McCain Over My Cold Conservative Heart #9
Posted by Andy on January 28th, 2008
This Is Not An Endorsement
Rudy has a great new ad out regarding those newspaper endorsements.
And in case you haven’t heard, John McCain is now hitting below the belt on Mitt Romney.
I am one who is being forced to abandon my core principles to re-analyze the field. I’m extremely disappointed in everyone’s energy and environment agenda. Rudy and Romney are ok on defense. They are also both “sounding” good on immigration…. (ahem) now! It is coming down to domestic agenda to set them apart or ahead for me. As I said last night, I miss Fred. He was the complete package for me.
Now, I have to pick and choose and hold out hope that the past is history when it comes to the Republican choices.
On the one hand we have a former NY mayor who the liberal media hates but is pretty lax on some core conservative issues, on the other we have a former big government Republican Governor who is now talking about free market solutions by having all sides sit around a table and hash out an agreement ….. wait, that ain’t very free market, and before that he used to say he was going to assemble a team of lawyers to advise him about national defense issues and decisions. OK, that made it even harder trying to think about them.
But there are a couple of absolutes for me when it comes to POTUS on the right. John McCain is a sleezeball. I know, it is harsh fto say that about a war hero, and it is not intended to reflect on his military service. Frankly he is trying to hide behind that most days, and well he’s running to be POTUS, not war hero in Chief.
I don’t like him, and I do not trust him. He and his surrogates are running around calling Romney a flip flopper, and it turns out that one of the things they is attacking Romney is something McCain himself has flopped on too, benchmarks. McCain was for them, before it was popular to be against them. He’s an enemy of the conservative movement. His Senate career is a kin to a red-state Democrat. Good on pork spending and defense, terrible on the size of government. He’s a paygo guy who says he hates pork, but has tried to increase the regulatory burden and squash freedoms and liberties for years by expanding government in liberal agenda areas. He is not to be trusted as a Republican and I don’t think I could even hold my nose and vote for him. J
Huckabee is still a liberal Republican tax and spend nanny state theocrat who drinks the global warming kool aid and blames America first… who also believes the fringe leftist rhetoric that Guitmo must be closed and terrorists need to be brought to America and put into our court system. No Hucking way.
So who does Andy Aplikowski endorse? Bacon is sounding much better every day. I may just have to announce my 2012 AAA 4 Prez Exploratory Committee now.
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January 28th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Andy,
If you don’t like Huckabee, at least do it on fact.
Mike has address this many times, most recently in response to a letter from Frank Pastore
http://www.townhall.com/content/47ed1e3d-48d7-405d-b696-4da94006301a
Here is an excerpt -
Pastore: 4. You’re accused of being weak on national security and your statement that we have “an arrogant foreign policy” is troubling. We need to hear more clearly why you think that is. Why do you want to close Guantanamo? Do you really want to give “enemy combatants” full access to our court system? This too, is troubling. In spite of this, it sounds like you “get” the global war against radical Islam. Please convince us you’ve got what it takes to go toe to toe with Osama, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jung-il, Putin, Chavez and China.
Huckabee:
I do not believe that we have an arrogant foreign policy. I believe that Secretary Rumsfeld behaved arrogantly in not listening to the military about how many troops we needed to invade Iraq initially and then in refusing for years to adopt a counterinsurgency strategy. It is the counterinsurgency strategy finally adopted under General Petraeus and Secretary Gates that has been so successful this past year in Iraq.
When I said I wanted to close Guantanamo, I wasn’t staking out new ground, I was stating my agreement with President Bush and Secretary Gates on that issue. Since then, Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has come forward to say he favors closing the base.
It’s not that I want to give “enemy combatants” access to our court system: the Supreme Court has already held that the prisoners’ rights are not dependent on whether they are at Guantanamo or on the U. S. mainland because Guantanamo is equivalent to U. S. soil. Whatever rights these foreign prisoners have—and we’ll know that better when the Boumediene case, which is pending before the Supreme Court, is decided – our government can’t deprive them of those rights by keeping them at Guantanamo. In Rasul, the Supreme Court held that the Guantanamo prisoners had a statutory right to habeas corpus; Boumediene will tell us if they have a constitutional right.
I have what it takes to go toe-to-toe with our enemies because I understand the seriousness of the threats we face. I want to expand and strengthen our military by increasing defense spending from less than 4 percent of our GDP to the 6 percent it was under President Reagan. I know that President Clinton’s “peace dividend” has become our “war deficit.” I want to add the 92,000 to our Army and Marines that President Bush has proposed, but I want to accomplish that sooner. I know that we need to upgrade our intelligence to get information about armed groups who are ideologically opposed to us all over the world—micro groups can cause macro damage in this age of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Also, I may just have to announce my 2012 AAA 4 Prez Exploratory Committee now.
Why wait - You still have time
If you really feel strongly about this, why not do something Tuesday.
Can we write in for Straw Poll? I think so?
If so, since for the most part MN is a “beauty contest” if you got lots of folks who agree with you to write in “bacon” might that send the message you are wishing the state and party (and candidates) to get.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
You should consider doing the same on Romney, since you have taken him out of context/mischaracterized his stances a time or 2. And well, Huckabee has flipped around a few times so there is alwaysgoing to be an explanation or 2 to CYA. He has said populist things like the “arrogant” line, and retreated away or blamed his “co-author” when the heat came. His Foreign policy is a loser for me, or let’s just say he will never win me on it, it is his Record as a Government Executive that mostly disqualifies him.
As far as my 2012, it can’t be now, I will not be 34(5? always get that goofed up) by January 20 2009. I will be forced, by the Constitution to wait until 2012.
January 28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Oh, well.
You could still vote for Bacon.
I still stand by these statements on Romney -
He was very pro-abortion (and proud of it), appointed planned parenthood members to his health board, passed a government run healthcare plan that paid for cheap $50 abortions.
He now say he is pro-life.
He backed the brady bill and the assault weapons ban and has been pro gun control.
He now say he will not go after your secondment rights.
And the latest, he is an outsider, will not be influenced by Washington lobbyiest.
This is funny - both at his getting caught in a lie, then continuing to make the same statement as if he did not get caught.
The reporter I thought was a little harsh, but the reaction is funny - a “What is the meaning of ‘is’” moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhRyo6rn1hs
(Warning, Clips starts with Keith Olbermann)