comMITTed to Romney!

In this article on the Real Clear Politics website, George Will aptly compares John McCain to the Clintons. He starts by reminding us of Hillary’s mis-characterization of Obama’s statement that Reagan had been a candidate of ideas. He says Hillary’s twist of Obama’s words:

… was a garden-variety dishonesty, the manufacture of which does not cause a Clinton in midseason form to break a sweat. And it was … not as gross as — St. John of Arizona’s crooked-talk claim in Florida that Mitt Romney wanted to “surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do” in Iraq because Romney “wanted to set a date for withdrawal that would have meant disaster.”

Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, the Clintons should bask in the glow of John McCain’s Clintonian gloss on this fact: Ten months ago Romney said that President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki should discuss, privately, “a series of timetables and milestones.” That unremarkable thought was twisted by McCain, whose distortions are notably clumsy, as when Romney said, accurately, that he alone among the candidates has had extensive experience in private-sector business. That truth was subjected to McCain’s sophistry, and he charged that Romney had said “you haven’t had a real job” if you had a military career. If, this autumn, voters must choose between Clinton and McCain, they will face, at least stylistically, an echo, not a choice.

But that dreary scenario need not come to pass. Romney seems to have found his voice as attention turns to the economy, a subject concerning which McCain seems neither conversant nor eager to become so. And in South Carolina, Obama, more than doubling Clinton’s 27 percent, won a majority of the votes, becoming the first person in either party to do so in a contested primary this year. He won a majority of men and of women, which pretty much covers the rainbow of genders. And he used his victory speech to clearly associate the Clintons with “the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election” (hello again, Bill, you political ethicist who famously said “you gotta do what you gotta do”) and “the kind of partisanship where you’re not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea — even if it’s one you never agreed with.”

Obama is running against two Clintons — or one and a fraction of one, given how much she has been diminished by her overbearing spouse. Romney is marginally better off running against a Clinton impersonator.

From George Will’s pen to Florida voters’ ears. It hasn’t been lost on some that the similarities between McCain and Hillary seem to be shrinking, if there ever were many.

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Mitt Romney stands head and shoulders above McCain when it comes to the economy.

End of story. Well, okay, here’s some background.

McCain and the Bush Tax Cuts

John McCain is constantly being asked about why he voted against the Bush tax cuts (twice), an act Mitt called “failing Reagan 101.” His explanation is that the cuts needed to be accompanied by cuts in spending. He continues to justify his actions with this rationale, prompting George Will to encourage Governor Romney to make the following question central to his campaign: “When the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010, who do you want to be President: Mitt Romney or John McCain?” I personally am hoping to keep my taxes low, thanks, so I’m voting for Mitt. But it’s clear: tax cuts help the economy, and restraining spending in the short term will harm the economy. McCain gets an F for his first (and second) tries at Reagan 101.

Mitt vs. McCain on Today’s economic issues.

But there’s more to this story. The economy is teetering on the brink of potential disaster. We’ve all seen the signs: financial markets tumbling; oil prices surging; a mortgage market meltdown; banks writing down huge amounts of assets; American manufacturing jobs being lost to overseas competitors who aren’t playing fair; the trade deficit; the weak dollar. The list goes on and on, prompting the head of the Federal Reserve to nearly use the R word (recession) in front of Congress a few days ago, and prompting the Fed to slash rates early yesterday. But hope is not lost: we have a presidential candidate with experience in the economy, having made his investors hundreds of millions of dollars. And he has a few good ideas.

Mitt’s Economic Stimulus Package

To these troubling economic signs Mitt Romney has responded with a stimulus package of nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars. It includes rebates like President Bush’s plan, but also exempts seniors from paying social security taxes. And in a stroke of pure genius that’s truly Reagan-esque, highlighting why we need a man of Mitt’s expertise and intellect in the White House, Mitt’s plan also includes a proposal that would give the economy the kick in the shorts it needs: it would allow companies to expense capital purchases for two years.

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THANK YOU to my good friend Curtis for the tip to this great article by George Will.

There are reasons John McCain is struggling to garner 1/3 of all Republican votes in the primary states. Is it not true that John McCain is effectively a moderate Democrat clothed in the label we call “Republican”? Is John McCain the perfect example of what we call the Republican in name only (RINO)? I think so. Surely George Will thinks that is the case.

Today, nationwide, George Will published the following editorial. I have only included excerpts of an outstanding opinion of John McCain. I recommend you read the entire Op/Ed piece by Will by clicking this link just below (if for some reason the link does not work, go to the bottom of this post and click on “Continue Reading” for the full text):

Monday, January 21, 2008 — George Will: Straight talk on McCain — He makes a maverick Republican, or a mainstream Democrat — By GEORGE F. WILL — Syndicated Columnist

by George Will [emphasis is mine]:

WASHINGTON In 2004, one of John McCain’s closest associates, John Weaver, spoke to John Kerry about the possibility of McCain running as Kerry’s vice presidential running mate. In “No Excuses,” Bob Shrum’s memoir of his role in numerous presidential campaigns, including Kerry’s, Shrum writes that Weaver assured Kerry that “McCain was serious about the possibility of teaming up with him,” and Kerry approached McCain. He, however, was more serious about seeking the 2008 Republican nomination.

But was it unreasonable for Kerry to think McCain might be comfortable on a Democratic ticket? Not really.

Clearly John McCain would be comfortable on a Democratic ticket; I believe he would do anything to become the most powerful man in the world.

There are decent, intelligent people who believe that equity or efficiency or both are often served by government setting prices. In America, such people are called Democrats.

Because McCain is a “maverick” – the media encomium reserved for Republicans who reject important Republican principles – he would be a conciliatory president. He has indeed worked with Ted Kennedy on immigration reform, with Russ Feingold on restricting political speech (McCain-Feingold) and with Kennedy and John Edwards – a trial lawyer drawn to an enlargement of opportunities for litigation – on the “patients’ bill of rights.”

McCain is, however, an unlikely conciliator because he is quick to denigrate the motives, and hence the characters, of those who oppose him. He promiscuously accuses others of “corruption,” the ubiquity of which he says justifies McCain-Feingold’s expansive government regulation of the quantity, timing and content of campaign speech.

McCain says he would nominate Supreme Court justices similar to Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Sam Alito. But how likely is he to nominate jurists who resemble those four: They consider his signature achievement (McCain-Feingold) constitutionally dubious.

When the Supreme Court upheld McCain-Feingold, 5-4, Scalia and Thomas were in the minority. That was before Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor, who was in the majority. Two years later, McCain filed his own brief supporting federal suppression of a right-to-life group’s issue advertisement in Wisconsin because it mentioned a candidate for federal office during the McCain-Feingold blackout period prior to an election. The court ruled 5-4 against McCain’s position, with Alito in the majority.

In the New Hampshire debate, McCain asserted that corruption is the reason drugs currently cannot be reimported from Canada. The reason is “the power of the pharmaceutical companies.” When Mitt Romney interjected, “Don’t turn the pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys,” McCain replied, “Well, they are.”

There is a place in American politics for moralizers who think in such Manichaean simplicities. That place is in the Democratic Party, where people who talk like McCain are considered not mavericks but mainstream.

Republicans are supposed to eschew demagogic aspersions concerning complicated economic matters.

As usual, George Will sums it up best. John McCain is effectively a Democrat. At the very least, he would definitely not be the kind of President we need to fix a broken Washington. He is an insider, and a Democrat insider at that!

~ Vic

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George Will this week printed a great article. Click here —–> Front-Runners Who Can Still Be Tackled (if you don’t get through, just click on Continue Reading at the bottom of this post for the entire article by George Will).

Will’s opinion here is very interesting and insightful. Though I am biased, I do think that of all the pundits I have read lately, George Will’s analysis seems to hit several points spot on. These first two paragraphs are the opening lines from the article; see my emphasis in bold:

Americans say they are weary of political polarization and pugnacity. If so, the current situation in presidential politics is unstable: The leading Democratic and Republican candidates, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, are the most polarizing and pugnacious candidates, respectively. Hence Barack Obama and Mitt Romney might be stronger than national polls suggest.

James Carville, political consultant and aphorist, says: Nothing validates a candidate to voters as much as other voters. If Romney wins Iowa and New Hampshire — no Republican has ever won both — and then Michigan, where his father was governor, he will reach South Carolina very validated indeed.

Of course, we have all believed that Gov. Romney’s 10-12% national poll numbers simply reflect his lack of name recognition, Americans’ general lack of understanding of his faith, and the notion that he must be liberal because he was governor of Mass. And to the Carville quote, there is no question that if Gov. Romney wins those states, he will in fact be validated and will have the wind to his back going into February.

With all the naysayers counting Romney out because of his national (lack of name-recognition) poll numbers, Will states:

Romney’s campaign serenely notes that in 2004, when John Kerry won Iowa and New Hampshire, he shot from about 9 percent to 52 percent among Democrats. That is validation.

The best part of this article for me is the following paragraph. I think Will correctly identifies why Senator Clinton’s negative polling numbers are so high:

For conservatives, who think gridlocked government is wonderful, that is a second reason to hope Clinton is nominated. The first is that she would be easier to beat than Obama, for reasons highlighted in the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC poll: She is judged negatively by pluralities on sharing their positions on the issues and, even more important, on likeability and honesty.

So, her negatives are based of course on positions (those who disagree with her) and her general “likeability” and “honesty” issues. He nailed it for me.

These sentences are two of the most insightful of the entire article and emphasize one big reason I hope that Senator Clinton wins the Democrat ticket:

In 2008, Obama is more likely than Clinton to win an impressive electoral vote total that will look like a mandate. Conservatives should think: Although Republicans have much to fear in 2008, they might have less to fear from her as a candidate and, if she wins, as a president than they would from Obama.

~ Vic

“It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French aviator and author (1900-1944), from The Little Prince

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