Residual Forces

There’s a great piece that sums up pretty dang well why conservatives like me worry about a President McCain.

The Real Conservative Conundrum: A President McCain Working With a Democratic Congress

But when he is with the Democrats, he is really with them. McCain is not someone who simply reaches across the aisle to form coalitions with the other side. He walks across the aisle, puts on the other team’s uniform and sings the other team’s fight song.

If he wants to accomplish things — and every president wants to accomplish things — he will have to do so on the Democrats’ terms.

That means his agenda will include those things on which he agrees with the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate:

- A cap and trade regime for climate change.

- Expansion of McCain-Feingold regulations for campaign finance.

- Expanded legal rights for enemy combatants, and probably the closing of Guantanamo.

- Comprehensive immigration overhaul, with a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country.

This will not be a “reaching across the aisle.” This will be a full partnership of the president and the Congress, who just happen to be of different parties. The shrunken GOP minority in the Senate might serve as a brake, especially on immigration. But it will be only a brake, not a standing astride history yelling “stop!”

Friends, that is why I am worried. He agrees with the Democrats on many very critical Domestic issues. I don’t exactly buy the idea that he will cut spending. On earmarks and pork he is great, but he seems to side with the liberal minded types who believe Government should and can solve people’s problems. I wouldn’t call him a limited Government conservative, that’s for sure.

You can’t oppose the first amendment and want to put in place the most restrictive policies ever on energy and the environment that will hamper freedom and liberties for all Americans and call yourself that. Like his bud Pawlenty, he is good on some issues for conservatives, but he is not an across the board conservative.

What Will McCain Do?

That’s what has conservatives worried and why so many of us are less than thrilled he has ascended to the presumptive nominee.