If McCain is the Republican Nominee I'm voting Democrat

No doubt. Everytime he flies in a helicopter he has to drain his left ear because of the beatings he took.

 

Just that, in the mid-seventies, McCain looked younger than Ron Paul.



It would be logical to say that McCain horrendous experience in Vietnam makes him look older than Ron Paul now, but the photo evidence from then doesn't agree.

 

One of Ron Paul's favorite activities is cycling, my friend. Do you think McCain is able to ride bikes? Also, Paul probably has slept a lot easier than McCain for the past 35 years or so, my friend.

 

I'm starting to agree.

 

Point taken. I guess I didn't know how much he still suffered physically from his torture. No matter what I think of him now, he is a hero.

 

Not likely. Consevatives see McCain as Clinton Light. He's going to get slaughtered in the election.

 

Romney may be winding down his campaign effort. After spending like a drunken sailor to saturate Florida, he's pulling back. Other items are mentioned here that make it seem like he realizes it's over in a few days.

http://www.blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/01/31/cracks-in-the-romney-facade.aspx

Posted Thursday, January 31, 2008 12:19
Cracks in the Romney Facade
Editors

By Suzanne Smalley
There’s a new order inside the Mitt Romney campaign. The GOP candidate who has until now boasted the best ground organization in key battleground states, the biggest ad buys, the most efficient research and communications apparatus, and every other advantage money can buy suddenly appears rudderless and disengaged. Romney, who spent nearly $3 million on advertising in Florida in the past month alone (and more than $5 million in the state over the last year), has been a workhorse since his campaign for the presidency began. He has been far ahead of his rivals in both money spent and time dedicated on the stump. Yet even as his rivals’ makeshift campaigns have thrown together slapdash events (Mike Huckabee’s haircut press conference, anyone?), they have pulled off big wins with little money and even less structure.

Things are changing. At Wednesday night’s debate an uncharacteristically flustered Romney was caught off guard and seemed distracted at times, at one point denying one of his own positions on immigration policy (a debate moderator read a prior comment Romney had made on the issue to set him straight). Worse, Romney has reportedly chosen not to advertise in the more than 20 states set to vote in Tuesday’s critical round of Republican primaries. Romney communications director Matt Rhoades declined to comment on the campaign’s strategy in an interview after tonight’s debate, but he did not specifically deny a report by the Associated Press that asserted Romney has decided against going on air in the crucial Super Tuesday states. “We’re not gonna show our playbook,” Rhoades said. “He’s not gonna drop out. He’s very serious.” However, Rhoades did acknowledge that less than a week away from Super Tuesday voting, Romney is not yet on the air in any of the states that will likely determine his party’s nominee. Much of the money Romney has pumped into advertising in the past has been his own; during his concession speech in Florida last night, Romney joked with supporters that they were family, but should not “expect to be part of the inheritance. I’m not sure there’s going to be much left after this.”

Meanwhile, John McCain, Romney’s chief rival, received the endorsement of Rudy Giuliani Wednesday and is expected to win the endorsement of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the coming days. The bad news is piling up for Romney, and his game seems to be changing in response to it. On Monday, reporters traveling in the Romney bubble were warned they’d be opening their pocketbooks for a “fly-around” of California tomorrow. There was mention of a visit to Sacramento, which is nearly 400 miles north of Simi Valley, where Romney and the other candidates convened for Wednesday’s debate. Fly-arounds—campaign lingo for whirlwind days where candidates jet in and out of as many cities as possible—by definition entail visits to several far-flung media markets and are expensive because they require chartered private jets instead of buses. Now Romney’s schedule in California Thursday features just three stops—two at small Los Angeles area venues and one in San Diego. Tellingly, the travel will be by bus.

Notwithstanding their candidate’s mood, Romney’s advisers are still in the fight. They have taken to casting the race as one that will change the future of the Republican Party, and are sounding a drumbeat of alarm in an attempt to drive the right wing of the party into Romney’s arms. The hope is that as it becomes clearer to Republicans that McCain is cruising to the nomination, more conservatives who have thus far supported Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson will embrace Mitt. During tonight’s debate Romney aides sent out a research briefing elaborating on Romney’s debate assertion that conservatives should oppose McCain in part because he received the endorsement of the New York Times. (The briefing quotes a Fox News commentator calling the Times’ endorsement “just a big body slam” for McCain.)

Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom told NEWSWEEK that Romney’s battle with McCain for the nomination is “a fight for the soul of the Republican party. John McCain has taken positions at odds with Republican principles—against tax cuts and in favor of amnesty, to name a couple of examples.” Via email Fehrnstrom said the Romney campaign believes the former Massachusetts governor will do well “out west in Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Utah, in Missouri where we have the backing of Governor Blunt, in Georgia, where we have the endorsement of the state’s largest newspaper, in Tennessee, where we’ve picked up the support of large remnants of the Fred Thompson organization, in Massachusetts, where he served as governor for four years, and in neighboring Maine and Connecticut.”

The candidate himself has sounded less certain. There were signs of Romney’s frame of mind Tuesday night, during his concession speech in St. Petersburg. He spent several minutes introducing and thanking a long list of family members and supporters, to an extent he has not done before. Romney’s speech had a wistful tone, one of frustration—there was no talk of silver medals—and he stumbled over words a few times, which is not typical of a candidate who has been criticized for coming across as too slick and robotic.

Wednesday ended on a fitting note. On the bus ride back from the debate to the Beverly Hills Hilton where the Romney press corps is staying (thanks, Mitt!), the John McCain bus passed us on the right. A wire service reporter noticed the other bus and shouted to everyone else. Dozens of heads that had been bowed over computers or resting against seats, snapped to attention as the other bus glided past, faint fluorescent lights glowing green from our rival reporters workstations inside. It was hard not to see the moment as symbolic.

UPDATE:
After his campaign refused Wednesday night to discuss their advertising strategy on Super Tuesday--and would not refute Associated Press reports that Romney had tentatively decided not to commit to new ad spending--Romney woke up this morning and announced a seven-figure ad buy, which will debut in California Friday.

"Indications in the polls here are that we're within the margin of error," Romney said during a press conference this morning on the front lawn of the Long Beach, California home of some of his supporters. "We're tied here in California and I think the only way that you're successful on a day when 22 states are going to run is talking about your message. I don't think it's possible to flood the airwaves in 22 states. I have authorized a seven figure--I won't give you the exact number--but a seven figure advertising buy for our campaign."

Romney cautioned that he won't saturate airwaves here as he did in Iowa and New Hampshire. "Frankly, at this stage I don't think anyone will be advertising on a per person basis on the level we did in Iowa and New Hampshire," he said.

Romney played down the significance of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement of McCain. "Their views on a number of issues are very similar," Romney said. "Governor Schwarzenegger is a big figure, obviously, in California and I'd love to have had his support....[but] in most cases people make up their own mind."

 

Maybe Repubs need to redefine what Conservatism means.

 

aren't you going a little over the top?

 

Calling McCain a liberal is just silly and delusional. The far right wing of the Republican Party must come to grips with one clear fact: George W. Bush is the most right-wing president this country will have for a very loooooooooong time. The country has no stomach for this kind of president at all. You can blame it on the administration's policies being wrong or you can blame it's incompetence. Whichever you choose, just realize times have changed. Jimmy Carter's failed presidency was a key factor in the conservative resurgence under Reagan. George W. Bush will be responsible for a major shift the other direction in 2008.

Go ahead and name a couple of "true conservatives" (as you define them) that the GOP could select for president. I'd like to see who you come up with. I'd also bet whoever you name is completely unelectable. I said immediately after the 2004 election that both Republicans and Democrats would be running very far away from the Bush legacy, which has severely tarnished far right conservatism.

 

Can you name the democratic candidate who is advocating limiting free speech?

tia

 

This is awesome. It's a quadrangle of contorted ignorance!

 

the desert climate is brutal on the skin

 

McCain's amazing bloodless coup

What happened this week could have ramifications greater than a black or woman president

Gerard Baker

You might want to remember what happened in American politics this week for a very long time.

I'm not talking about the spectacle of the remaining members of the Kennedy dynasty jumping on to the Barack Obama bandwagon (whatever you do, Senator, don't give Teddy the keys). I'm not talking about the historic certainty now that John Edwards, the sole remaining white guy, has quit the race, that either Senator Obama or Senator Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party's nominee. I'm not thinking about the Democrats at all.

I'm talking instead about the quiet revolution that has overthrown the old order in the Republican Party. We have witnessed nothing less than a bloodless coup this week that promises to have ramifications for America perhaps even larger than the prospect of a black or a woman president.

Forget everything you thought you knew about the Republicans. Forget the party of God, guns and gays. The brief, and let's be honest (especially those of us who once rather approved of him) catastrophic era of the Bush Republican Party is certainly over. But more than that, Senator John McCain's victory in the Florida Republican primary and what has followed has buried not just the Bush presidency but the Republican Party of the past couple of decades.

Barring some miracle now, Mr McCain will win comfortably next week's Super Tuesday primaries and be more or less confirmed as the Republican presidential nominee.

It is true, as I have argued before, that Mr McCain is not the louche liberal that his Republican enemies would have you believe. He has a strong conservative record on issues such as abortion and, of course, on national security.

But there can't be any doubt that, if given the chance to be president, Mr McCain will govern in a fundamentally different way from either Mr Bush or the Republicans who have dominated Congress for the past decade or more. He does not believe in the modern theology that taxes must always be cut, whatever the circumstances or the consequences. He doesn't think America can survive by closing its doors to immigrants. Though there is no stronger supporter of the War on Terror, he believes that America's reputation has been badly damaged by the mistakes of the past few years - from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo.

If you can judge a man by the company he keeps, you get a sense of where Mr McCain is going to take the Republican Party. This week he got three endorsements that will prove critical to his near-certain victory. First, the pivotal backing of Charlie Crist, the Governor of Florida. Mr Crist is one of the most wildly popular governors in America. He was one of the few Republican successes in the disastrous 2006 midterm election. He himself represents a kind of post-Bush era transition: he took over from Jeb Bush, the President's brother. Mr Crist has succeeded because he has governed from the Centre in a state that we have come to know can be crucial in presidential politics. You heard it here first, by the way - Mr Crist will loom large in the Republican Party; perhaps as Mr McCain's vice-presidential nominee; perhaps as presidential candidate himself one day. His gamble in supporting Mr McCain in Florida was critical to the senator's win there.

Then, on Wednesday, following the primary victory, Mr McCain was endorsed by Rudy Giuliani. If Mr McCain is a maverick in Republican politics, then Mr Giuliani is a sort of deranged mustang, stampeding about the political prairie, charging the high fences of conservative orthodoxy.

Then yesterday, in California, Mr McCain won the backing of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California. Mr Schwarzenegger has, like Mr McCain, infuriated the Republican Right in his own state, with support for such measures as strong efforts to tackle climate change.

What these three have in common is that they all know that for Republicans to survive in the harsh political climate of the post-Bush years, they need to reach to the Centre.

Any obsequies for the Bush Republican Party will also need to include the campaign of Mitt Romney, for whom Super Tuesday will be a final stand. Mr Romney, oddly, was once a model of new, forward-looking Republicanism. Like Mr Schwarzenegger he had governed quite successfully in a state (Massachusetts) where Republicans seemed thinner on the ground than daffodils in November. But he consciously remade himself for this campaign as a traditional, immigrant-bashing, gay-baiting, Bible-toting (well, Book of Mormon-toting ) conservative. And it didn't do him much good.

The problem for the McCain Revolution is its dependence on the support of moderate Republicans and independents. Mr McCain has squeaked through to victory in three major primaries, winning less than 40 per cent of the vote in each.

Though he has a rare chance to show that he and his colleagues can govern from the Centre, Mr McCain will need the backing of conservatives to win. Yet the impossibilist, increasingly unhinged right wing of the party, the latter-day Bourbons who have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing from the past decade, are still a powerful force. They could, if they chose, destroy Mr McCain and the new Republican leadership with a guerrilla campaign for the next nine months.

But they'll need to be aware that the price for that victory may well be the destruction of the very party they will be claiming to save.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article3285490.ece

 

the liberal bush has already done this.

 

If you want to attack the guys political views, go for it. Have a ball. But leave the hell the guy went through in The Hanoi Hilton out of it. The guy went through pure hell over there for five and a half years.

 

George Bush is not a true conservative. He is socially conservative sure, but he advocates big government to the end of social conservativism (oxymoron?), and he spends like a liberal.

This is the legacy of George Bush. Conservatives will run in campaigns as fiscal conservatives and the dems will get to show the record of George Bush. The big government, money spending liberals will look like the fiscal conservatives for awhile thanks to W.

We have a fiscal liberal as a Republican president, and he's done more for the dems than any dem could have.

 

Hmmm... apparently even that shrew Anne Coulter is on board with the Hillary over McCain movement:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/coulter-i-will.html