Conservatives: Beware of McCain Regression Syndrome
The question isn’t why Sarah Palin is helping John McCain. The question is: What are you doing to stop him from cementing his Big Government Republican legacy?
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Conservatives: Beware of McCain Regression Syndrome
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
Pay attention: In the afterglow of the Massachusetts Miracle, there are flickers of peril for The Right. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but like Paul Revere’s midnight-message, consider this warning “a cry of defiance, and not of fear.” Conservatives have worked hard over the past year to rebuild after Big Government Republican John McCain’s defeat. But McCain isn’t going gently into that good night.
Red Flag Number One: A reader from Arizona informed me the day after the Bay State Bombshell that he had received a robo-call from Massachusetts GOP Sen.-elect Scott Brown. “He basically wanted me to vote for John McCain in November,” the reader said in his description of the automated campaign call supporting the four-term Sen. McCain’s re-election bid. “No wonder [Brown] said he hadn’t had any sleep…he was busy recording phone messages!”
Red Flag Number Two: Also in the wake of the Massachusetts special election, the nation’s most popular conservative political figure, Sarah Palin, announced she would be campaigning for her former running mate in Arizona in March. Palin told Facebook followers that she’s going to “ride the tide with commonsense candidates” and help “heroes and statesmen” like McCain. Facing mounting conservative opposition in his home state and polls showing him virtually tied with possible GOP challenger and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, McCain welcomed the boost: “Sarah energized our nation and remains a leading voice in the Republican Party.”
Savor the irony: After a career spent bashing the right flank of the party, Sen. McCain is now clinging to its coattails to save his incumbent hide.
And pay attention to the hidden, more troubling irony: While he runs to the right to protect his seat, McCain’s political machine is working across the country to install liberal and establishment Republicans to secure his legacy.
In Florida, McCain’s Country First Political Action Committee is supporting the Senate bid of fellow illegal alien amnesty supporter and global warming alarmist, GOP Gov. Charlie Crist, whose crucial 2008 primary endorsement rescued McCain from disaster. Grass-roots conservatives support former GOP statehouse leader Marco Rubio – who is hitting Crist hard for lying to voters about his embrace of President Obama’s pork-laden, fraud-ridden stimulus package.
In Colorado, McCain and his meddlers infuriated the state party by anointing former lieutenant governor Jane Norton to challenge endangered Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet. She’s a milquetoast public official who has served on a lot of task forces and GOP clubs – and who happens to be the sister-in-law of big Beltway insider Charlie Black. An estimated 40 percent of her coffers are filled with out-of-state money (and much of that is flowing from the Beltway).
The mini-McCain of Colorado claims to oppose “special interests,” but has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from D.C. lobbyists at McCain’s behest – stifling the candidacy of strong conservative rivals led by grass-roots-supported Weld County District Attorney Ken Buck, an amnesty opponent whose aggressive illegal immigration prosecutions have earned him the rage of the far Left and big business Right. A recent Rasmussen poll showed Buck and another GOP candidate Tom Wiens beating Bennet – despite the huge cash and crony advantage of front-runner and blank-slate Jane.
In California, McCain’s PAC supports former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina – a celebrity name with deep pockets of her own, massive media exposure, and a checkered business record. Fiorina served as the economic adviser to McCain, who supported the $700 billion TARP bailout, the $25 billion auto bailout, a $300 billion mortgage bailout, and the first $85 billion AIG bailout. As GOP rival and grass-roots-supported Chuck DeVore’s camp notes, Fiorina has also vacillated publicly over the Obama stimulus. With taxpayer “friends” like this, who needs Democrats?
With all due respect to McCain’s past noble war service, it’s time to head to the pasture. As the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, he was wrong on the constitutionality of the free-speech-stifling McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulations. He was wrong to side with the junk-science global warming activists in pushing onerous carbon caps on America. He was on the wrong side of every Chicken Little-driven bailout. He was wrong in opposing enhanced CIA interrogation methods that have saved countless American lives and averted jihadi plots. And he was spectacularly wrong in teaming with the open-borders lobby to push a dangerous illegal alien amnesty.
Tea Party activists are rightly outraged by Sarah Palin’s decision to campaign for McCain, whose entrenched incumbency and progressive views are anathema to the movement. At least she has an excuse: She’s caught between a loyalty rock and a partisan hard place. The conservative base has no such obligations – and it is imperative that they get in the game (as they did in Massachusetts) before it’s too late. The movement to restore limited government in Washington has come too far, against all odds, to succumb to McCain Regression Syndrome now.
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I have always been amazed that people can’t see through the leftist’s tactics of campaigning to the right! Every politician knows that you have to campaign as a right-wing/moderate to get elected. Yet, as soon as they are in office, they move over to the left and the heck with the voters. How can they continually get away with that, election after election? How stupid are the people in this country? Politician say whatever you want to hear. They know this is a right/moderate country!! Why don’t the rest of the people get that? You should not listen to their rhetoric…listen to their record!! What have they done? Do you agree with their record? If not, don’t get sucked into their fancy speeches. Obama is the perfect example of what I am saying. If the American People had actually checked into his background, they would have known that everything he said on the campaign trail was in contradiction to his past record, his associations, his upbringing and his written words!! Even as recently as yesterday, Obama continued to give flowery speeches of absolutely NO substance. Look at their record!
Except, Obama made it perfectly clear that he wanted to re-distribute wealth, raise taxes, institute cap and tax some more, and go after private enterprise. And yet he won. He did not campaign from the center left. He screamed far left every time he opened his mouth without his teleprompter. The public loved it. How does that figure into your theory of running from the left center?
Obama said a lot of things that were very leftist, but the MSM glossed over it. This clean articulate black man was groomed to become the first Black POTUS, and everyone jumped on the bandwagon. That, and an amazing brainwashing campaign, got him elected. It was an anomoly. I dont’ think this could happen again…as long as we stay awake. We now know their tricks and I don’t believe they will work again. The MASSIVE coverups of his past, and the MASSIVE campaigning, along with branding, an Obama “logo”, pictures of him with halos behind his head, etc. This was an incredible undertaking and, God willing, we will not see the likes of it again!
Also, those of us who saw through his fancy words voted for someone else. Unfortunately, we were outnumbered by those who were convinced they were getting a new house and a car from Obama’s stash.
The purpose of ILLEGAL ALIEN AMNESTY is to give the Democrats an overwhelming new voting block. This will forever destroy the Republican party and Conservative movement. John McCain supports ILLEGAL ALIEN AMNESTY. I want John McCain sitting in a retirement home instead of the north wing of the Capitol. Wait, McCain can sit in a San Francisco gay bar with wife Cindy and daughter Meghan instead of the Capitol. That’s where they feel most comfortable and useful.
Quite the contrary, the things he said on the campaign trail were perfectly in line with the things he did in his first year.
The problem was that no one bothered to listen.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
And I get a kick out of this as well.
Obama wasn’t the first black president any more than Sotomayor was the first hispanic Supreme Court justice.
Of course, libs don’t let little trivial things like facts get in the way of things.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
His comrade Nancy Pelosi can be his date. Cindy and Meghan probably wouldn’t be seen in public with him socially!
HAHAHA
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
McCain should have been left in Vietnam–where he and Kerry worked together to abandon the MIA efforts in order to make nice with the Rouge. Now our “Sarah Rogue” seems to have a soft spot for the Rouge too. She owes that creep NOTHING! She throws away her rock star status if she tries to defeat the great JD Hayworth for this sack of excrement.
JD has a good chance of beating McCain. It will not be pretty. Will be framed in all sorts of ways making JD look bad. But what I sense with my Republican ties here in AZ is IF we have a real conservative to vote for, McCain is gone.
RE: JD Hayworth…If we could nationally put in Scott Brown in Massachusetts, we can help this JD Hayworth overcome McCain’s financial advantage “money-bomb”-wise. The rest will be up to Hayworth.
You will see McCain’s connections with folks like La Raza come to the forefront. JD Hayworth lost the last election as a Representative due to his clear stance on border control. There is a large battle going on internally in AZ that gets little attention nationally regarding immigration. Right now Sheriff Arpio is in the cross hairs of the federal government likes of our former govenor Napalitano.
Border control/immigration will be a huge piece of the next election cycle here in AZ.
It is likely to get very nasty.
We must elect people willing to enforce the laws, not change them to suit the lawbreakers. The fate of our nation hangs in the balance if we fail to elect people who will stand with the citizens. McCain has sided against us many times before. Let’s send him packing.
“We must elect people willing to enforce the laws, not change them to suit the lawbreakers.”
Sheriff Arpio in trouble for doing that very thing.
BAD MOVE, SARAH.
THIS WILL COST YOU, BIGTIME!
How can Sarah pay lip service to the Tea Party movement, pocket $100,000 (yes, she said it’s for candidates, but after it went public) for an over-priced exclusive dinner party for self-appointed “Tea Party Elites”, and then campaign for McCain? What kind of political instincts are those?
She cannot have it both ways. I predict this is the beginning of the end for Sarah. I have been fervently in her corner but the movement is much, much bigger than her, if she is playing both sides out of convenience and a lack of fortitude.
Let the good times roll.
It’s a shame that GOP voters looked past Tancredo in the last primary. Now he’s retired from public service, and that’s a real shame. He was great at getting under Bush’s skin, no less. A real statesman.
*McCain will continue to be an advocacy pimp for illegal immigration amnesty; If Sarah Palin campaigns for him, you know what that makes her, right?; She will then become water over the dam, just like Huckabee and Romney; I’ll be sending some coin to J.D. Hayworth once he’s officially in the race; We must continue to target all Dems and all RINO’s for removal from office; McCain tops the list!
We have got to stop eating our young. Palin is a key part of why Scott Brown won. She was and is one of the inspiration behind the tea party movement. I am sure that she deserves to be chided for supporting McCain, but once she has fulfilled what she believes is her obligation to a friend who created a tremendous opportunity for her, she will be free of obligations to anyone in the Republican Party. Ultimately, our message has got to be positive, and Palin is more than a net positive – and that is why the Democrats hate her so.
Sarah Palin has chosen her position.
I will not support anyone unwilling to uphold the laws. Period.
Amnesty is national suicide.
.
Palin is in over her head if she thinks McCain is her friend. He is using her and she has nothing to gain from the exchange. Sarah, run…run away from McCain!
Palin should be savvy enough by now. If she can’t see McCain is a thorn in the side to true conservatives and wants to actively support him, then I say Bye, Bye. Posters here aren’t politicians and they can see McLame for what he is. If Sarah can’t, that says it all. This is not eating our young. I e-mailed her PAC and said this is a big mistake, as have many others. She can sink or swim now. Well have to wait and see. I am not impressed with her same ole same ole on Fox news.
I disagree.
Scott Brown won because he campaigned on traditional conservative issues and he rejected Barry Soetoro’s attempt to turn this country into a New World Order.(via Socialized medicine, and cap and trade)
This country by and large is conservative and any candidate that can articulate their conservative principles based on our Constitution will have a good chance of winning.
Sarah Palin did not start the Tea Party movement, it was started by the grass roots outrage with Barry Soetoro aka Obama.
If we the people, continue to demand that our politicians govern by the constitution and reject socialism we will begin to take our country back from the neglect of the last 40 years of liberalism.
If she joins CFR McCain, she is done as far as this Tea Party movement is concerned
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4aQCiRjvZY
tbear44–I have seen this, but it still is funny as hell. Everything Odumbo touches turns to crap. Lol. Almost 2 million hits.
I’m guessing Brown would have lost if Palin had openly campaigned for him in Massachusetts.
I’ll be donating money to the J.D. Hayworth campaign.
I like Sarah, but hanging out with McCain is going to hurt her electability.
McCain made it clear in 2000 that he thinks we, the right flank of the party, are “Agents of Intolerance”. Remember?
Maybe we should act like McCain expects us to act, and actually be intolerant…
… of HIM!
There were many men who served nobly and risked or gave their lives fighting the fire on the USS Forrestal. McCain wasn’t one of them.
McCain may or may not have been responsible for what started the fire, but he certainly did not help fight it once it started. Was that “noble service”?
—
After the wary, what was noble about the way that John Kerry and John McCain treated the POW/MIA families?
For Palin to set her principles aside to endorse him smacks of politics-as-usual; payback. She indicated that she gave him her word and that she keeps her word. Okay, but why would anyone promise to do that in the first place? Judgment issues?
If Palin wants to be an insider, then I don’t want her to represent me. She is either incredibly naive or has already begun to compromise the importance of what is happening. Neither is good. McCain and others like him (Lindsay Graham) must go if we’re ever going to stop the downward spiral.
The idea that if someone beats McCain in the primaries, she will campaign vigorously for him/her is completely backwards. Support the best conservative candidate and if McCain wins the primary, hold your nose and support him. It’s amazing how poor her judgment is on this issue.
McCain isn’t going to change regardless and I can’t understand any scenario where a promise by her to support him makes sense.
I live in an area with a big Navy population, both active and retired. And I know three former POWS who were in captivity with John McCain. I am not close friends with any of the three former POWs but I do know them reasonably well. One of them told me a story about something John McCain did for him while they were both in captivity. It was an act of selflessness and devotion to fellow American POWs that all of us would honor. I like to think that I would do the same thing if I were in McCain’s predicament at the time. But like everyone else who hasn’t been there, I don’t know that I would. The former POW who told me about what McCain did for him reveres John McCain to this day. When former POWs vouch for a man’s honor and rectitude, that is good enough for me. I won’t relate what McCain did for the former POW that I know. That will remain private.
McCain has taken some dumb positions on a number of issues like immigration and campaign finance and other arcane inside the beltway issues.
But let’s keep in mind that John McCain is no wimp like John Kerry or Bill Clinton. It’s fine with me if people want to vote against McCain in the primary or general election. Nobody gets an automatic seat in the Senate. But in doing so, it is important to be respectful to McCain because like all of the men who fought and bled with him in the communist hellholes, he should get respect and honor for what he went through.
Should we be respectful when John McCain created legislation that STOPPED my 1st Amendment rights as a business owner to fight against Communist laws such as Cap and Trade that would have bankrupt me? Should we be respectful when John McCain promotes illegal alien amnesty while millions of quality people around the world wait in line LEGALLY? Millions of illegals who have NO respect or understanding of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights? Should we be respectful when John McCain hired hispanic racist Juan Hernandez as his illegal alien outreach director? Be respectful when he refused to criticize Obama while the President promoted a Communist/Socialist agenda. Be respectful when McCain supported my $70 BILLION TAX DOLLARS to AIG which was funneled to other foreign entities… which we just found out was intentionally hidden as a secret? To this day we have Democrats, Independents and other UNIFORMED voters who have no idea what John McCain is doing to our country with his agenda. You’re damn right I’ll criticize him all the way to rubbing him into the ground. He wants the same treatment of me. I served 6 years in the Army. Where is my respect as a private citizen while this politician gets a free pass?