No one is as prepared as John McCain to lead in foreign policy. McCain will bring us victory in Iraq and stop radical Islamists in Iran and Syria. At the same time, he will cut federal spending, and appoint originalist Justices to the Supreme Court.
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Of course, Josh was much more forceful in drawing comparisons in his own blog...
Last summer it looked as if the U.S. was going to suffer defeat in Iraq - not because American troops had been defeated but because public support at home was disappearing. The new Democratic majority was pushing almost every day to "redeploy" (read: "retreat"), and it looked more and more as if Republicans were going to cave in. In July, one Republican senator after another started going wobbly.I have nothing but respect and admiration for Senator McCain. I think he would make an excellent President, however I have found a candidate that I believe is even stronger. Rather than getting into an ideological battle here,
Unlike the doubters, Sen. McCain put himself at the head of the political battle to win the war. When the odds were against him, he staked the future of his career on victory. To drive his point home, he launched the "No Surrender" tour and spent several weeks speaking to crowds in several states, almost single-handedly renewing Republican support for persevering in Iraq.
Meanwhile, where was Romney?
He was awfully quiet that summer.
When he did speak, he hedged his bets. As he told Chris Wallace on August 12, "if we’re making progress that suggests there's a reasonable probability of success in stabilizing Iraq, that’s a course I'm going to follow.”
Hardly a Churchillian moment.
I will simply let the audience see why I support Rudy for themselves if they like.
Now, Josh is right about several things. First, McCain certainly stood alone for the surge long before it was fashionable if it is even now. Second, McCain does need to win in New Hampshire in order to get the nomination. The latest averages from RCP continue to have Romney leading however that lead is dwindling. The latest average has his lead down to 2.8%. The very latest poll out of NH even has McCain leading by 6 points though I am not a big fan of isolating one poll.
Interestingly enough, the biggest fan of John McCain in NH is probably my guy Rudy Giuliani. Just like Mike Huckabee has become Rudy's proxy in Iowa, McCain has become the same in NH. If Romney loses either state, he is in some trouble. If he loses both he can pack it in. If he wins both, he probably gets the nomination on the other hand. Rudy continues to do poorly in both states, however he continues to maintain tenuous lead nationally. He is counting on no other candidate gaining too much momentum going into late January when some delegate rich states like Florida, California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey vote. He maintains leads, sometimes dominating, in those states, and unless the momentum of early victories captures momentum for another candidate, he will maintain those leads.
This sure is the season for all junkies of politics.
2 comments:
I watched John McCain pretty closely during the 2000 election, and did not like what I saw.
His reaction to being slammed in South Carolina was to whine. We're seeing the same thing when he talks about Romney. We saw the same thing in the foreign relations committee hearings. When John McCain does not get his way, he blows up, he cusses people out, and he whines. He has a sense of entitlement and an overblown sense of importance.
I noticed two other things about McCain back then: 1) none of the men who were imprisoned with him were supporting his candidacy; and 2) he had lost five airplanes under his piloting, giving him the dubious designation as "reverse Ace."
All of these are characteristics of a man who has something to prove. For McCain, success is not a habit, it's an emotional imperative; he has to succeed or else he's worthless in his own estimation. His is an appetite for achievement and glory that cannot be satisfied, driven, as it is, by emotional lack.
Guys like that are dangerous when they get power. They're unconsciously more interested in their public reputation than in doing their job. Two Presidents in my lifetime exhibited the same sorts of psychological need, Richard Nixon and William Clinton; it's no accident that both sacrificed the rule of law to their ego needs.
I haven't even mentioned his abandonment of the Republican party (probably out of a peevish desire to punish George Bush for beating him), but that's beside the point. The man is emotionally unsuited to lead. Electing him to office would endanger the nation. He's the only candidate in the Republican primary for whom I cannot, in good conscience, cast a vote against all of the Democrat candidates.
That is an awful lot of dime store psychology and assumptions about an individual you have never met.
You are also the first person to see his heroism in Vietnam as a negative, which is the height of hubris. When you get sent to a P.O.W. camp and withstand torture for six years, then I think you will have credibility in remarking on McCain's record in the same circumstances.
I will simply call him a hero and he isn't even my candidate.
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