I was never a strong supporter of McCain. I was hoping to vote for Fred Thompson in the primaries, but the American people disappointed me, being still too dependent on the mainstream news media for informing their voting habits. Those outlets chose to pretend some of the candidates didn’t really exist, giving more attention to those they deemed more ‘newsworthy’, and thus shaping the campaign the way they wanted, causing such candidates as Thompson, Giuliani, or Tancredo to vanish quickly.
I would never impugn the character of John McCain himself, although he has, had at times, inclinations that can only be described as fascist. I don’t mean the caricature of fascism invented by the Left in attempt to cast it as a far right-wing phenomenon. The core of real fascism is a well-intentioned desire for unity. It shows itself in Democrats and Republicans alike as a desire to get past all this nasty filibustering and gridlock and “reach across the aisle”, to find “bipartisan” solutions to problems. The problem is inevitably that anyone who gets in the way of this unity is attacked in one form or another, for not being “a team player” or “with the program”. It doesn’t always get extreme, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is what fascism is, whether or not it is taken very far.
That said, I can tolerate John McCain and agree with him to a greater extent than Obama. I believe that given a Democrat-dominated Congress, John McCain will at least have a passing, though perhaps not intimate, acquaintance with the veto pen, as opposed to Barack H. Obama who would likely lose the damn thing entirely. Anyone who would deride me for supporting someone I myself just pointed out was a bit fascist, should first consider whether they would include “divisive” in their Litany of Describing All Things Wrong With Dubya. If you think it’s bad for a politician to be “divisive”, then guess what, you’re a fascist too. That just leaves libertarians then, and I really do consider myself libertarian (to an extent). I’m just voting for one the politicians that we have, rather than the politicians that we wish we had or might be in a position to have later, to paraphrase that Rumsfeld chap.
There might even be more hope for McCain than I thought there was, since he actually picked Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate. Fred Thompson, though he might be a great pick in terms of his actual policies, would have unnecessarily boosted the Dalai Bama’s vapid “I’m running against an old out of touch white guy” campaign.
This is one of the most epic political maneuvers I have ever witnessed in my short life. In a single move, McCain did about four things with the Palin nomination. First, he reassured the conservative base by picking a solid conservative with a great deal of reformer cred. Second, he distracted the news media (a little, anyway) from Obama’s “historic” speech. Third, he avoided the trap of picking an old white guy, which the Obama campaign was probably all lined up to go for the kill in that scenario. Fourth, he attracted some of the Hillary camp to the Dark Side.
It is also interesting to note that while Governor Palin is only running for Vice President, there is already much in the way of comparing her experience directly against that of Senator Obama, hinting at a need to consider that between Obama and McCain, one may be more likely to resign from the presidency early for health reasons, and given that consideration, McCain’s VP is in a way also running for President against Obama. It is interesting to note that the Obama campaign is intent on ignoring Palin’s experience as governor while belittling her experience as mayor of a small town.
In her acceptance speech for the VP nomination, Sarah Palin made a dig at Obama’s much-touted experience as “community organizer”. This has made the community organizer community a bit upset, as the community organizers of the community organizer community take offense at the suggestion that they’re a bunch of parasites who don’t actually do anything. Except the only thing that will come out of this kerfuffle is more illumination into the matter of what Barack H. Obama actually did as a community organizer for ACORN.
Note ACORN’s exemplary policies, such as lobbying for minimum wage inflation, opposition of school choice, obstructing the armament of the poor (and middle class and rich), and pressuring banks to issue sub-prime loans(as in that particular market that just crashed last year because it’s baloney and all the economists knew it).
Oh, and did I mention voter fraud?
Nice one, Obama. You really want to call everyone’s attention to that mess, you really want to be proud to have been a “community organizer”, so be it.
