Did anyone see the debate at the Reagan Library yesterday?
See the link below to start:
His rebuke of McCain's "facts" on Mitt's record was spectacular:
I think that it was clear that the only truly viable (sorry Huckabee and Paul supporters...they have no chance to win the party nod) conservative candidate is Mitt Romney. It is also clear that, between the two, he is the one that truly understands how to run a business. It was delightful to see him hand John McCain his hat on a number of occasions, especially when McCain was caught in a lie about timetables in Iraq...
It seems pretty much a given that McCain will win the nomination. That is not a good thing. I don't think McCain can win a general election against either Clinton or Obama. I think they will win the debates against him, as he seems to fumble when asked tough questions. A lot of conservatives don't like him and the turn out on the Republican side will be low.
It seems pretty much a given that McCain will win the nomination
I don't know how that so suddenly became the conventional wisdom. He and Romney are neck-and-neck in national polls, they have won the same number of primaries, they have similar delegate counts. Why is everyone saying it's a done deal for McCain? (Perhaps because the pundits WANT it to be a done deal?)
Personally, I think McCain has a better chance in the general election than Romney. Romney comes across too much like a Republican Gore - a robotic "perfect" candidate. I don't think Romney could beat Obama and would struggle even against Clinton.
We had a local election up here a long time ago. The Liberal candidate was the front-runner until the last week of the election.
At that time, the spectre of immorality (and I won't get into that) that the candidate's party was supporting was brought up by the other side and the front-runner fell.
Should McCain win the nomination, he stands an excellent chance of becoming a "wartime president" in the face of the "unfit and the unstable."
Americans are at war and they know they are. And Americans always vote for solid backbone during wartime, if not at other times as well.
But we'll see.
Alex
Last edited by Orthodox Catholic; 01/31/0802:35 PM.
I think it's a little early to say that McCain will get the nomination. Romney was very close to him in Florida, the senior vote could have swayed it to McCain. Where in other southern states that may not happen.
I hope he doesn't get the nomination.
The media does not always make clear how a candidate is nominated. They are not nominated like in the elections. The race is due to change temper as we come closer to the Republican National Convention.
It is amazing that out of the remaining candidates:
Two are very moderate Republicas. One is neo-conservative now, but used to be a liberal Republican. The one that no one is paying attention to is a paleo-conservative.
Image is everything. McCain looks and acts like a leader. The populace doesn't care if he had some very liberal bills that he wrote or voted for.
McCain is good on some issues, but certainly not all and his "reaching across the aisle" has always exclusively benefitted Democrats. Also, I do not believe he has the temperment to be the President, especially when some of the tough questions are asked.
Romney has the right fire in the belly to be the President, and he knows his "stuff" both in government and the private sector. The comparison to Gore is perplexing. Gore is stiff and lacking in personality and patronizing to those who listen to him drone on. (I feel like a 3rd grader whenever I hear him speak.) Romey is both polished and fast on his feet. He can conquer the nebulous platitudes of Obama's "Vague Hope" with concrete, workable solutions stated in a positive manner. But if Obama and McCain get the nod, a McCain establishment candidacy will sink in that tide of "change".
The only benefit that I could see to a McCain ticket is if it is McCain vs. Hillary. There is enough animosity against the Clintons on the Democrat side to cause them (and liberal Independents) to cross over to vote for McCain (or some 3rd Party wacko).
McCain would be better than Hillary, but not by much...
I think Huck is holding out for a VP slot. If he can cause Mitt to lose the nomination, my guess is that he and McCain will strike up a deal for the #2.
Can you imagine Huckabee as a VP? He'd be uncontrollable!
Regarding Hilary Clinton.. many people say they dislike her.. but then vote for her anyway. When she was running for NY Senator, the polls said that about 80% of people disliked or were not supporting her nomination - she ended up winning by a pretty strong margin.. it seems that many people are closet Hilary-fans despite not likig her.
I think Romney comes off as too polished - rich guy using his $$ to get into office comes to mind, even if untrue.. kind of how the John Corzine campaign went down.
In my opinion, McCain would make a fine President, even though I don't agree with much of his policies - it's a odd stand to take, but he has all the marks of a good leader, including experience where it counts.
Obama has charism and charism goes a long way - the problem I have is that he's just as experienced as GW Bush was, meaning not much at all. But as stated earlier, charism goes a long way in the USA, in addition, he seems sincere.
Ron Paul has no shot.
On the Dem side, Edwards is the Kingmaker. On the Repub side: McCain gets the moderates (even though [or perhaps because] Limbaugh hates him).
"I think Romney comes off as too polished - rich guy using his $$ to get into office comes to mind, even if untrue.. kind of how the John Corzine campaign went down."
It's his money, why is it bad that he uses it for his campaign?
"I think Romney comes off as too polished - rich guy using his $$ to get into office comes to mind, even if untrue.. kind of how the John Corzine campaign went down."
It's his money, why is it bad that he uses it for his campaign?
Terry
Yeah - and Kennedy comes off as a real man of the people, no?
As to Obama v. Bush - Texas is one of the few states which has the weakest governor [texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu]. I'd say Senator Obama has just about as much real-world experience in leadership as W.
[Biased Opinion]: The non-conservative tag for McCain came mainly as a result for not falling in line with the RNC on a number of issues.
He talks to Democrats and writes legislation with them. Cooties factor maybe?
He voted against the tax breaks because Bush and the congress at large refused to stop bloating government and deepening national debt.
He voted for campaign finance reform.
He questioned the strategy of our troop deployment and called for a troop increase. The surge eventually came to good results.
He's staunchly anti-abortion, but has voted for a loosening of stem cell regulations. Lamentable.
He prefers a two pronged approach to immigration. As a senator from a state with a huge influx of Mexicans and an existing populace of the same he acknowledges what he sees as a need for firm regulation and securing of the border while at the same time normalizing the status of those already here illegally. Most hard line people (as I am most of the time) living in border states support immediate deportation and hefty fines.
He co-authored campaign finance reform, and he is pro-life. For the latter I respect him, but the former had more fluff than substance in my opinion. At the time as well as other times, such as when he was a part of the "gang of 14", there seems to be a hint that he is far too concerned with public opinion polls, the media, and attention in general. I got this impression of him in 2000, it's part of why I dislike him.
Immediate universal deportation is impossible at the moment. We need to control the boarder and deport the illegals who commit felonies such as rape and murder. I work with several illegals whose children were born here. Universal deportation would be hardest on them, they are already spooked at the increasing aggression of ICE. The stories of arrests and deportations cover the front of their printed news/tabloid papers.
I would not vote against McCain if he were nominated, but it would be difficult for me to vote for him during the nomination process.
'Straight Talk' Express Takes Scenic Route To Truth
Quote
John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth. Like McCain, pollsters assured us that Dole was the most "electable" Republican. Unlike McCain, Dole didn't lie all the time while claiming to engage in Straight Talk.
Of course, I might lie constantly too, if I were seeking the Republican presidential nomination after enthusiastically promoting amnesty for illegal aliens, Social Security credit for illegal aliens, criminal trials for terrorists, stem-cell research on human embryos, crackpot global warming legislation and free speech-crushing campaign-finance laws.
I might lie too, if I had opposed the Bush tax cuts, a marriage amendment to the Constitution, waterboarding terrorists and drilling in Alaska.
And I might lie if I had called the ads of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "dishonest and dishonorable."
McCain angrily denounces the suggestion that his "comprehensive immigration reform" constituted "amnesty" -- on the ludicrous grounds that it included a small fine. Even the guy who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy didn't fall for this a few years ago.
In 2003, McCain told The Tucson Citizen that "amnesty has to be an important part" of any immigration reform. He also rolled out the old chestnut about America's need for illegals, who do "jobs that American workers simply won't do."
McCain's amnesty bill would have immediately granted millions of newly legalized immigrants Social Security benefits. He even supported allowing work performed as an illegal to count toward Social Security benefits as recently as a vote in 2006 -- now adamantly denied by Mr. Straight Talk.
McCain keeps boasting that he was "the only one" of the Republican presidential candidates who supported the surge in Iraq.
What is he talking about? All Republicans supported the surge -- including Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. The only ones who didn't support it were McCain pals like Sen. Chuck Hagel. Indeed, the surge is the first part of the war on terrorism that caused McCain to break from Hagel in order to support the president.
True, McCain voted for the war. So did Hillary Clinton. Like her, he then immediately started attacking every other aspect of the war on terrorism. (The only difference was, he threw in frequent references to his experience as a POW, which currently outnumber John Kerry's references to being a Vietnam vet.)
Thus, McCain joined with the Democrats in demanding O.J. trials for terrorists at Guantanamo, including his demand that the terrorists have full access to the intelligence files being used to prosecute them.
These days, McCain gives swashbuckling speeches about the terrorists who "will follow us home." But he still opposes dripping water down their noses. He was a POW, you know. Also a member of the Keating 5 scandal, which you probably don't know, and won't -- until he becomes the Republican nominee.
Though McCain was far from the only Republican to support the surge, he does have the distinction of being the only Republican who voted against the Bush tax cuts. (Also the little lamented Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who later left the Republican Party.) Now McCain claims he opposed the tax cuts because they didn't include enough spending cuts. But that wasn't what he said at the time.
To the contrary, in 2001, McCain said he was voting against Bush's tax cuts based on the idiotic talking point of the Democrats. "I cannot in good conscience," McCain said, "support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us at the expense of middle-class Americans who need tax relief."
McCain started and fanned the vicious anti-Bush myth that, before the 2000 South Carolina primary, the Bush campaign made phone calls to voters calling McCain a "liar, cheat and a fraud" and accusing him of having an illegitimate black child.
On the thin reed of a hearsay account, McCain immediately blamed the calls on Bush. "I'm calling on my good friend George Bush," McCain said, "to stop this now. He comes from a better family. He knows better than this."
Bush denied that his campaign had anything to do with the alleged calls and, in a stunningly magnanimous act, ordered his campaign to release the script of the calls being made in South Carolina.
Bush asked McCain to do the same for his calls implying that Bush was an anti-Catholic bigot, but McCain refused. Instead, McCain responded with a campaign commercial calling Bush a liar on the order of Bill Clinton:
MCCAIN: His ad twists the truth like Clinton. We're all pretty tired of that.
ANNOUNCER: Do we really want another politician in the White House America can't trust?
After massive investigations by the Los Angeles Times and investigative reporter Byron York, among others, it turned out that neither of the alleged calls had ever been made by the Bush campaign -- nor, it appeared, by anyone else. There was no evidence that any such calls had ever been made, which is unheard of when hundreds of thousands of "robo-calls" are being left on answering machines across the state.
And yet, to this day, the media weep with McCain over Bush's underhanded tactics in the 2000 South Carolina primary.
In fact, the most vicious attack in the 2000 South Carolina primary came from McCain -- and not against his opponent.
Seeking even more favorable press from The New York Times, McCain launched an unprovoked attack against the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, calling them "agents of intolerance." Unlike the phantom "black love child" calls, there's documentary evidence of this smear campaign.
To ensure he would get full media coverage for that little gem, McCain alerted the networks in advance that he planned to attack their favorite whipping boys. Newspaper editors across the country stood in awe of McCain's raw bravery. The New York Times praised him in an editorial that said the Republican Party "has for too long been tied to the cramped ideology of the Falwells and the Robertsons."
Though McCain generally votes pro-life -- as his Arizona constituency requires -- he embraces the loony lingo of the pro-abortion set, repeatedly assuring his pals in the media that he opposes the repeal of Roe v. Wade because it would force women to undergo "illegal and dangerous operations."
Come to think of it, Dole is a million times better than McCain. Why not run him again?
I don't weigh in on political matters much - talking theology and things ecclesial is straining enough at times!
But tangetially related is something I have been pondering as the primaries wear on...
How is it the case that certain media darlings rise and fall from grace so very quickly? Is it really a chicken or the egg sort of proposition where the media is informed by public appetite to consume news on certain candidates or vice versa?
Did Giuliani fail to pick up steam because of media attention? or did it wane in the face of lack of electoral interest?
Huckabee was a golden boy in media coverate a few weeks ago. After that, he was curiously unmentioned in much coverage.
The Obama/Clinton division has been an intereting one. Who gets more focus seems to vary from week to week at least keeping it interesting.
And now McCain seems to be enjoying the "Golden Fifteen Minutes"...
I am having an exceedingly difficult time understanding or seeing where "consumer interest" ends and "media manipulation" begins.
But of course, in the last 20 years of being aware of election politics, I am always somewhat bemused at what are final choices end up being. In recent elections, a governor of a not particular well governed state, an inexperienced governor of a not particular well governed state who was the son of an unre-elected president, an unlikeable senator from Kansas whose age was a daunting factor and was not half as charismatic as his oponent, a boring VP who was the son of an unre-elected senator, a boring senator who was from a patritican family in a state that does not enjoy a reputation nationally as being centrist...
Now we are down to the wife an an ex-prez from Illinois by way of Arkansas who is a senator for New York, a junior senator from Illinois, a multi-attempting (and failing) senator from AZ who is a perenial candidate, a governor from Massachusetts, and another Arkansas governor.
These were really the best we could find to get excited about?
By the time Ohio weighs in, it will already likely be a foregone conclusion who the nominees will be. Having been decided early on by other states.
I am not all that excited about any of the options on the menu.
Is Mc Cain really pro life. Maybe personally but will he push the issue to overturn Roe vs. Wade. If that is the case then I could not support his candidacy. Stephanos IO
Is Mc Cain really pro life. Maybe personally but will he push the issue to overturn Roe vs. Wade. If that is the case then I could not support his candidacy. Stephanos IO
I guess his voting record is pretty solid...but as Terry says, that is a good question. Bush is solid on this issue - even quoting Pope John Paul II for goodness sake! Will we see the same from a McCain presidency?
Some of that may depend upon who his VP choice is. If its the Huckster, I don't think McCain would get away with anything.
I just watched Fox News and Ann Coulter has come out saying that Hilary is MORE conservative than John McCain! It was an hilarious exchange between Hannity, Coulter and Colmes...
If the Republicans want to win in November 2008, they will need to do two things. They must unite their base on the political right. They must also be persuasively appealing to the nation's political middle.
I think the Republicans should evaluate their candidates along those lines.
As an outsider, I would observe that Mr. Huckabee as a vice presidential candidate could unite the Republican base. I would also observe that either Mr. McCain or Mr. Romney as the presidential nominee could be appealing to the nation's political middle.
But, that is just an outsider's observation. I apologize if I spoke out of place.
The Republicans haven't been united since 1994 to 1996 when they took over congress and had their backs broken over school lunch. It would be very important for them to be united. It will take a lot of heated back room politics to accomplish that.
I just watched Fox News and Ann Coulter has come out saying that Hilary is MORE conservative than John McCain! It was an hilarious exchange between Hannity, Coulter and Colmes...
Gordo
Coulter has always been a grandstander, but one point that she makes is worth repeating. There are many many conservatives out there who will not under any circumstance vote for Juan McCain. I am an example of this. There is no way in the world under any possible scenario that I will vote for Juan McCain. Now I wouldn't go a far as Coulter and say that I'm voting for Hillary, but I guess it's time to start researching who the Libertarian and Constitutional Parties candidates are.
It is amazing that out of the remaining candidates:
Two are very moderate Republicas. One is neo-conservative now, but used to be a liberal Republican. The one that no one is paying attention to is a paleo-conservative.
Image is everything. McCain looks and acts like a leader. The populace doesn't care if he had some very liberal bills that he wrote or voted for.
thank you, Nathan!as my former choice Rudy has gone over to John, I'll be voting for him, or at least his slate of delegates. (if I vote for Rudy, it may dilute the McCain vote). McCain was a protege of Barry Goldwater, one of my boyhood heros. I voted for McCain in 2000 after the right wing fundie nut jobs smeared McCain with a disgusting rumor, and I'd have problem with doing it again. Much Love, Jonn
If the Republicans want to win in November 2008, they will need to do two things. They must unite their base on the political right. They must also be persuasively appealing to the nation's political middle.
I think the Republicans should evaluate their candidates along those lines.
As an outsider, I would observe that Mr. Huckabee as a vice presidential candidate could unite the Republican base. I would also observe that either Mr. McCain or Mr. Romney as the presidential nominee could be appealing to the nation's political middle.
But, that is just an outsider's observation. I apologize if I spoke out of place.
-- John
John,
No apology necessary! Great insight...
I think Mike Huckabee would unite SOME of the conservative base. He is certainly good on social issues, but his style of governance is not entirely conservative.
It is amazing that out of the remaining candidates:
Two are very moderate Republicas. One is neo-conservative now, but used to be a liberal Republican. The one that no one is paying attention to is a paleo-conservative.
Image is everything. McCain looks and acts like a leader. The populace doesn't care if he had some very liberal bills that he wrote or voted for.
thank you, Nathan!as my former choice Rudy has gone over to John, I'll be voting for him, or at least his slate of delegates. (if I vote for Rudy, it may dilute the McCain vote). McCain was a protege of Barry Goldwater, one of my boyhood heros. I voted for McCain in 2000 after the right wing fundie nut jobs smeared McCain with a disgusting rumor, and I'd have problem with doing it again. Much Love, Jonn
McCain was a protege of Barry Goldwater??!!
Some of his positions seem to be against a lot of what Goldwater stood for. Campaign Finance Laws, voting against the tax cut, in Iraq for maybe 100 years to name a few off of the top of my head.
The Republicans haven't been united since 1994 to 1996 when they took over congress and had their backs broken over school lunch. It would be very important for them to be united. It will take a lot of heated back room politics to accomplish that.
Terry
I'll never forget the brouhaha over defunding PBS as well...
If ever there was an organization that deserved defunding it IS PBS! I think there were even some cartoons depicting the "evil" Republicans attacking Big Bird or some other such nonsense. Personally, I think they set their sights too low at the beginning of the Republican Revolution. They should have eliminated the Department of Education by marching for three days around the DOE Federal Office building, carrying the Contract With America in procession, and blowing trumpets until the walls came down!
Purity by every measure of conservativism, from fiscal, social, and national defense, is impossible with Romney, McCain, or Huckabee. It's more that McCain has brushed up against certain elements of the Republican base the wrong way in the past years.
Terry
Last edited by Terry Bohannon; 02/01/0806:05 PM. Reason: "national defense" had "economic".
Since 'extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice' as Barry Goldwater once famously said, allow me to offer a somewhat different take on all of this.
The only two people in the GOP race who are suitable to be president are Ron Paul and Alan Keyes. John McCain is certainly not. And, no, neither is Mitt Romney who, as John Derbyshire deliciously explained recently, believes most everything that John McCain believes, at least when he is in a room full of people who do believe those things.
So therefore the McCain phenomenom is good, salutary, and commendable, as well as not necessarily so surprising.
Since the GOP has comprehensively frittered away any semeblance of conservative principles and constitutional values as we have witnessed in the Congress since 1994 and the White House since 2001, there is nothing to cry about or be upset about here with regard to John McCain.
And if a McCain nomination will cause a groundswell among those who still consider themselves at least somewhat conservative to bolt and look for genuine conservative candidates elsewhere, and rock the GOP corrupt edifice to its foundations, then John McCain may yet augur a genuine renewal of conservative, Christian, and constitutional princple.
The following was written by Howard Phillips on behalf of Michael Peroutka, the Constitution Party candidate for president in 2004. I respectfully offer this up for all Americans who consider themselves principled conservatives. It's probably even more relevant now with John McCain than it was 4 years ago with George W. Bush.
By Howard Phillips
The Constitution Party, then called the U.S. Taxpayers Party, was established in 1992, with its goal to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, constitutional functions and to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical common-law foundations. Neither John Kerry nor George W. Bush shares that goal.
Both President Bush and Senator Kerry have voted for or signed into law more money for Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups, more money for homosexual activist groups, more money for the United Nations, more money for foreign aid, more money for federal intervention in education, not to mention the biggest budgets and budget deficits in the history of our Republic. Neither Bush nor Kerry has supported �Ten Commandments Judge� Roy Moore and his Constitution Restoration Act to prohibit reliance on foreign law and deny federal judges the authority to restrict our acknowledgment of God. Both men favor amnesty for illegal aliens and policies that benefit Communist China to the detriment of U.S. national security.
You and I know these things, but most �conservatives� plan to vote for George W. Bush. Some say the reason they plan to vote for Bush is judicial appointments. But that argument lost its validity when President Bush intervened to prevent the nomination of Congressman Pat Toomey over pro-abortion Sen. Arlen Specter in the recent Pennsylvania Republican Senate primary. If Senator Specter is re-elected on Nov. 2 and the GOP holds its majority in the U.S. Senate, Specter will become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, situated to act in collaboration with his liberal Democrat soul mates to prevent the confirmation of pro-life judicial nominees-and positioned to argue to Bush, if he is re-elected, against the appointment of judges who are comprehensively opposed to abortion. For these reasons and others, it is specious to vote for George W. Bush on the basis of supposed advantages for our side with respect to judicial confirmations.
Moreover, just as Senate Democrats have blocked Republican judicial nominees, the GOP majority in the Senate can-if they summon the will to do so-block nominees by a President Kerry. Of course, only three GOP Senators voted to oppose the confirmation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Only nine voted against Stephen Breyer, and no Republican Senator voted against confirming either pro-abortion David Souter or pro-abortion Sandra Day O�Connor. The positions of both of these nominees were a matter of public record when the Senate placed them on the Supreme Court of the United States.
But there is a greater reason that many conservatives are reluctant to vote for the Constitution Party�s Michael Peroutka. It is fear of the �Bogey Man,� and John Kerry is the Bogey Man of 2004. George W. Bush is presented as �the lesser of two evils,� and Bogey Man John Kerry is characterized, perhaps accurately, as evil incarnate.
Kerry personifies the antithesis of what most conservatives believe, but he is only the latest in a long line of Bogey Men who have diverted us from putting our Republic back on a constitutional track. In 1992, most conservatives were understandably frightened by Bogey Man Bill Clinton and voted against me when I offered then, as Michael Peroutka does now, a constitutionally correct alternative to both major parties. Despite your votes for Bush the Elder, the Bogey Man won in 1992.
Bogey Man Bill Clinton reappeared in 1996 and, once again, most conservatives rejected the only candidate who offered a Christian, constitutional plan of action and invested their votes in Kansas Sen. Bob Dole. There were some exceptions. Jim Dobson declared after the fact that he had cast his vote for Howard Phillips. Of course, despite conservative support for Dole, Clinton won again in 1996.
Last time, Al Gore was the Bogey Man and, once again, conservatives rejected the Constitution Party nominee in favor of George Bush the Younger. In 2000, the Bogey Man lost, but what did it profit America to have elected the �lesser of two evils�? Would we have had the unwise, unnecessary, unconstitutional war on Iraq if Gore had been elected? I doubt it.
We have traveled farther down the wrong path with a Republican president and Congress than we would have if we had experienced gridlock with a Democratic president and a Republican majority in the House and the Senate.
As president, Michael Peroutka would end federal intervention in education, cut off federal funding of Planned Parenthood and homosexual activist groups, withdraw from NATO, the UN, NAFTA, WTO, the World Bank, and the IMF. He would seal our borders, cancel the George W. Bush-Vicente Fox treaty to pay Social Security benefits to illegal aliens who have returned to Mexico, expel illegal aliens, end all foreign aid, withdraw from Iraq, oppose the Patriot Act, fight all forms of socialized medicine, and appoint only judges who are 100 percent against abortion. Peroutka would abolish the IRS and replace the income tax with a revenue tariff. He would recognize the threat posed by Communist China and rebuild the U.S. Navy, which has dropped from 600 ships under Ronald Reagan to fewer than 250 today.
If conservatives don�t vote for what they believe, they will never get what they want. Losing as slowly as possible means we still lose. Going over the cliff at a supposedly slower speed still means we are going to crash.
A vote withheld from both the Democrats and Republicans weakens that which is wrong and strengthens the cause of that which is right. Any vote cast for constitutionally sound, Biblically based policies hastens the day when, should God will it, we can witness the restoration of the Republic. It is not for us to decide elections, but rather to determine where we shall invest our precious franchise. God alone determines the outcome, and He blesses those who trust in Him.
There are many many conservatives out there who will not under any circumstance vote for Juan McCain.
That atttitude may well mean that the Democrats will win.
I'm curious: Is it more important to conservative Republicans to maintain ideological purity or to win elections?
-- John
McCain is pretty much a carbon copy of the Democratic party so voting for him would be the same thing.
Let's recount what 'winning' elections has brought us, a globalist who spends like a drunken sailor like George W Bush isn't much of a victory for Conservatives. You live in Ohio like me, when Ken Blackwell was rumored to be challenging Bob Taft all I heard about was how important it was to have a Republican in the Governor's mansion, what a disaster that turned out to be.
John, I've heard it all before, how voting for the Constitutional party is like voting for the Democrat. Which is absurd. Republican shills act like my vote belongs to them. It doesn't. A vote for the Constitutional party is a vote for the Constitutional party and for limited government and for the sovereignty of the US, what's left of it.
Spanish is the most spoken language in the Americas, perhaps it is time we realized that we can't pretend we're isolated forever and learn the language of the majority of the people of the Western Hemisphere.
Spanish is the most spoken language in the Americas, perhaps it is time we realized that we can't pretend we're isolated forever and learn the language of the majority of the people of the Western Hemisphere.
I'm sorry to hear that you side with the racists in groups like La Raza who say the same thing. It's ashame to see racists like La Raza want to impose their language and culture on this nation. Many think that racism is a thing of the past, it obviously isn't. I guess La Raza doesn't have any respect for the immigration laws of the USA, so why should the current culture and language of the USA be any different.
As a side note, Ukrainians were told the same thing for centuries by Russian imperialists and later by the Communists, learn Russian, it is the most prominent in the Empire.
We don't need to learn Spanish, but it would help to learn about the Spanish and Latino culture. Gabriel Garc�a M�rquez is one of my favorite modern story-tellers.
As a side note, Ukrainians were told the same thing for centuries by Russian imperialists and later by the Communists, learn Russian, it is the most prominent in the Empire.
Monomakh
I've never heard of La Raza or if they are racist, either way, if something is correct, I can't help that they've repeated it.
As to Ukrainians being told to learn Russian - isn't that what some Americans tell immigrants all the time? "Come to the USofA and you better Learn English", I think the analogy is backwards. Actually it is what the US has been telling the world for decades, want to do business with the US, learn English; want to work here, learn English; want to go to school, tell your kids to leave the Spanish at home...
I think it is an ENORMOUS mistake to expect the US to adopt Spanish as one of its national languages. English still remains (as it should) the language of commerce and culture - and with it, opportunity. (In the EU, English is also the first language of commerce, with German being the second.) To accomodate Spanish speakers to the point where they do not need to learn English to function or even gain employment holds them back from opportunity. To borrow a quote from St. Francis deSales, "It is so nice as to be unkind."
I would favor, rather, expanding locally driven ESL programs.
I don't think Spanish need be a national language, just one of prudence... long term, more Americans knowing another language or two or three just cannot be seen as a negative.
I don't think Spanish need be a national language, just one of prudence... long term, more Americans knowing another language or two or three just cannot be seen as a negative.
On that point, you and I are in agreement. Americans (and I include myself in this...apart from some spotty German) by and large do not know languages. Knowing Spanish would be tremendously helpful, especially for those involved in pastoral work.
I don't think Spanish need be a national language, just one of prudence... long term, more Americans knowing another language or two or three just cannot be seen as a negative.
Americans knowing another language isn't bad. I don't think that's what McCain's amnesty bill said, he wanted to allow the gatecrashers to become citizens.
My sons are learning Ukrainian (my 5 year old speaks it quite well), but I don't think that you should have to press 1 for English and 2 for Ukrainian whenever you call somewhere. I also think that any Ukrainian who is here illegally should be deported back to Ukraine and get in line like my ancestors did because the rule of law should be followed.
McCain for some reason or another doesn't want the rules to be followed?!
McCain also likes to prohibit free speech like he did with his 'Campaign Finance Reform' Bill.
McCain also believes in the global warming farce.
McCain also believes that an independent Kosovo that allows radical Islam to have a foothold in Europe is a good idea.
Americans knowing another language isn't bad. I don't think that's what McCain's amnesty bill said, he wanted to allow the gatecrashers to become citizens.
One could word it that way, but one could also see it as allowing some who are here illegally to become legal, once they pass a series of steps in various stages.
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My sons are learning Ukrainian (my 5 year old speaks it quite well), but I don't think that you should have to press 1 for English and 2 for Ukrainian whenever you call somewhere.
That is up to businesses to decide. If private business wishes to spend their money on their various languages for their customers that is up to them. As to governments doing so, I can see how that would get a politician in office in a few cities across the nation. While it wouldn't do much in Kansas City, it would help a local politician win election in NY, Chicago, or L.A., and isn't that what much of these "incentives" are about?
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I also think that any Ukrainian who is here illegally should be deported back to Ukraine and get in line like my ancestors did because the rule of law should be followed.
The problem is that there is no rule of law. I understand that while you and I may wish there were a blanket policy, the US government has been quite schizophrenic in its immigration enforcement. Why aren't the Cubans told to wait in the same line? I think it has to do with the same reason as those "incentives" mentioned above.
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McCain for some reason or another doesn't want the rules to be followed?!
That's because in practice, neither Republican or Democrat have enforced those rules. Neither side wants to lose their a percentage of their voting block to enforce the law.
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McCain also likes to prohibit free speech like he did with his 'Campaign Finance Reform' Bill.
Prohibit, Or restrict? There are already restrictions on certain types of political speech, I wouldn't call every restriction a "prohibition".
It is amazing that out of the remaining candidates:
Two are very moderate Republicas. One is neo-conservative now, but used to be a liberal Republican. The one that no one is paying attention to is a paleo-conservative.
Image is everything. McCain looks and acts like a leader. The populace doesn't care if he had some very liberal bills that he wrote or voted for.
thank you, Nathan!as my former choice Rudy has gone over to John, I'll be voting for him, or at least his slate of delegates. (if I vote for Rudy, it may dilute the McCain vote). McCain was a protege of Barry Goldwater, one of my boyhood heros. I voted for McCain in 2000 after the right wing fundie nut jobs smeared McCain with a disgusting rumor, and I'd have problem with doing it again. Much Love, Jonn
McCain was a protege of Barry Goldwater??!!
Some of his positions seem to be against a lot of what Goldwater stood for. Campaign Finance Laws, voting against the tax cut, in Iraq for maybe 100 years to name a few off of the top of my head.
that may seem to be that way. remember that Goldwater was a maverick, as is McCain. in 1957, Goldwater voted for the Civil Rights bill, the same one that the "liberal" Lyndon B. Johnson voted against (the same Johnson that Hillary sang paeons of praise, and which helped screw things up for her amongst African Americans) McCain, like Goldwater, never subscribed to any "Nicene Creed" as to what makes a conservative. I'm glad I voted for him. I'm only sorry that Huckabee won Tennessee. Much Love, Jonn
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