The GOP has two Conservative parties.
We started out with a number of Republicans who represented pro-choice and pro-life conservatives. These are your basic Fiscal Conservatives and Social Conservatives.
Fiscal Conservatives are the basic limited government, balanced budget, individual freedom Republicans that were the basis for Goldwater and Reagan voters.
Republican Presidential nominee apparent John McCain walked into the cesspool of rowdy, frat-boy, rabid right-wing rudeness – otherwise known as the annual Conservative Political Action Conference – and told the sometimes booing crowd that he’s their boy whether they like it or not.
Now that Mitt Romney’s welcome withdrawal from the GOP Presidential sweepstakes has left McCain the heir apparent to the nomination, McCain is going to do what all Republican Presidential wannabes do – try to make peace with conservatives and seek their support for a victory in November.
Americans are fed up with President George W. Bush, fed up with Congress and fed up with the government that controls so much of their lives.
Used-car salesmen rank higher in approval ratings than the President or the House and Senate. Osama bin Laden might top any of our elected leaders in a popularity poll.
With the death toll mounting daily in Iraq, entire neighborhoods emptied by foreclosures and the economy headed into the toilet, the national mood is bleak and the public holds the powers that be in Washington responsible.
The national mood is sour, the outlook grim and public confidence in our leaders at its lowest point in history.
Super Tuesday was carefully engineered to decisively settle who would be the party’s nominee. And it did. But it was the wrong nominee.
It’s Republican John McCain who has the clear path to the nomination after Mitt Romney bowed to the inevitable and called it quits Thursday.
It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Hillary Clinton cultivated the role of the “inevitable” nominee and her operatives in the Democratic Party amassed a bloc of primaries and caucuses where her superior organization, name recognition and funding would deliver a knockout to whatever rivals were still standing.
It’s great when the voters turn their backs on conventional wisdom!
We pundits said that almost certainly we’d all know the Republican and Democratic nominees on Feb. 5. Ha!
We said John McCain was political dead meat. Ha!
We said Barack Obama would quickly fall to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s big money, big momentum and big organization. Ha!
A few said Rudolph Giuliani was unstoppable. Ha!
Some thought Mitt Romney would catch fire because of his money, good looks and business acumen, despite his changing views. Ha!
Before my more conservative friends start leaping from buildings over Sen. John McCain’s presidential primary victories, let me try to coax them back in from the ledge. Despite his myriad apostasies (e.g. McCain-Feingold’s free-speech limits, anti-ANWR-oil-drilling votes, a mixed tax-cut record, creeping Kyotoism and cold feet on waterboarding), the Arizona Republican could do for fiscal responsibility what Ronald Reagan did for tax relief.
It was the night of Super Tuesday, and there was Barack Obama in full-throated splendor, saying that teachers, cooks and kitchen workers were with him in his effort to keep a particularly threatening group from running Washington anymore.
And who are these baddies he was referring to? Why, they are lobbyists, which is to say, they are people working on behalf of these teachers, cooks and kitchen workers, of citizens concerned about all sorts of issues from civil liberties to gun control, of businesses, unions and advocacy groups.
Ann Coulter says she’d rather vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton than John McCain. Rush Limbaugh has suggested he’d rather see the Democrats take the White House than a McCain win. James Dobson said he’d stay home rather than cast a vote in a contest between McCain and any opponent.
Such threats aren’t confined to the GOP. Michelle Obama — Barack’s wife — said she would “have to think” about supporting the Democratic ticket if Clinton wins the party’s nomination.
What’s happening to party unity? Should voters stay home rather than support the lesser of two evils?
We are finding out how difficult it is to fight a long war without a draft. Not only are the extended campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan debilitating to the regular volunteer forces, they have severely damaged the nation’s readiness to meet challenges at home, including everything from natural disasters to nuclear or biological attacks. The potential for failure in the latter category is particularly enormous.
For Barack Obama, California’s early presidential primary was too early. He ran out of time before he could make inroads with women and non-black minorities, who have been the base of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s support nationally and helped her win here Tuesday.
Exit polls conducted for the Associated Press and the national television networks show that Clinton built a huge lead among people who chose their candidate early in the campaign, but the decision was a toss-up among voters who made up their minds in the final three days before the election.