Friday, February 1, 2008
John McCain and conservatives
The Arizona Senator is now the frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination. However some conservatives don't believe he is one of them. Read this column. What were the two most important things you learned about McCain in this column. Why were they important to you?
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I would have to say the two most important things I learned about McCain would have to do with his stances on issues, mainly immigration and energy. He’s for amnesty, and against the idea of drilling in anwr which would lead to becoming self dependant on oil. A lot of republican candidates like Romney and Guiliani support drilling while most democrats agree with McCain and oppose the idea of drilling domestically for oil.
These issues are not small issues to a good portion of GOP supporters and its just a little surprising that even those his views are different, in these areas, he is still considered the Republican front runner. Granted he does have those views that appeal to and are a main staple of a lot of conservatives. For instance his stance on gay rights, the war on terror and abortion.
I dont doubt that McCain is a Conservative as he claims my opinion is that McCain is more of a moderate conservative more then anything else and I think that appeals to a greater portion of the people unlike Romney, who I really think is more of a true conservative in regards to his political views. With McCain appealing to a broader base as well as Huckabe “stealing” votes from Romney, as they compete for the same voters, its clear that this all ads up to McCain being the front-runner.
The things I found interesting about this article were:
1) McCain is against big pharmaceutical companies. I would assume, although no mention as to why he is against them is mentioned, he is against them because of the outragous prices charged and the companies refusal to give senior citizens, who need the medications most.
2) He was against the tax cuts proposed by president Bush because he felt this was a chance to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
The two things that I found most interesting and important about this article are:
1.) His support of legal status for those illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. I dont think people living illegally in this country should be given permission to stay. If they werent supposed to be here in the first place, why should we let them stay here now? I disagree with his position on this topic, which is why I found this part of the article particularly interesting and appealing.
AND
2.) His oposition to gay marriage. He opposes gay marriage but believes that individual states should be given the final decision. I think that people should be able to mary whoever they want, I dont think that anyone should be able to tell you who you can and cannot marry. If a man can marry a woman what is the difference in him marrying another man, what does it really matter? I disagree with his position on this topic, so I found this part of the article very interesting.
I am very surprised that McCain is such an advocate of government intervention. I was aware that he voted against the Bush tax cuts, but I was not aware of his feelings about drug companies. His mistrust of markets is clearly not a Republican viewpoint.
I also found McCain's view of gay marriage and illegal immigration quite interesting. The fact that he voted against an amendment to make gay marriage illegal and wanted to make illegal immigrants citizens are both starkly opposed to conservative ideals. All things considered, in the eyes of a Democrat, I belive McCain would be the best Republican choice for President.
One thing that I learned about John McCain from this article was about his proposal for a carbon tax. I think this is a fantastic idea and introduces a fiscal incentive for those who cause environmental damage to rectify their ways. This is important, because there are many people who are ignorant of the damage being done to the planet, and this would give those people a different reason to conduct themselves in a more “green” manner.
Another thing I learned about John McCain from this article was that he has proposed to grant legal status to illegal aliens already in the country. I found this interesting, and I feel that a proposal like that may turn out to be a slippery slope, for worse, or for better, I don’t know. But, it could cause an influx of illegal immigration if those aliens believe that they will be granted legal status if the succeed in making the journey. I don’t really know enough about McCain’s proposal to speak in depth about this, but I found the little blurb in the article interesting.
I personally think that McCain has a good mix of conservative and liberal views. It appears to me that he will leave some issues up to the states including gay marriage and perhaps abortion. I think this helps McCain keep some conservative votes because he opposes these issues which is what republicans want to hear. McCain is also very conservative on foreign policy, trade and spending which helps him maintain his front-runner status for the republican nomination.
One thing that I found most surprising is a statement by the author of the post, Robert Robb. He mentions a post primary speech in South Carolina of this year. In a speech McCain talked down previous social conservative leaders and the author states that the speech was "one of the dumber political moves of our time." This is surprising to me because it is such a bold statement. I personally didn't hear the speech however, I also never heard any stories about the speech being a dumb political move. I think that if it were one of the dumbest political moves of our time we would have heard about it throughout the country
Good you caught that Zander. The piece had a typo. I bleieve he was refering to the 2000 South Carolina primary, which he lost to George W. Bush. Here's an old article on it from the International Herlad Tribune:
Republican Says Bush Panders To the 'Agents of Intolerance' : McCain Takes Aim At Religious Right
By Brian Knowlton
Published: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2000
WASHINGTON: Senator John McCain, in a provocative and politically risky speech, sharply criticized leaders of the religious right on Monday as "agents of intolerance" allied to his rival, Governor George W. Bush, and denounced what he said were the tactics of "division and slander."
Specifically, Mr. McCain singled out the evangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "corrupting influences on religion and politics" and said parts of the religious right were divisive and even un-American.
By launching the unsparing attack from Virginia — a stronghold of the religious right — the Arizona senator effectively ceded any chance of finding serious support from within a major Republican constituency.
But he evidently hoped to sharpen his appeal to independents and Democrats — and to large Roman Catholic populations in states like New York and California about to hold presidential primaries — while trying to link Mr. Bush in voters' minds to some of the more controversial elements of the religious right.
"I am a Reagan Republican who will defeat Al Gore," Mr. McCain said, referring to the vice president and most likely Democratic candidate. "Unfortunately, Governor Bush is a Pat Robertson Republican who will lose to Al Gore."
Today on IHT.com
Romney drops out of Republican presidential contest2 studies conclude that biofuels are not so green after allEconomic discontent is making Europeans gloomyMr. Bush, forced onto the defensive by a controversy that seems to have caught him off-stride, found himself compelled Sunday to make public the text of an apologetic letter he had sent to Cardinal John O'Connor, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York.
In the letter, Mr. Bush expressed regret that he had not "been more clear in disassociating myself from anti-Catholic sentiments and racial prejudice."
The Texas governor sent the letter Friday after being confronted by continuing criticism from the McCain camp that he appeared at Bob Jones University on Feb. 2 without speaking out against prejudice. The university, a conservative Christian institution in Greenville, South Carolina, bans interracial dating, and its officials have derided the Catholic faith.
Mr. Bush, whose camp has struggled to put the race and religion issues to rest, battled back Monday. In a news conference in Bellevue, Washington, where he was campaigning ahead of a primary vote Tuesday, he said, "It sounds like Senator McCain has taken to name-calling, needless name-calling."
Of his Bob Jones appearance, he said: "I missed an opportunity to speak out against anti-Catholic bias. That's what I regret."
He would not directly answer a question about his relationship to the religious right, or his views on Mr. Robertson.
Mr. McCain, in his speech, assailed those who would "smear the positions of my supporters." He was referring to a taped phone call to Michigan voters from Mr. Robertson, in which the television evangelist accused a McCain aide of being bigoted against the religious right.
"The political tactics of division and slander are not our values," Mr. McCain said. "They are corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country."
"Neither party," Mr. McCain added, "should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance."
There was no immediate reaction from Mr. Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority, or from Mr. Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition.
Mr. McCain has asserted that the religious right was angered by his efforts to change campaign-finance laws in ways that would make it harder for well-funded interest groups such as Mr. Robertson's to influence the political process.
The McCain attack on religious rightist leaders was particularly daring because he made it in Virginia. The religious right plays a strong role in that state, which holds its Republican presidential primary election Tuesday. Washington state and North Dakota also have Republican contests Tuesday.
Because Mr. Bush remains a strong favorite in Virginia — polls put him ahead by 10 to 12 percentage points — Mr. McCain might have figured that speaking out against the religious right there was a gamble worth taking.
The Arizona senator's sense that many Republicans condemn the views being linked to Bob Jones University seemed to find support during his speech. He received his most enthusiastic cheers when he said, "We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, not Bob Jones."
Speaking to a large rally, Mr. McCain made clear that he believed most evangelical leaders were "changing America for the better." But others, he said, were "people who have turned good causes into businesses."
Analysts say the religious right amounts to up to one-third of the traditional Republican electorate, though its strength has faded a bit in recent years.
At least one moderate Republican, Senator John Warner of Virginia, who is supporting Mr. Bush, was critical of the McCain comments. "I have to tell my old friend," he said in Richmond, "to pull back on his throttle and quit trying to fire heat-seeking missiles up everybody's tailpipe."
Aides to Mr. Bush have tried to discredit Mr. McCain's victories in New Hampshire, Michigan and Arizona, saying that without independent and Democratic support, he would have been trounced by Mr. Bush; the Republican Party, the aides say, cannot nominate someone who lacks majority support among registered Republicans.
"That surprises me," Mr. McCain said Monday. "The essence of evangelism is to attract converts. My camp is bringing new people into the Republican Party every day. We are building a new Republican majority."
The Bush campaign has been knocked off stride by the accusations surrounding Bob Jones University and the Robertson phone calls.
Time that would have been spent on other issues has had to be devoted to repeated denials that Mr. Bush bears any anti-Catholic sentiment and to an insistence that the Robertson calls were made independently of his campaign.
Mr. Bush, who earlier had said he would not apologize for his visit to Bob Jones University before the primary election in South Carolina, had seen pressure mount and uneasiness rise among some fellow Republicans.
He said in his letter to Cardinal O'Connor that his failure to denounce anti-Catholic sentiment and racial prejudice while at Bob Jones University "was a missed opportunity, causing needless offense, which I deeply regret."
In his Washington state news conference, Mr. Bush said that although he was not aware of every policy linked to the university, he did not offer that reason as an excuse.
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