This is funny! -- No worries about McCain in 2008.

[ArmedBear]

He just got a glowing endorsement for President in 2008 from Jerry Falwell!

I damn near soiled my Bible when I heard that.

 

[Ivy Mike]

gee, one nut endorsing another.

 

[longeyes]

He'd be excellent running Manchuria. Falwell can be his spiritual advisor.

 

[tulsamal]

McCain is doing what he has to do: shore up his support with the conservative wing of the party. McCain could run quite well in a national election. But he would have a heck of a time getting past the GOP Primary. That is dominated by the more conservative members of the party. And they don't trust him or think he is really a conservative. It isn't just the religious right but the libertarians and gun owners as well. If he is going to have any chance to win the nomination, he has to ensure SOME support from those groups. This is just the latest evidence that he is working on it.

I have my doubts that he will be able to pull it off but he does have the advantage of name recognition and no clear conservative front-runner.

Gregg

 

[Squawker]

I don't understand how any conservative could vote for McCain. He;s a RINO (Republican in Name Only), and is no conservative. He would be a disaster as President, especially if there were any vacancies on the Supreme Court during his term.

 

[lostone1413]

No way is McCain a RINO. For him to get were he is he had to get the nod of the people who run the party. You don't get that high up in politicks without getting the nod from the Elite who run both parties. If anyone thinks i'm wrong try and run for state or national office without the powers to be backing you. Let me know how far you get

 

[grampster]

McCain was a national hero. He parlayed that notoriety to get elected. (nothing wrong with that, imho) He obviously is a man of strong will. Unfortunately he has misunderstood the depth of support for the 2A in America.
I am astounded by the fact he co-sponored McCain/Feingold.

My personal choice would be Newt, even with his warts. (a good deal of which are political smear) He's pro-gun. He's a historian, not a lawyer, iirc. Our country desperately needs someone who resonates with our culture and in touch with our roots as our leader. He would also destroy anyone in a debate.

Sorry for the hijack.

 

[longeyes]

He may not be a RINO but he's a Rockefeller Republican and that wing of the party might as well be Democrat. I don't see much difference between Clinton, Bush, Carter, and McCain. If McCain can find areas of agreement with Kennedy and put his name alongside Kennedy's in legislation we should all be very worried.

Was McCain really a hero or was he, rather, a victim? An honorable one, no doubt, but a victim? I'll leave that to others to decide. I will only say this: seven years of imprisonment do not qualify him as some kind of political sage.

All I know is that he has milked being a POW and marrying a fortune into an outsized reputation that now threatens all of our basic civil liberties. McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy establish his leftist credentials impeccably.

 

[tulsamal]

My personal choice would be Newt, even with his warts. (a good deal of which are political smear) He's pro-gun. He's a historian, not a lawyer, iirc. Our country desperately needs someone who resonates with our culture and in touch with our roots as our leader. He would also destroy anyone in a debate.

Hey, I agree with you! I get tired of defending Bush. He's not stupid as many try to portray him but he's generally an average guy. Average intelligence, average education. Nothing necessarily wrong with that but wouldn't it be nice to support a Republican candidate that was smarter and better educated than 99% of the population? And one that actually knows enough history to teach advanced classes at the university level? Hey, I'm in!

The biggest "negative" to Newt running is that left hates him just as much as the right hates Hillary. I can only barely begin to imagine how split the country would be if the 2008 election came down to Newt and Hillary! 2000 and 2004 would seem like love-fests.

As far as McCain goes, my problem with him isn't really his postition on any particular issue. It's that I don't really believe he HAS any position on any particular issue! He's a "whichever way the wind blows" kind of politician. Those are the most dangerous ones since they will get swept up by any popular at the moment idea. I want a president with a defined and consistent ideology. I want to KNOW that candidate X will be FOR this and against that no matter what the most current public opinion poll says. McCain is far more interested in what is good for John McCain's public image than anything else. If that means speaking ill of members of his own party or voting against them, he's all for it. Makes him look like a "free thinker" after all.

Talk about average intelligence and average education. That's John McCain all the way. I suffered through eight years of Clinton but I had to at least admire his intellect. But, the funny thing is, Clinton was exactly like McCain. He supported whatever the public opinion polls said. Would you run a company by taking a vote amongst all the employees before each decision? I would _assume_ that the people at the top see a little more of the long-term big picture than the people working on the line putting widget X in slot z.

Gregg

 

[Standing Wolf]

If McCain is unsuitable, maybe the Republicans can draft that Kennedy individual. After all, he has plenty of name recognition, right?

 

[Kestrel]

armed bear,

Where did he get a "glowing endorsement" from Jerry Falwell? The article I read, simply said they met and agreed to put their differences behind them. That's not a "glowing endorsement". In fact, there are many things that McShame stands for that Falwell would not agree with. Period.

You obviously don't like Falwell and that's your business, but he's not a nut (Clean97GTI). He's a principled man that speaks his convictions. He very much cares about the constant erosion of morals and attacks on Christianity in this country.

 

[gunsmith]

If Condi doesn't get drafted

I am writing in Ted Nugent.

There doesn't seem to be a glimmer of hope for a Conservative right now.
A so called "moderate" Dem that "doesn't think you need an AK to go hunting deer"
would probably win right now.

I think the best we can hope for right now is ruth darth vader ginsburg gets bird flu, dies, and is replaced by JC Watts....

Can we get JC to run as VP with Condi as pres or vice a versa?

for the hysterical arguments alone it would be worth it!

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

McCain is anti-gun

McCain is associated with AGS (Americans for Gun Safety). AGS is an extremist gun-control group disguised to be a mainstream safety advocacy organization. Rather than go for all out bans such as Brady Campaign, they use a more moderate incremental approach towards their ultimate goal of total firearm abolition, all while trying to appear reasonable with their moderate, yet disingenuous rhetoric.


No further debate necessary.

 

[Eleven Mike]

I had to at least admire his intellect

Why?

No way is McCain a RINO.

A RINO, so far as I know, is a Republican politician who's not in line with the conservative/libertarian principles of the Republican base. It doesn't mean that other highly-placed Republicans don't support him. Such power-brokers aren't conservative anyway. Why do you think our current Republican president is such a moderate?

 

[CAnnoneer]

He very much cares about the constant erosion of morals and attacks on Christianity in this country.

That may very well be, but such people are the antithesis of separation between religion and government. It strikes me as profoundly hypocritical that the same people attacking ismalic fundamentalism abroad are so very comfortable with christian fundamentalism at home. Add to that garbage like "intelligent design" and irrational restrictions on stem cell research and you have people that are pulling us back into the 19th c. rather than helping us prosper in the 21st.

As far as McKodos, it is beyond me why it is that so many people fail to see he is just as bad as Hillary. If you should not trust him now, why would you when he runs? After all, see the blatant discrepancies between promises and practices of the current RINO we have in office. What will it take for people to wake up and dump the old garbage they seem to cling to so desperately?

 

[Eleven Mike]

irrational restrictions on stem cell research

You mean promoting non-embryonic stem cells that actually have a successful track record, while objecting to the cells that must be gathered from murdered embryos? Irrational, I agree.

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

Oops...as well as being involved with an extremely anti-gun organization, McCain also gave us the wonderful McCain-Feingold law, which is in my opinion, 100x worse than any Patriot Act could ever be.

 

[gunsmith]

wall of seperation/church state

but such people are the antithesis of separation between religion and government

The phrase wall of seperation that most folks think is in the constitution comes from a letter to some Baptist church that T Jefferson wrote assuring them they would not be told what to do by the gov't.

the 1st Amendent just says that the gov't can not make a chuch of the USA, that the gov't can not establish a religion.

If praying to a Christian God before passing laws was ok for Thomas Jefferson , Benjamin Franklin and other right wing maniacs who helped creat the USA it should be ok for public schools etc.

Personally I don't follow any organized religion myself...

 

[ArmedBear]

All I know is that he has milked being a POW and marrying a fortune into an outsized reputation that now threatens all of our basic civil liberties.

I hope more people have the guts to say this.

I think I speak for most of my generation (I turn 40 this year) when I write: no matter who or what you are, I don't much care what you did or claimed to have done in or about Viet Nam. If you're running for office, I care about what you've done in the 35 years since then.

That goes for anyone, in any political party.

I honor McCain's genuine sacrifice. It does as much to qualify him to lead the US as it does to qualify him for a job as a particle physicist.

[Fallwell] very much cares about the constant erosion of morals

Yeah. He is always speaking out in favor of reforms that would stop porkbarrel spending and Abramoff-style influence peddling by politicians. That's Falwell, standing up for integrity in America!

When, exactly, did "morals" begin to mean only sex and abortion?

 

[American By Blood]

Hey, I agree with you! I get tired of defending Bush. He's not stupid as many try to portray him but he's generally an average guy. Average intelligence, average education. Nothing necessarily wrong with that but wouldn't it be nice to support a Republican candidate that was smarter and better educated than 99% of the population? And one that actually knows enough history to teach advanced classes at the university level? Hey, I'm in!

I'd *maybe* vote Newt in 2008, but I'd have to watch him very closely and see who he was surrounding himself with. His intellect is definitely respectable, though.

As for Bush, don't believe the hype. The "average guy" thing is a charade. During the election both his and Kerry's various aptitude test scores from the military were made publc. People applied the method commonly used to extrapolate IQ from these numbers and found that both candidates were well over a standard deviation above the white average of 100. Bush actually had a few points on Kerry (the President was closer to two sigma from the mean). Not surprisingly, Kerry's handlers yanked the scores from his official website when people started talking about "the idiot Texan" being smarter than the self-styled New England sophisticate.

Always remember that Bush lost his first election in Texas because his opponent cast him as a Yale-educated egghead. The President got smart by getting dumb.

 

[Ivy Mike]

Its funny you should mention Falwell and morals. When I think Falwell, moral is not something that comes to mind. If you'd like to ask the SEC about it, I'm sure they'd be happy to tell you about the charges of fraud and deceit against Falwell's church.
Ask the people who lost all their money in those church construction bonds issued by falwell's church.

Falwell's attacks on public education and desire to remove secularism from schools doesn't endear him to me either. This is the definition of a fundamentalist and a very dangerous person.

Jerry Falwell wrote in America Can Be Saved that "I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them."

I'm not looking forward to living in a house-of-cards religious theocracy and don't want Abrahamic morality either. I'll set my own morals and ethics thank you.

This doesn't even touch on McCain, but I can't understand why people are so against him. After 8 years of Neocon rule, I'd think a little socialism would help get us back to a bit more centered state of the union. If our government is moving towards an authoritarian state, at least make sure its fairly centrist instead of fascist or socialist.

 

[Eleven Mike]

It strikes me as profoundly hypocritical that the same people attacking ismalic fundamentalism abroad are so very comfortable with christian fundamentalism at home. Add to that garbage like "intelligent design" and irrational restrictions on stem cell research and you have people that are pulling us back into the 19th c. rather than helping us prosper in the 21st.

If Islamic fundamentalism and Christian fundamentalism were similar, that would be hypocritical, but they're quite different. Doesn't mean Falwell is right - just means you're wrong on that point. It is true, however, that religious conservatives are more concerned with morality than prosperity. I hope you are too. But, if you think the future should include killing people to cure Grandpa, and government restrictions against certain religious or scientific ideas (like intelligent design), then I would say you don't want either.

Yeah. He is always speaking out in favor of reforms that would stop porkbarrel spending and Abramoff-style influence peddling by politicians. That's Falwell, standing up for integrity in America!

When, exactly, did "morals" begin to mean only sex and abortion?

So, has he spoken out against such reforms, or did you want him to get more invovled in politics than he is already? And would you support anything that Falwell also supported? Do you pay enough attention to the man to actually know what he is saying? And if he's talking about "sex and abortion" more than other items, it's probably because there is disagreement about what is moral in these areas. But there's no National Pork-barrel Rights Action League.

This is the definition of a fundamentalist and a very dangerous person.

I'm sure I'd disagree with Falwell on a lot of things (and I'm a very conservative Christian), but people like him have got to be pretty low on the list of dangers we face.

"I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them."

Didn't know he was a libertarian.

After 8 years of Neocon rule, I'd think a little socialism would help get us back to a bit more centered state of the union. If our government is moving towards an authoritarian state, at least make sure its fairly centrist instead of fascist or socialist.

"Neocon," "fascist" and "authoritarian;" just call 'em Nazis and get it over with.

So you think the Bush Administration is really dismantling the socialism extant in our country? I wish. Oh, wait, you think the co-sponsor of McCain-Feingold would help us keep our "authoritarian state," in check. Right.

 

[Camp David]

Falwell's attacks on public education and desire to remove secularism from schools doesn't endear him to me either.

How do you "remove secularism"? Please explain?

Anyone that ran on a campaign to bring morality to public education would get my vote.... if that meant teaching religion in school so much the better... what American public schools need is less not more seculaism in my opinion... perhaps morality might rank higher than condom use for schools if Falwell and/or McCain had a chance to be heard...

 

[grampster]

Maybe if we actually taught history and civics in our .gov schools anymore, various faiths, morals, independent thought, as well as the dynamic of trying to govern a country that tried to be neutral on everything could obviously take their places within that dynamic and kids could really learn about their roots. (As opposed to the warped fantasy of maniupulated history and that socialism is the proper way to govern ) Perhaps then they'd be better prepared to make their own decisions rather than being nudged toward buying into other's opinions.

 

[GoRon]

This doesn't even touch on McCain, but I can't understand why people are so against him. After 8 years of Neocon rule, I'd think a little socialism would help get us back to a bit more centered state of the union. If our government is moving towards an authoritarian state, at least make sure its fairly centrist instead of fascist or socialist.

This is what our taxpayer dollars funded education system gets us. There is so much wrong with your whole post I don't know where I could even to begin to unravel the misconceptions and errors contained therein.