Why I support McCain
I have a McCain sticker on the back of my SUV and it has led to several of my conservative friends asking me why and expressing concern about whether Senator McCain is truly a conservative. There are two main reasons why I am supporting Senator McCain. First, I think he is the best candidate to defend us from those external forces that would do my family and my country harm. This paragraph from a National Review editorial sums up the second reason why I am supporting Senator McCain:
The future direction of the Supreme Court is very much at stake in this November’s presidential election. The two or three justices most likely to depart the Court over the next four years — Justice Stevens, Justice Ginsburg, and possibly Justice Souter — are liberal judicial activists who routinely read their own policy preferences into the Constitution and who selectively regard their own favored precedents as sacrosanct. If a President Obama or a President Clinton names their successors, the slender operating majority on the Court for liberal activist results on most contentious political issues is likely to be preserved for at least another generation.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:36 am
How dare you drive an SUV!!!
May 7th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Feddie you are absolutely correct. McCain is not a conservative icon, but he leans and tends to vote conservative. That is huge. Obama is a liberal who votes and acts liberal. On every issue.
Now Mark Levin says he does not trust McCain. Fair enough, I think eight years of George Bush reminds us of that. But to say I will not vote or support Obama? That is nuts.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Nice one Graham!
May 7th, 2008 at 10:13 am
FYI, Joe, Feddie didn’t write this one (unless he has a new blog handle).
But I agree, nonetheless. These are the main reasons to vote for McCain. I also feel he is not as non-conservative as he is made out to be, though I have strongly disagreed with him on some key issues. Generally speaking, where he has erred he has not done so out of a betrayal of conservative principles. Even his opposition to the initial tax cuts were based on his disapproval of the lack of concurrent spending cuts - and he was kind of right about that. Campaign finance reform is another matter.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:44 am
I have many issues with the man, but ESCR is the biggest impediment against my voting for McCain. It is intrinsically evil, inconsistent with McCain’s professed support for the right to life, and, from a fiscal perspective, cannot be justified as a government expenditure when other types of non-destructive research have proven more efficacious.
Until McCain completely backs off his support for ESCR, I’ll have a tough time voting for him.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I have my differences with McCain and he was not the candidate I supported in the primary, Fred Thompson was my man. However, McCain is strong on national defense and judges. Consequently, he has my vote. I know he is going to infuriate me a lot during his administration. However, I can’t stand by and watch the country handed over to a hard core leftist who would like to see this country turned into militarily weak “Democratic Socialist Republic.” My love of country outweighs my desire for an ideologically pure candidate. As Russell Kirk pointed out, “politics is the art of the possible.” It is not the art of the perfect.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I am not PG. He is his own man.
Excellent comment, Joel.
May 7th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
I’m not looking for “ideological purity”. If I were, I’d have been a Ron Paul supporter (which I was not).
But I try to be consistent in not voting for people who support things that are intrinsically evil, be they Democrats or Republicans. I guess I’m funny that way.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:37 am
I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with Republicans backing McCain because of the judicial appointments issue, if they would quit playing cutesy and admit that the man is not a conservative in any meaningful or practical sense of the word. That kind of agnosticism in the face of overwhelming evidence just undermines the believability of all those “nose-holding” caveats. If you can’t admit that the man is not only not a conservative, but actually despises any meaningful conservatism, then you’re not dealing forthrightly with the scale and seriousness of the compromise you’re making.