February 19, 2008
DADDY'S ALRIGHT:
Truce! (The Editors, 2/13/08, National Review)
Most Republican voters have taken a sensible view of this question. A Gallup poll released yesterday showed that nearly half of them would have preferred someone else as the nominee. (Us, too.) But most Republicans, and most conservatives, nonetheless have a favorable view of McCain. [...]Conservatives and McCain should neither pretend that we have no differences nor obsess about those differences. We should instead work on the common task of building a center-right majority in this election year and future ones, each appreciating that the other will play a different role in that task. So we ask the senator, and his conservative supporters and critics: Any takers?
Nice of them to run up the flag of surrender, though persisting in juxtaposing "Conservatives and McCain" reveals their pettiness. As their own essay admits, actual conservatives recognize the nominee as one of themselves. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 19, 2008 10:01 AM
They just seem a little weird. Surrender surrender, but don't give yourself away,
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at February 19, 2008 10:42 AMLook, there's been a very concerted effort over the past 8 years to guarantee John McCain is the next President by convincing the MSM to ignore his conservative credentials and paint him as the anti-Bush Republican. You don't really want the National Review, Rush Limbaugh, etc., to blow the whole thing at this point, do you?
Posted by: b at February 19, 2008 2:41 PMb has it on the nose. McCain has been constructed as the not-Bush for so long that it is now too late to get out of the trap. Stupid party, indeed.
Posted by: Lou Gots at February 19, 2008 3:17 PMApparently not enough Republicans agreed on one someone else.
Posted by: ic at February 19, 2008 6:17 PMWhat I'd like to know is how the National Review took their sensible "most conservative viable candidate" policy and came up with a Massachusetts governor who, from all appearances, conveniently changed his stances on social issues once the presidential season started.
I mean, if you ditch McCain over CFR -- and I sympathize -- how does anybody but Fred Thompson get the nod with that criteria?
Posted by: Matt Murphy at February 19, 2008 8:56 PMMcCain vs Obama or McCain vs Hillary is a no brainer and even the stupid party people are coming around. But you need to give NRO and others a bit more time to get over the fact that McCain went against the GOP in a very high profile way over the past 8 years on a signature GOP issues. And given his steadily dropping ACU score over the past 8 years there is concern he will continue to move left once in office.
Posted by: AWW at February 19, 2008 9:01 PMNo, there isn't. Look at what they rate guys on. Reagan and W score worse.
Posted by: oj at February 19, 2008 11:04 PMGosh, did you hear McCain's speech after the Wisconsin win. He's for change, he's for fixing Washington, etc., etc. rambling on.
His wife and everybody around him were twitching.
It's going to be a very long nine months until November.
I hope there's somebody who can rein in his mouth and get him to only say what he's told to say.
Posted by: erp at February 19, 2008 11:17 PM