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Time For Mr Maverick To Hit The Trail
December 16, 2008
2008 spells enough is enough with John McCain
The GOP’s latest success stories, Mr Maverick and, the ever loyal, former General Colin Powell, hit the Sunday talk circuit in their unabated, shameless efforts to ingratiate themselves with the media and the new administration.
Powell’s “somebody please notice me” rant about Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh didn’t even make enough sense to warrant comment. But the time is long overdue to address John McCain, who, for some unfathomable reason, feels himself to be in a position to dispense advice to others.
Continuing the well thought out campaign strategy that will leave him a sorry lookin’ face in the crowd come Inauguration day, Sen McCain castigated the RNC for daring to raise questions over future White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel’s possible involvement with Illinois Governor Blagojevich’s senate-seat-for-sale (“Seatgate?”) scandal. Appearing on ABC’s Sunday show, McCain, pontificating in typical fashion, said “In all due respect to the Republican National Committee, I think we should be working constructively together.”
With as much respect as anyone who watched you virtually hand the presidency to Barack Obama can still muster, Mr Maverick, it’s time to spare us any more of your self-righteous, “I’m above it all”, posturing. Take your act and move it across the isle, where your heart belongs. It will save all that wear and tear on the arms from your constant, one-sided, reaching across. Or, better yet, just exit the political scene, stage LEFT.
And for the benefit of anyone in the GOP still politically suicidal enough to pay the slightest heed to John McCain’s pompous drivel, let’s get your mind right with a little trip down election 2008′s memory lane.
The man with the plan
Candidate McCain was indeed a maverick republican. A republican who had opposed the Bush tax cuts, was a leading proponent of open borders and amnesty, supported the destruction of life with futile embryonic stem cell research, refused to support a constitutional amendment protecting marriage, and co-sponsor of a 60 cent per gallon “global warming” tax on gasoline. Talk about inspiring the base.
But Sen McCain-Kennedy has never gone to much trouble to hide his distain for those who make up the traditional Christian and conservative base. And a fundamental principal of his campaign was to prove, once and for all, that the republican party didn’t need them.
Candidate Maverick was going to set up the gosh darn biggest and best political tent ever. So campaign strategy concentrated on courting La Raza (“The Race”, a Mexican nationalist group), pro-choicers, social liberals and Al Gore kooks. Everyone was welcome in the big tent, except the true conservative voter who had put the republicans in the White House for the last 20 out of 28 years.
Confident that we had no where else to go, McCain noticeably left Christian, and other, conservatives standing outside the tent in the rain. Mr Maverick refused to appear on the conservative talk radio shows that have traditionally helped turn out the vote for republicans. Shows with millions of conservative and moderate listeners.
Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levine, Michael Savage? Who needs ‘em? Too “divisive” (they have principles and dare to disagree with me). In true maverick form, republican candidate McCain instead plopped down on the set of The View with Whoppi, Joy and Barbara. No doubt millions of MoveOn.org members flocked into the big tent right after. How did he overlook the Keith Oberman show?
This strategy had all the success one would expect. For all the messianic symbolism and hysterical fainting, Sen Obama was nothing more than a stereotypical, dyed in the wool leftist, trying to repackage the same old McGovern, Carter, Mondale and Dukakis rhetoric that the American people have overwhelmingly rejected time and again. Any truly conservative republican candidate would have been comfortably ahead in the polls by August. However, come convention time, it was clear that Mr Maverick had mired republican hopes to retain the White House in muck.
Conservative Palin to the rescue
So when the maverick started floating trial balloons hinting at best buddy, liberal independent Senator Joe Lieberman (of McCain-Lieberman global warming gas tax fame) as his choice for vice-president, someone on the campaign staff said enough.
Thus entered Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as nominee for vice-president. An accomplished governor, and intelligent, personable Christian conservative, Sarah Palin would provide a lot of voters, with a lot of good reasons to vote for the republican ticket. There was every reason for the campaign to hope the Sarah Palin would be McCain’s Saving Grace.
And sister Palin was everything the goin’ downhill McCain campaign had hoped for, and more so. Sarah Palin’s addition to the ticket sparked a desperately needed intensity of enthusiasm among the conservative base and a new interest in McCain’s candidacy across the country. The terrified left went into high gear to smear and destroy a working mother of five children, and her family for good measure. Yet the polls swung drastically in favor of McCain/Palin. Some prominent pundits were actually writing off Obama and foot-in-the-mouth Joe Biden.
The maverick credo: Success? Can’t stand it
John McCain, however, followed up by promptly firing the first of the two fatal shots to his campaign which would hand the government to the democrats. Mr Maverick completely mismanaged his greatest asset, Sarah Palin, keeping her out of the limelight and off the talk shows. He just never got it.
In his heart, John McCain was at odds with many of the things that conservatives like Sarah Palin believe in. He didn’t want her rocking the foundations of his illusionary big tent. So he had his staff keep a tight leash on Palin. But it cost him a lot of the enthusiasm that she brought to the campaign. And it looked as if he regretted his choice. Which is just what the democrats were hoping for. Sarah Palin was their biggest fear.
While the whole Palin phenomenon and saga are beyond the scope here, suffice it to say that if Governor Sarah Palin had been at the top of the ticket, unfettered by McCain, the republicans would have retained the White House.
The second self-inflicted shot to McCain’s campaign was his bizarre performance during the “TARP” (Troubled Assets Relief Program) $700 billion bailout debate. Nobody brought the maverick’s sanctimonious suspension of his campaign so he could come to the rescue of the nation. This posturing only made him look doubly foolish when he sat like a lump through the White House meeting on the bailout, contributing virtually nothing.
Maverick, smaverick
Then, completely destroying one of the hallmark themes of his campaign, Fight The Pork and End The Earmarks, John McCain leapt on the TARP bandwagon for the revised version of the bill, now at $850 billion after the addition of $150 billion of the supposedly reviled earmarks. The bill also gave one man, Secretary of the Treasury Paulson, unprecedented, and virtually unchecked, power to distribute the TARP funds at his personal discretion.
That was the turning point. That was the moment a true maverick would have stood true to the image he had always tried to project. That was the time to take the stage and at least demand that the bill be gone through line by line, and stripped of all earmarks. Had he done so, and publicly insisted Paulson be made more accountable for the dispersal of 850 billion in taxpayer dollars, election 2008 could easily have gone the other way.
But John McCain’s feeble actions decried the self proclaimed image. He proved himself just another politician. And that effectively ended the election. Now those of us who tried to put him in the White House, in spite of himself, and mostly in support of Sarah Palin, are left to pray that our greatest fears won’t be realized when Barack Obama begins to govern the county.
This is the man who now feels it incumbent on himself to disperse advice and criticism to the republican party. McCain obviously sees himself as some wise old sage, with insight far beyond the common man.
Thanks, but no thanks senator- really
Well, Mr Maverick, even all we common, right wing, Christian conservative folk sincerely hope, and pray, that Barack Obama will be the finest president in the history of our country. But that won’t be the case if Obama governs based upon his campaign promises. And we all want our elected officials to work together. But there is no wisdom in turning a blind eye to possible corruption at the highest level. And there is danger in blind trust of those power. The United States constitution was designed by men with far greater wisdom than you, Mr Maverick, to insure a loyal opposition. And Senator McCain-Kennedy-Feingold-Lieberman is not what America needs in the way of loyal opposition
So Senator, it really would be best to mercifully hang up the maverick hat and hit the trail. Everyone honors your heroic military service to our country. You have a beautiful, and incredibly classy, wife, as well as children to be proud of. Give us a break. Enjoy life. You’ve earned it.
Maybe Bob Dole can even get you one of those nice lobbying gigs with Dubai.
Category: Conservative Politics
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