In a recent article on Politico Alex Isenstadt reveals that John McCain is going around the country promoting candidates and trying to shape the field of GOP hopefuls for the 2010 election in his moderate conservative model. Clearly the GOP is ripe for change and there is a great push from the grassroots, but where John McCain got the idea that he should guide that change or that he even retains any political relevancy is absolutely mystifying.
As a leader McCain has a legacy of having doubled back on virtually every admirable position he ever held, running a truly incompetent presidential campaign and losing one of the most humiliating defeats the GOP has suffered since World War Two. His current political philosophy appears to be one of tolerating excessive spending and pandering to the religious right, pretty much the same policy as George W. Bush which got us into the mess we are currently in and paved the way for the extreme left to take the White House, Senate and House. When this is what he has to offer, why would anyone listen to him.
Isenstadt pegs the answer pretty well. It's money. McCain is tied in to the corporate donors and wealthy country club Republicans who are the last of the old guard. They don't see him as threatening the way they see rogues like Palin and the rising grassroots elements in the party. McCain is safe and predictable and can be counted on, and when all you want is influence with a party desperate for power, you'll pay for that. So McCain can raise milliions for his hand-picked candidates and give them a financial advantage to offset their ideological bankruptcy.
To me it seems like those donors are throwing good money after bad. McCain sure didn't give them value for their investment in his campaign last year, and though he may have an easier job delivering results next year, those results are unlikely to really strengthen the party. Now don't misread me. I'd rather have McCain's kind of candidates in office than Democrats, but they will be weaker candidates than those who are rising fromt he grassroots with youth and enthusiasm and a dedication to real Republican principles of smaller government and individual liberty. If we get a mix of the two types of candidates elected that's not so bad. But if McCain's hacks start squeezing out better candidates in important races that's going to hurt the party in the long run.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Arch Conservative
McCain sucks. There's really no better way to put it.
I remember his mother saying during the campaign that GOP voters would just have to hold their noses and vote for him.
Well guess what Johnny boy.........I didn't vote for you. I voted for Chuck Baldwin. How you like them apples? Now go sit in the corner and shut the fuck up!
2 - Arch Conservative
Oh and while we're on the subject of who the GOP should and shouldn't be listening to in the future........
Sarah Palin would be very useful for some things a man needs but I aint talkin' bout running for office if you get the drift.
Mike Huckabee should stay out of the way and do something he'd be better qualified for like doing subway commercials with Jared, telling everyone how he lost over 100 pounds.
Rudy who? Fred who?
Bobby Jindal? Not after that response speech he gave after the state of the union address.
My money is on Romney, Pawlenty or some as of now unknown but worthwhile candidate.
If we get stuck with another incompetent jackass like McCain again I will be voting Constitution party again.
3 - Dave Nalle
Romney is a taller, younger McCain. Right now Pawlenty may be our only hope for 2012.
But even McCain isn't enough to justify voting for a nut like Baldwin.
Dave
4 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
McCain is not someone Republicans who want a great future for their party should be listening to. He's like a noisome ghost who needs to be exorcised, embodying all the mistakes which need to be undone and all the bad ideas which need to be cast aside.
So far John McCain was the only Republican candidate I saw with the intestinal fortitude - the honor! - to call out his own supporters who were going way too far in their hatred of Obama, and to tell them that they were wrong. Palin sure didn't. Neither did Romney/Giuliani/Pawlenty/Huckabee.
When he did speak out, McCain followed the Navy core values - honor, courage, commitment. I know that sounds corny and quixotic to many of you, but it means something to senior and retired military. By refusing to follow McCain's example, by either refusing to speak up against their own for what was right, the Republican party has forgotten honor and courage. They have only commitment - the wrong commitment that leads them to do such things as rooting against America being awarded the Olympic games just because they don't like Obama...and cheering when Rio de Janiero was chosen over Chicago. Their hatred of President Obama was - is - greater than their love of America.
Honor. Courage. So long as you support and elect those who don't show these traits, the lack of those traits apply to the party as a whole.
5 - Ruvy
Dogs return to their vomit? Is that the correct phrase? If you guys are so stupid as to return to that idiot, you deserve whatever vomitus you get....
6 - Dave Nalle
Glenn, I think you're seeing McCain through partisan glasses. He's hardly the model of honor and courage and steadfastness you think he is. He's a waffling old fool whose better intentions are constantly overriden by his desire to promote himself.
It's not that I don't want the party to live up to McCain's standards, I want the party to do a hell of a lot better.
Dave
7 - Stacy
It's almost like McCain is the old standby- the GOP feel like he embodies the best in a candidate- not sure why they think that given the last election, but who knows. I'm a Democrat but used to really respect McCain although I disagreed with him on a lot of things- watching him in the 2008 election though was painful- most moderates and independents I know were scratching their heads going "who is this guy?"
Of course, just as with the Dems, I am not sure how one really picks a candidate that is acceptable to both the base of the party yet still has the ability to pick off moderate voters from the other team.
Is Eric Cantor really a rising star with Presidential potential?
8 - Arch Conservative
Romney is a taller younger McCain?
At least when you ask Romney a question about the economy he doesn't get a look on his face like he's been staring directly into the sun for 3 hours.
It's time for the GOP to throw McCain under the bus and then back the bus up over and over again.
9 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
He's hardly the model of honor and courage and steadfastness you think he is. He's a waffling old fool whose better intentions are constantly overriden by his desire to promote himself.
I didn't say he was a model of steadfastness - I DID say he had shown honor by his actions.
Dave, do you remember when I complimented you and Clavos for your correction of the errors in my article? I called it 'professionalism' - but another word for it is 'honor'. One of the surest ways to identify honor is when someone helps his opponent or rebukes his friends - not out of mercenary desire, but out of the determination to do that which is right.
McCain showed honor. None of the other Republican candidates did so.
10 - Betsy Ross
I'm a 45 year Arizona resident, who lived in Arizona longer than Senator McCain, actually. And grew up there and Arizona politics is corrupt to its core. We even voted for a "clean elections" law which hasn't helped, and I am now in polical exile in another state after 45 years due to the civil unrest that is occurring there with Sheriff Joe and Phil Gordon playing political games on the border issue.
How you can call McCain a "moderate conservative" is beyond me, and it does appear that most in this country have no idea what a "conservative" actually is anymore. A true conservative is one who places the "intent" and the actually provisions of our Constitution, and its 'LEGALLY RATIFIED' amendments and measures them against the stated purpose and intent of the founders.
And recognizes that the words "federalist" and "anti-federalist" to describe those founders was given by historians, since no political parties were to be involved in our government whatsoever or their agendas. Since their oath of office is the Constitution, and not their "corporate" parties or platforms. The founders settled their differences on those separations of authority and power at the ratification, remember.
And Washington dedicated an entire speech, his farewell speech, and political parties and their dangers. Which has held to be true across the board and why we now have a misrepresentative government at all levels at this point.
And you cannot have a "representative" government when those representatives have been illegally elected and were never duly elected at all. In order to be a representative government it was not written in stone because it was understood that candidates for federal and state office would not be allowed to be "sponsored" by or accept poltical monies or donations from anyone outside their legislative district.
Which means our government now at all levels is not a duly elected one, nor "legal" in any respect under the law of the land, the U.S. Constitution.
And the British bought the bank (the Federal Reserve) back in 1913 and have thus been dictating our foreign and domestic economic policies ever since for Britain's gain most of all under that Balfour Doctrine that created the Nation of Israel back prior to World War I (not World War II, do the research and look up that unholy alliance between the Rothchild banking empire and Lord Balfour post World War I).
So those that continue giving either of these parties relevance are now becoming laughable. And about 75 years behind the program in this "shadow" government we now have.
And McCain is a global socialist, just as the Bushs before him, and Obama who work for the Rothchild's and for their own wealth and power trips at the expense of the American people.
Lord Rothchild even had a fundraiser for McCain during tha election cycle, he is such a British subject.
And he who prints the money, rules the country. And the British won back this country without firing a shot doing from the inside what they weren't able to do from without.
Why do you think our legislation now is mirroring Canada's and their monarchial and socialistic structure more and more?
Britain has never ceased its quest for power and dominance over the world, and the Queen and Parliment don't run that country either.
The Rothchild's do, as they do every country by six through their central banks.
And those that aren't in their dominion, are now "enemies" of the U.S., mostly Muslim, because the Muslim's as the Christians have prohibitions against the payment of usury, or excessive interest (over 10%, God's first fruits amount) on debt. Although few pastors in this country teach that anymore, except those that the baby boomer's were schooled by since that has also progressively been taken out of U.S. divinity school educations.
And the Catholic Church also has stopped teaching it also for their own "corporate" welfare most of all.
So until those Muslim countries that aren't in the central bank fold get in line, we will continue to be at war.
Since it is war, not peace, that puts us further into servitude to those British bankers and their control over this country.
And the Rothchild's, after fighting for it since Napoleon's Waterloo, are not about to give that up without a fight.
Two presidents tried, and both died.
And this is "fact" not "conspiracy theory," so you might want to do the research yourself.
11 - Betsy Ross
By the way, I am an ex-paralegal that worked for the top corporate lawyer in the country (John Tate, Wal-Mart stores - look up the book excerpt online to "In Sam We Trust" on John and Sam's partnership to make Wal-Mart what it is), not a conspiracy theorist.
And most of this information has been known for decades.
And due to our now "privatized" public utility companies under the NeoCons and Democrats (Global Socialists, actually) progressively, Palo Verde in Arizona is partially owned by the British banking Rothchild's also, and other foreign investors. Makes you feel pretty secure, huh? That foreign countries and governments now own stock in one of our nuclear power plants?
And also the British are now buying up all the homes in New Orleans French Quarter post Katrina that are listed by Southeby's. And how DO you think Jindal (whose parents were Indian, British subjects, immigrants rose to such high office so quickly also in that state?
The British bankers fund these candidates careers, after all. The banks and their corporate lawyers that are also the heads of most of these PAC organizations that are formenting their agendas, such as the ACLU. Since the Rothchild's are of the zionist Jewish faith, and value Israel as a real estate parcel most of all (highest tourism by all three faiths, after all).
So I hope you people start waking up soon.
We are under British rule, and have been since 1913 progressively. And the Rockefellar's are distant relatives of the Rothchild's, and you know how those British are about their geneology and nobility ties and roots.
So wake the heck up.
12 - Dave Nalle
Ok, I'm going to stick with my policy of ignoring the paranoid ranting and go back to Glenn's halfway sensible comment.
Dave, do you remember when I complimented you and Clavos for your correction of the errors in my article? I called it 'professionalism' - but another word for it is 'honor'. One of the surest ways to identify honor is when someone helps his opponent or rebukes his friends - not out of mercenary desire, but out of the determination to do that which is right.
McCain showed honor. None of the other Republican candidates did so.
Ok, I'll acknowledge that McCain is honorable, but that's not enough to lead a party with the problems the GOP has. Might as well bring back Bob Dole. He was honorable too. Ron Paul is honorable too. Should we put him in command?
What McCain lacks is any kind of vision or plan to make the party better than it has been or institute meaningful reform. He's relying on the same old tactics and alliances which have created the current mess, and just like Obama spending more to get us out of debt, it's just not going to work.
Dave
13 - Arch Conservative
McCain/Obama...what's the diff?
14 - Ruvy
Britain's gain most of all under that Balfour Doctrine that created the Nation of Israel back prior to World War I (not World War II, do the research and look up that unholy alliance between the Rothchild banking empire and Lord Balfour post World War I).
------------------------------------------
Since the Rothchild's are of the zionist Jewish faith, and value Israel as a real estate parcel most of all (highest tourism by all three faiths, after all).
Heavens to Betsy!!
Well, at least now we know which flag-waving "American" will be leading Jews off to all those dsetention camps built in the last 35 years.
Will it be gas this time, dear? Or are you just going to slaughter the Lambs? I've never seen photos of the insides of those detention camps. Do they have crucifixes set up there, too, Betsy? Gosh, it's been a while since one of ours got nailed to one of those things....
Love and kisses from Israel
15 - Arch Conservative
"We are under British rule, and have been since 1913 progressively. "
If that were true wouldn't Monty Python and Benny Hill be much more popular here in America than they currently are?
I'm sorry Betsy but your theory just doesn't stand up.
16 - former republican voter
until republicans realise there are poor people that need things other than tax cuts for the rich an some of the southern leaders find out the civil war is over an so many right wing wacos quit lying to the people then you may get the party back on track
17 - Glenn Contrarian
Ruvy -
An honest question - is 'Zionist' used as an insult? I hear Israelis (but not Jews in general) referred to this way, and almost never in respectful terms. I had thought it was in reference to your government or possibly to the more orthodox among you, but please let me know - because I don't want to be inadvertently insulting anyone.
Thanks -
Glenn
18 - Glenn Contrarian
Arch!
Capital idea! Monty Python takes over the judicial branch, Benny Hill should be in charge of equal opportunity for women...John Cleese for president, and the Second Amendment would include rights to vorpal bunnies and holy hand grenades!
There's gotta be a good movie in there somewhere....
19 - Glenn Contrarian
Dave -
Ok, I'll acknowledge that McCain is honorable, but that's not enough to lead a party with the problems the GOP has. Might as well bring back Bob Dole. He was honorable too. Ron Paul is honorable too. Should we put him in command?
Dave, I'm not saying that honor is the only prerequisite...but it should be A prerequisite. If you'll check, all the great presidents had it - including Reagan (and you know my high opinion of him). Honor doesn't mean they'll be great presidents either - see Ford and Carter (and I've always thought well of Ford).
Honor doesn't mean they'll make the right decisions - after all, Nixon had no honor, but he did very well with China. Having a sense of honor only ensures that the president will TRY to make decisions for the right reasons, and that base malice is unlikely to play a part in those decisions.
In case you're wondering, I felt that both Hillary and Obama have honor - but Bill did not. I believe Truman was honorable and Eisenhower certainly had honor in spades, and despite his faults JFK (and Bobby) had it at least to some extent. I'm not sure if LBJ did...I could argue both sides - you know how those Texans are.
But the point is that without a proper sense of honor, a president cannot and will not be truly great.
If you want the Republican party to return to power over the long term, two things are required: first, adjusting your message and party psychology for demographic changes (IOW zero tolerance for racism and homophobia), and second, emphasize the need for honor among your candidates. Do those two things and the Republican party will avoid marginalization.
What McCain lacks is any kind of vision or plan to make the party better than it has been or institute meaningful reform. He's relying on the same old tactics and alliances which have created the current mess, and just like Obama spending more to get us out of debt, it's just not going to work.
Other than Romney, what Republican has any idea other than tax cuts? Obama, at least, is following the pattern of successful recoveries from recessions past (and according to most economists, it's working). The cure doesn't always leave the patient happy - but it does keep the patient alive.
But back to Romney, McCain, et al. The Republicans need to realize that to most of the American populace, 'tax cuts' are pretty nebulous and will not be seen as something tangible that will help them in the challenges of day-to-day life.
That's why the apparent mantra of 'tax cuts are the cure for all that ails you' doesn't resonate with the populace...but 'health care for all' does.
20 - STM
"We are under British rule, and have been since 1913 progressively."
What a load of bollocks. It's the other way round, but your dates are out.
As a citizen of an English-speaking democracy, I can tell you very positively: We've been under American "influence" since 1942 (Yep, you got it, that was about the time America really, finally, replaced Britain as the English-speaking superpower on the world stage).
That's every kind of influence BTW. Hollywood and American TV for starters and I grew up watching shows like Leave it to Beaver, Flipper, Batman, Sgt Bilko, etc etc. Oh, let's not forget The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, and later just about every US sitcom going including Seinfeld.
Even the bigoted Archie Bunker and All In The Family (along with the British show it was based on, with the equally bigoted Alf Garnett in 'Til Death us Do Part). Yes, and silly Benny Hill and the mad Monty Python mob. We still drink in pubs but Pizza Hut, Domino's, McDonald's, Burger King, etc, are on every second corner.
These days, every second or third show on TV is American. To say that our culture is "influenced" by America would be a gross understatement. The British sometimes refer to themselves as the 51st state, but it's popular in this neck of the woods to describe ourselves as that too.
I don't know your background but if you've ever lived outside America for any length of time in any of the other anglo countries, how can you make that kind of statement??
The way it looks from our end is that the US is calling ALL the shots, not Britain or the remnants of its empire.
It's just so ridiculous.
However, having that American cultural mix and American influence isn't a bad thing.
None of the rest of us out here in the anglosphere are complaining too hard beyond wishing you'd be a little less heavy handed sometimes.
Only sometimes though.
However, we are also aware that the US is a hot-bed of crazy thinking populated by too many folks with a wire loose between their brains and their mouths.
Still, you can't have everything though, can you???
21 - Ruvy
Glen,
...is 'Zionist' used as an insult? I hear Israelis (but not Jews in general) referred to this way, and almost never in respectful terms...
Ah, it's always a pleasure to deliver my "Zionist" lecture. So, pour yourself a cup of coffee and adjust your glasses.
The idea of Jews returning to Israel is mentioned throughout the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the Qur'an. But Jews never really cottoned onto the idea until the early 1800's, when a Serbian rabbi, Alkalai, z"l, talked about Jews petitioning the Sultan to allow for a large resettlement of Jews in Israel. At the time, Serbia was part of the Ottoman Empire. In the mid 1800's a man named Moshe Hess wrote a pamphlet advocating the idea that Jews "auto-emancipate" themselves from Jew-hatred by returning home to the Land of Israel. Neither of these men used the term "Zionism".
"Zionism" was the term given by English Calvinists some 300 years ago to the theme of return to Israel that one sees in the books of Prophecy in our Bible. Jews only learned about it when they assimilated enough into English society to learn about the ideas of English Calvinists. This was in the late 1800's.
In 1894, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus was expelled from the French army for espionage, and a Hungarian Jew covering the story for an Austrian paper was so shocked at seeing Frenchmen screaming, "Down with the Jews!" that he filed his report, took some time off and wrote a book called "Der Judenstadt" - the Jewish State. Theodore Herzl, the thoroughly assimilated Austrian Jew who knew nothing about his faith, understood clearly that Jews neeeded to flee the allegedly "civilized" European nations before the Jew-hating savages of Europe murdered off the Jewish population. Calling on his English Jewish friends, he ran into the term "Zionism" and used it for the first time in a non-religious sense.
The World Zionist Organization set itself to bring Jews to the Land of Israel with the plain intent of creating a Jewish State here. They succeeded in 1948 when the leaders of 600,000 Jews declared a Jewish State, to be known as Israel, and fought for the right to survive.
In other words, the State of Israel is the child of the Zionist Movement founded by Theodore Herzl.
To fast forward to today, "Zionist" is used by Arabs (and their many many running dogs) who hate us as a code word to mean "kike", the exact same way "jig" used to be a code word to mean "nigger" (I remember the Democratic slate in New York State one year being characterized by some as "three "j's" and a "jig" - three Jews and a black).
You weren't trying to be offensive in your comments. But "Heavens to Betsy" was. I see she hasn't been back ( - yet). [Edited]
22 - Glenn Contrarian
Ruvy -
Thank you very much - I really do appreciate someone helping to diminish my ignorance. So as I understand it, then, 'Zionism' actually refers to those who feel the drive or the need to return to Israel and to make their stand there...and it does not necessarily refer to only Jews, though that is how it is now understood by much of the world.
And I gather I am at least partially correct that it is now used as an insult by many anti-Semites.
You and I disagree on many, many things of course, but I do appreciate the opportunity to learn about you and your people.
The mental void of ignorance is dangerous only when one does not strive to fill (or does not even see the necessity of filling) that void with knowledge with no regard as to how that knowledge may affect one's understanding of the world.
Again, thanks.
23 - Ruvy
You and I disagree on many, many things of course, but I do appreciate the opportunity to learn about you and your people.
Glenn,
I feel similarly about you. But truth be told, I was an American, knew and still know quite a number of southerners (one fellow I know in the village has ancestors who fought in the American revolution and the others who fought for the Confederacy. When he talks about his roots in the States, or sings "My Country 'Tis of Thee", he means it far more than this son of an immigrant from Poland ever could).
So the questions are far harder for me to ask. Your article on racism or things going on the the Phillipines are very informative for a guy who does not know what questions to ask....
24 - Glenn Contrarian
Ruvy -
I've got ancestors who fought on the side of the Confederacy - in fact, there's a cemetery not five miles from my home in MS where I have direct ancestors buried back from before the Civil War.
Be that as it may, personally, I would think that your sense of patriotism for Israel is greater - not only because of the holocaust but because of all the persecution i.e. the ghettos (which started in Rome), the Inquisition, the Pale...
...when I post as I do concerning Israel and the Jews, my words are meant for peace, that Israel may be a viable nation even centuries from now. War is sometimes necessary...but beginning in the 20th century, the aggressor lost almost every time.
25 - Ruvy
Most American Jews don't give a damn about Israel. It's sickening to realize that most of my own relatives might care about me, but would prefer that I not live in such a "problematic" place....