I was the one who swore he would never vote for Captain John "Wrong-Way" McCain, under any circumstances. I vividly remember sitting in the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, 2002, listening to George Will eloquently score McCain's arrogant assault on the First Amendment, known as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill. The bile rose on each of the many occasions when our great war hero betrayed his party. The Great Maverick, as a politician, has always been more self-serving traitor than maverick. He's as much a "foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution" as I'm a foot soldier in the Lenin revolution. He's no conservative; his philosophy, to the extent he has one, is a bizarre mix of selfish opportunism and joining with the enemy. He's joined the enemy so many times that he qualifies as a member in good standing of the enemy. Why would I ever vote for such a bum?
Then came Sarah, our young, beautiful, perky, peppy, electrifying, unabashed conservative. I sold out to Sarah on Day One. I didn't need a cross between Ronald Reagan and William Buckley; I just wanted someone to articulate my principles. And that's exactly what Sarah did, with some dutiful parroting of McCain's more hare-brained proposals. I was on board. I made calls for McCain, went to a McCain-Palin rally, wore a stupid McCain hat. My motivation was to "stop Obama," as the sign said that I carried at the rally. I winced at McCain's every boneheaded misstep, hoping against hope that we could avoid the unspeakable nightmare of electing a communist to the position once occupied by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.
Now, in the wake of McCain's blowout loss (it was a landslide, and I don't assign one iota of blame to Sarah), I feel like I need to take a shower and have my skin pumiced off. Our hero is even now planning his cooperation with Comrade Obama and his fellow travellers, and his torpedoing of his nominal teammates on the Republican side of the aisle. Had he won, perhaps things would have been slightly different from what we can expect once the great "agent of change" takes command. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, even for a proud, pure ideological conservative like myself. And that just makes me feel all the dirtier.
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9 comments:
Brian, don't beat yourself up too badly. After all, what choice did we have? Think of it not as a vote for McCain, but a vote to stop Obama. For that we can hold our heads high. Sure it feels yucky, but I think we would feel even yuckier if we had done nothing, or thrown away our votes on a non-starter. At the time, it seemed as though McCain might have had a chance, and that was the only hope we had of stopping "the messiah." It didn't work. So now it's time to be get on with the work of the "irate and tireless minority."
Amen, Dave. Thanks for the pep talk. You're right, of course: we couldn't just do nothing. We must regroup for the coming assault by the communist hordes. For our "arms," we must be prepared to use history and economics. We have to fight for the minds those devils Obama and Ayers have stolen.
Note: This is a rather long response and perhaps a rambling one.
I don't regret having voted for McCain. Not for a minute. I wish I could have voted for him twice, the way so many Obama supporters did for their candidate.
And I think our anger and frustration are misdirected against McCain; he's never pretended to be anything other than what he is.
Let's face it: McCain won the nomination in a deeply flawed process that gave independents and even democrats a say in our choice of nominee. And - dare I say it? - I think conservatives seeking an ideologically pure candidate helped sabotage a couple of viable candidacies out there, leaving the door open for McCain, who, despite the conventional wisdom, was the weakest possible candidate to confront Obama on substantive issues. I think ruefully of how Rudy or Mitt, for example, would have made mincemeat of Obama on any number of issues.
Reagan - he's our touchstone, our frame of reference - won because he was able to forge a big-tent coalition of voters. Not all agreed with everything he stood for - and he didn't demand total agreement. He wanted just enough agreement to secure a victory.
Reagan succeeded politically because there were a couple of very powerful unifying themes that he articulated: 1) Government was too big, and 2) the Soviet Union needed to be rolled back and defeated.
What are the big tent issues today? The right to life? I think that's a matter that will ultimately be won one heart and mind at a time. I no longer believe it's a winning political issue; our society is currently too coarsened to care. Same with gay marriage. Oh, a couple of states staved off the issue this time around, but the demographics are clearly against this as a winning issue (Young people supported gay marriage pretty much across the board. It's generational, and the generation that cares about this issue is passing away.)
Immigration? What's the right answer? Round 'em all up and ship 'em home? Maybe that's the answer; maybe not. In the environment we're in - notably the media/cultural environment - you're going to be as marginalized as Pat Buchanan if you try to sell that position.
The war on terror? With the outcome of this election, the terrorists feel -correctly I believe - that they've already won; they don't need to hit us again to see their agenda realized. Absent a clear and present danger, or a perceived danger, voters will become (have already become) bored with this issue. It's not a winner.
The economy? The democrats and their accomplices in the media and academia have succeeded in portraying the financial crisis as a failure of capitalism. Where does that leave us?
So what are the winning issues for us . . . not just the issues we feel strongly about, but the issues that a majority of voters in this country will feel strongly about?
I really don't know right now.
It's usually a bad strategy to wait for the other side to make a mistake, but maybe that's where we are at this point. If our principles are the correct ones - and I think they are - then our leftist leaders will make a mess of things sooner or later and voters will then be receptive to what we have to say.
We must be prepared, though, for a rather long honeymoon period for Obama. The changes he seeks will in the short term seem to make everyone happy. After all, it takes a while for government meddling in the economy and appeasement in foreign relations to generate the kind of repercussions that will be too obvious to deny.
Bill:
Interesting points.
I'm wondering what the "conservative" Gen Y teens and adults think are the big issues for their party?
We obviously know what the liberal Gen Yers care about... but I honestly have no clue what the conservatives want out of their futures.
Just looking at the "Y" generation as a stereotypical whole, many reports have categorized Gen Y as a group that feels they are very entitled. (As a side note, you'd be amazed at the salaries they try to "command" right out of high school and/or college! Holy moly!)
Given that Gen Ys believe they innately deserve just about anything they WANT (as opposed to what they NEED), perhaps we could construct a clear-cut vision of what kind of conservative candidate we'd need to win over the next generation of voters.
That's my assignment for you guys -- back to work for me! :)
Angelique
An observation I have made: In the church world I have been told that if you want to build a strong youth ministry (primarily teen-agers), the youth meetings have to be fun. Well, so much for me building a strong youth ministry, since I'm not all that great at creating fun. But I have found that fun is not at all what young people are hungering for. Sure, they like to have fun, but that is not what answers to the hunger of their souls. What I have learned first-hand is that young people want truth. What I mean is, they are concerned about the question "What if there really is a God. Where does that leave me?" They are concerned about learning the truth that sin has consequences which can be avoided if we make certain wise choices. They are concerned about their futures because the world is a scary place. They may retreat into fun (self-gratification, self-absorption, what's in it for me), but I see that as the retreat of frightened people who don't know how to face the world. Therefore, I believe we need candidates who can articulate the truth about life, personal responsibility, proper conduct, and the role of government.
Obama articulated a certain sort of vague vision of the future(which he called "hope"), and it was enough to draw some young people out of the Gen Y fixation on self. But it was completely phony because his entire appealed played on the "what's-in-it-for-me" spirit. His magic was that he somehow made it seem grandiose and transcendent. But it was all a big sham, as many who were taken in by it will one day realize, as they stand there in a state of vacuous entitlement, waiting for the government to in their hands what they ought to be putting into their own hands.
Nevertheless, I believe if someone came along who used reasoned eloquence to cast a vision based on the principles of true conservatism (as expressed in many of the Quotes We Must Never Forget!), such a person would find a mass of willing listeners. To me, which policies to get behind is not the question (who will give who how much). The real issue is not policy at all; it is answering the question: What are the unchanging principles that make life on earth a noble exercise in benefiting myself and those around me?
I understand exactly what you're saying, Dave. But Obama's phoniness isn't yet apparent and one of my points above is that it may take a while before the bankruptcy of his moral/political/cultural vision becomes obvious to a majority of people. He will, in other words, have something of an extended honeymoon.
Right now, we (as conservatives) are paying a price for more than a decade's worth of betrayal of our own principles. But even if we were true to our principles, where would we be right now. I think the tide has shifted against us; that's what tides do. And when it comes back our way, will we be able to forge the kind of majority we need to win at the ballot box.
If we're too ideologically pure, if we're too eager to throw the less-than-pure from the bus, can we still win? Romantic lost causes are still lost causes
Let me give you an example of what we have to decide. I have a few friends at work who are every bit as conservative as I am on almost everything you can imagine: size of government, the second amendment, taxes, immigration, the war on terror and the fight to transform the dysfunctional middle east, support for Israel, capital punishment . . . you name it. But - and I'm thinking of three individuals I happen to work with - none of them could care less about abortion or gay marriage. They just don't care. They vote Republican despite those issues, not because of them. So, should they be banished to the outer darkness of the party because they're not 100 percent pure? Just asking.
Don't misunderstand me: for me personally, the right to life in particular is an absolute make or break issue. In my own view, I believe a nation that sacrifices tens of millions of its infants in the name of expediency, convenience, and vanity is on the road to oblivion.
But most people, frankly, just don't think some of these issues through deeply enough to come to that conclusion. We have to bring those people, I think, into a big tent and understand that on some core principles, we'll work together and on some core principles, we'll seek compromise in the hope of making incremental progress.
This is a great discussion, everybody. I have settled back into the slot where I am most comfortable, after the dirty, near-rape indignity of the McCain interval. I don't believe our ideas go out of style; they have simply been abandoned by squishy, country-club Republicans, beginning with George H.W. Bush. And George W. Bush has been the Benedict Arnold of the Republican Party. He, his father, and McCain are losers. I believe our ideas appeal to people of all ages; but they have to actually be articulated and defended. That's where Sarah was so appealing.
Bill, I'm not for throwing overboard the average guy who may not buy in to every element of conservatism. But I do think these public figures, such as Arnold, who are obviously not committed to the core principles and are willing to publically flush them down the toilet in the name of expediency and giving the people what they want need to be called out and marginalized. On the other hand, guys like your friends should be brought in an educated. After all, before we can convince anyone, we must get them within ear-shot.
You guys make really good points here, especially Bill. I agree with Dave, Arnold is about as Republican as me. so why when you had majority's in both houses did you not fix the broken pieces of our system. Things like medicare, medicaid, health care overall. Instead you just ignored them. It is disingenuous to say the dems prevented it as you are now seeing that in the house, majority rules BIG TIME. There's been no rule changes. That's the way it has always been on the house. That's why I think you can waste to much time worrying about what the house passes. It is the senate that has the rules to stop or at least hinder the majority. I have not looked at many polls lately, but I would bet that Bill is right.....gay marriage is not an issue to the people, abortion is not an issue to the people, and gun control is not an issue. Republicans need to focus on what are the issues.
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