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McCain and conservativism

Posted by Ron Coleman on February 2, 2008

Randall Hoven wrestles with the issue of how conservative McCain is as a Senator:

Senator John McCain’s lifetime rating of 82.3% from the American Conservative Union is often that he is conservative. Here is a closer look at that 82.3 rating. First, a rating of 82.3 is not really that high. It puts Senator McCain in 39th place among senators serving in 2006, the latest year for which the ACU has its ratings posted online. For that most recent year in particular, McCain scored only 65, putting him in 47th place for that year. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), for example, scored 64 and 75, respectively, in 2006

He demonstrates that McCain is actually on the liberal side among Republicans, despite his seemingly high ACU rating, which explains of course why the media love him. He concludes thus, however:

On the other hand, Senator Clinton (D-NY) has a lifetime ACU rating of 9 and Senator Obama (D-IL) has a rating of 8.

Not much the cheer about here.

Well, here’s something a little large, and a little more significant, to not cheer about — but something that conservatives must understand if they don’t want to relegated to a fringe: The electorate is not all that conservative. We will not win the Presidency with a strong conservative candidate. You can’t deduce anything from Ronald Reagan. There was one Ronald Reagan. If another one emerges, we’ll know (some of us were not fooled).

And if you think that you (we) will “teach the nation a lesson,” a la Jimmy Carter, by not supporting the GOP candidate and letting a liberal run the country for four — or eight — years and appoint judges and commissioners, and sign legislation, and take control of the national political dialogue during that time… good luck. See you at the People’s Reeducation Center and Tax Labor Farm. We can plan the next revolution with the other zeks.

But if you want to win, and have any shot at having any of your ideas reign, and to make incremental progress in government, policy and the popular imagination — then you have to realize that politics is now. And act accordingly.

Posted in Politics and Poker, Stragety | 13 Comments »

Tell Jack how you really feel

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 30, 2008

Blogs from CNN.com — dateline, January 29th:

FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:He hasn’t won anything yet, and his showing in some cases has been dismal. But John Edwards is showing no signs of getting out the race. Maybe he doesn’t have anything else to do. His campaign says that Edwards will stay in it until the Democratic Party convention, and they’re hopeful that we can still win it.

Real life:

Democrat John Edwards bowed out of the race for the White House on Wednesday, saying it was time to step aside “so that history can blaze its path” in a campaign now left to Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. “With our convictions and a little backbone we will take back the White House in November,” said Edwards, ending his second campaign in a hurricane-ravaged section of New Orleans where he began it more than a year ago.

Maybe Jack should spent less time on feelings, actually.

Posted in Medialites, Politics and Poker | 5 Comments »

You lose some

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 30, 2008

That would be my boy Rudy Giuliani. As the Man who Could Beat Hillary, perhaps his luster wore off when the patina of her inevitability did. Nothing really done right there, though. Is he in play for vice president? An intriguing possibility, but the combination of Rudy and McCain is not going to excite the right-right.

And you win some. Edwards’s withdrawal today actually almost makes up for it, seeing as how while I like Rudy I was never particularly emotionally invested in his candidacy. Whereas I had a visceral dislike for the Shaggy Pony. As Glenn says, “HE’LL BE GOING BACK TO ONE OF THE TWO AMERICAS — the fancier one!” Enjoy it and stay out of our faces, please!

UPDATE: Regarding Edwards, Mary Catherine Ham says, “I imagine the sudden change of heart means he’ll soon be completing Obama’s endorsement sweep of prominent class-warrior Democrats who fight for the working man from the decks of their yachts.”

Posted in Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »

One pathetic stereotype, to go, please

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 28, 2008

NOW’s New York chapter has gone ballistic in condemning Senator Ted Kennedy for endorsing non-female liberal Barack Obama.

Why?

He’s not a chick!

It doesn’t get better than this, really, in terms of transparent, pathetic tokenism.  I assume NOW’s New York chapter is all white, after all.

Posted in Politics and Poker, Sisyphus | 1 Comment »

Barack and Israel

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 23, 2008

American Thinker:

The ascent of Barack Obama from state senator in Illinois to a leading contender for the Presidential nomination in the span of just a few years is remarkable. Especially in light of a noticeably unremarkable record — a near-blank slate of few accomplishments and numerous missed votes.However, in one area of foreign policy that concerns millions of Americans, he does have a record and it is a particularly troubling one. For all supporters of the America-Israel relationship there is enough information beyond the glare of the klieg lights to give one pause. In contrast to his canned speeches filled with “poetry” and uplifting aphorisms and delivered in a commanding way, behind the campaign façade lies a disquieting pattern of behavior.

This will be interesting.  Hat tip to Craig Karpel.

Posted in Politics and Poker | 6 Comments »

Bad news for criminals and other evildoers!

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 22, 2008

Robert A. George on Fred Thompson:

On the bright side, he is now free to try and get back his Manhattan DA job.

Which was, as I said, pretty much always his main qualification for this job, anyway.

Posted in Ars Longa, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »

The PhotoShop diet

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 20, 2008

If only it were this easy:

A mailer from a congressional candidate’s campaign contains a photo of his head attached to an image of a different body that makes him look thinner.

The photo is presented as a true image of Dean Hrbacek, a Republican former mayor of Sugar Land. In reality, it is a computerized composite of Hrbacek’s face and someone else’s slimmer figure, in suit and tie, from neck to knee.

Yes, it is dishonest, especially in a society where we not only prefer to have pretty people around us than un-pretty ones (has there ever been a different kind of society?) but one where we make pretty firm affirmative moral judgments about people based on their weight.

Is it more dishonest than wearing a hairpiece? I’d say so, yes. The hairpiece, like any cosmetic appliance, changes how you really look. So does getting a tummy tuck; if Hrbacek had done that, he’d be a slimmer guy. But playing with pictures is a tad more of an acute angle on that slippery slope.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Heart and spirit, Politics and Poker | 2 Comments »

The pragmatic school

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 19, 2008

Victor David Hanson gets it right:

I think those who might prefer a McCain or Giuliani will be perfectly happy to vote for the ticket should a Romney or Thompson be the standard bearer. But from the recent rhetoric, it almost seems the inverse is not true. And if that is the case, then a President Clinton seems to me a sure thing—which of course may be the desire— in the fashion that 1964 purists thought their loss logically led to recovery in 1968 or 1976 had to transpire to get to the promised land of 1980. I would remind conservatives, however, that we are in a war, and that sitting out 2008 might mean allowing a candidate to win (pick any of the three Democrats) who has promised to withdraw all troops in 2009, regardless of the battlefield landscape (perhaps versus a McCain Presidency who surely won’t do that).

Obviously I’m the guy in the first sentence. Rudy is history, and while I absolutely share most of the reservations about McCain, I’m not going to oppose him just because the MSM can stand him. Not considering the alternatives. (H/T to Glenn.)

UPDATE:  Melissa Clouthier couldn’t agree less.

Posted in Politics and Poker | 3 Comments »

Good for the Jews?

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 16, 2008

Obama, that is.  Not so clear.  David Kelsey has a unique take on how to answer that question.

Posted in Politics and Poker | 3 Comments »

The utterly unbelievable Mrs. Clinton

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 14, 2008

Emily Bazelon asks, “Who Was Hillary Kidding on Meet the Press?” when she said she sure as heck didn’t want to see gender or race injected into the Democratic primary campaign. It is to laugh!

Similarly, the ADDeRabbi blogger says, let’s face it, she can’t even tell the truth about the most important issues of the day:

[O]ne thing that Hillary said during her senatorial campaign which just totally summed up why I can’t stomach her. She was asked whether she’s a Yankee fan or a Met fan. . . .

Hillary’s answer: “I like them both”. No. You’re not allowed to say that. You can’t like them both. Clearly, she felt that she didn’t want to alienate the fans of one team by saying she supports the other. See, but that’s the point. She’s a phony. She said what she thought would be politically expedient, not what she believes. I’m not so fickle a person that I wouldn’t vote for Giuliani because he roots for a team I hate. He has his preference, and he doesn’t try to hide it. He wears his Yankee cap everywhere and attends games. Had Hillary said “Gee, y’know, I really don’t follow baseball much”, I’d have understood and respected that. Not everyone’s a baseball fan. But she didn’t say that. She tried to please them all by, for lack of a better term, lying. I understand that politicians often must do this, but when it’s so pervasive that it even extends to fundamentally trivial matters, it becomes abhorrent.

I always thought it was remarkable how hard it is for Hillary Clinton, she of the Wall Street Journal-based investment success and ersatz Southern drawl, to tell the truth about almost anything. The recent death of Sir Edmund Hillary reminded me of how, just for the hell of it, she invented a story that she had been named after the first man to climb Mt. Everest.

I praised Hillary Clinton when she was the only Democratic candidate with the nerve to admit that retreat from Iraq was not a good policy for America, back when the heat was on. Did she mean it then, or was that just what seemed to be the right thing to say, in a contrarian sense? I don’t know. But she is, fundamentally — as she constantly reminds us — a very dishonest person, and hence a perfect match for our disbarred former President… in their way… but not for you and me.

Posted in O Mores!, Politics and Poker | 8 Comments »

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