going to look to another President Bush as the savior of the party?
In many states it is now good politics to call yourself a conservative, even if you truely resemble the platform of the liberals. I call these people pretenders, however, they are currently called Compassionate Conservatives, a phrase that was coined by President Bush 43, I believe. How does he manage to get away with this blatant misslabelling of himself? Popularity and charisma. In reality, John McCain is far to the left of John Kerry and Barrack Obama. Though, when compared to Mrs. Clinton, he does appear conservative.
Yes, Mr. McCain is a Vietnam veteran. We appreciate that. However, so is John Kerry. Service to your nation fades in glory when you attempt to wear it as a shield to deflect yourself from warranted attacks on your record! But, as long as he can play the POW/Veteran card, he will attempt to use it to downplay his other short comings.
And, once one gets past McCain’s bluster and pomp, his true liberal character crops up. Outside marrital matters, McCain has sided with the American Left on almost every key issue. The most ridiculous thing is that McCain is packaging himself as the heir apparent to the Reagan mantle when that is almost as disingenuous as when President Clinton told us that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monika Lewinski.”
First, in regards to religion (a touchy subject for our party, evidenced that Huckabee and Romney split the vote, if Huckabee was Protestant, I think he would have taken it all, if Huckabee had been a little less religious zealot, more conservative, he would have taken it all), McCain is no lover of Christians. I recall some of his comments about key religious leaders in 2000, calling them, and I quote, “agents of intolerance.” But his vilification of Christians is not really limited to just this single occurence, which could be explained away as him having a bad day, no, he said later “I must not and will not retract anything that I said in that speech at Virginia Beach. It was CAREFULLY CRAFTED, it was carefully thought out.” (Hardball 3/1/2000). But now we are to believe he’s seen the light and is pro-Christian? Really?
How about gay marriage? In 2005 John McCain opposed a federal gay-marriage ban (Los Angeles Times, 1/25 and 3/8). However now he “suddenly” realizes that most Americans do not support the idea of gay marraige at this time? Funny, in Meet the Press, 4/2/2006, John McCain says he supports the gay-marriage ban.
And in regards to abortion, John McCain is most assuredly pro-choice. In the San Francisco Chronicle (8/20/99) McCain sided with the pro-abortion camp and stated that over turning Roe v Wade would lead to illegal abortions and unwanted children. (BTW, abortion rates are dropping and there’s no influx of illegal abortions nor unwanted children….) But now that he’s running for President, he’s completely shifted his stance on the issue (or says he has) and is attempting to sell himself as pro-life.
Then there is campaign-finance reform which is perhaps one of the most left-wing pieces of legislation passed by the Congress in the past twenty years and is a blatant restriction on political speech, a violation of the first amendment of the Constitution. Not the 26th amendment, THE FIRST ONE. The one the founders thought was MOST IMPORTANT.
But that’s okay, because he’s never worked with the Republican party on legislation. The party won’t take him! Or so it seems. He’s only co-authored with Democrats, so it seems the Democrats will use him as long as he’s doing what they want. I wonder if they would side with him if he accidentally pushed for something conservative? I doubt it.
Let’s push on and talk about immigration. Mr. McCain is for the unregistering, amnesty of over 12 million people in this nation, no questions asked. He’s pushed for it twice in the last 6 years. But there’s quite a few issues with that. What’s to stop Al Queda from sending in operatives and having them claim to be illegals from Mexico and filing for amnesty? There’s no checks! You show up, you file a piece of paper, and suddenly you are a US Citizen. There’s your domestic security from a “Conservative” like John McCain. Oh, wait, now he’s saying he wants security FIRST then amnesty…but, did he solve the problem yet? No. But he’s doing a good job of giving lip-service to conservativism while pandering to the ethnicities of foreigners who do not even have the right to vote (ala Democrat Party.)
The laundry list goes on, and on, and on, and on. I’ve yet to see any significant piece of legislation of vote that McCain has taken that could seriously be considered conservative in the common usage. Sure, he voted for the war and the surge. Congradulations. Guess what, so did Hillary Clinton and a lot of democrats other then her.
But we are going to take lip service over actual votes and speeches, okay.
Then Barrack Obama is the most conservative senator in the history of the Democrat party.
Barrack is for change, for smaller government, he’s stated that he WILL NOT LEAVE IRAQ BEFORE 2009 if elected but rather that he would look into the situation and make an intelligent decision with the council of officers provided by the Pentagon. He’s stated that he is very much against a federal law defining what marriage is, but that he is also very much against laws allowing homosexuals to marry. He would, however, support laws for civil unions for both hetero and homo-sexual couples. He’s called for massive increases in funding for the Veteran’s Affairs and the US Military stating that no president should ever allow the military to be eroded as badly as ours was before Iraq. He’s said that religion is the touchstone of morality. He’s said that the schools can only be improved if they become competitive. He’s said that taxes for the middle and lower classes needs to be reduced.
In fact, I think he’s channeling Reagan. Didn’t Reagan have very similar ideas? Strong defense, small government, services for the Veterans, etc?
Hmm……
