Now that the holiday that dare not speak its name is in our
collective rear-view mirror, it’s that time of year when the
political punditry turns their weary eyes to the future. And those
who dominate the media are out of the gate early, chirping
optimistically about liberal prospects in 2006 and beyond.
Their talking points are already out and the main message is
this: Conservatives are stupid. Not only stupid, but dense,
knuckle-dragging, thick-legged sheep who will submissively go
wherever liberals want to lead them. So inept are they, that they
are incapable of choosing their own presidential candidates.
I know this sounds strange coming from the Democrats — who have
been steadily losing elections for the past dozen years or so and
most recently portrayed themselves as witless dupes when it came to
endorsing the Iraq War — but delusion has been their sole
consolation of late.
One has only to watch the Sunday morning liberal love-fests to
witness this strange phenomenon; a weird kind of reverse
Schadenfreude whereby the left actually obtains enjoyment from its
electoral losses by projecting its own self-defeating methods onto
conservatives.
This is most evident in its predictions of the next Republican
candidate for the White House. Now we conservatives may have our
own ideas such as Virginia’s George Allen or Sam Brownback of
Kansas, or maybe even the evil warlord himself, Richard B. Cheney.
Yet after winning five of the last seven presidential elections,
what do we know? But fear not, liberals are determined to show us
the way.
As is their custom, they will manipulate countless polls in an
attempt to influence, rather than track, popular opinion. It goes
like this: “Hello Mr. And Mrs. Republican. Given a choice between
Hillary Clinton and Beelzebub, for whom would you vote in 2008?”
The next day’s headline in countless newspapers? “AP/Ipsos Poll:
GOP voters prefer Beelzebub!”
One of the liberal favorites for this treatment is Rudy Giuliani
who, when actually in office, constantly bedeviled the left. Up
until 9/11, he was portrayed as a bull-headed, dictatorial, tin god
who was insensitive to minorities and, in general, a detestable
bully. Sure, he’s a pro-abortion, gun-grabbing, gay rights
advocate, but what good was that when he was merely a mayor?
Now that they see him as a national figure, he is the epitome of
all that secular liberals love: a divorced Catholic at odds with
the Church over some of its most sacred public stances. But despite
the fact that most conservatives would shun his candidacy like the
plague, liberal pundits will nonetheless chant “Rudy, Rudy, Rudy,”
for months to come.
Likewise, many in the media dream of reboarding the
Straight-Talk Express of “maverick” John McCain. How they love his
wry charisma, his quick wit, and especially the way he wrote a new
Bill of Rights for terrorists after perverting the original one to
silence political free speech in the name of campaign finance
reform.
Can McCain garner enough backing from those on the right to win
the nomination? Given their support for most of the Bush agenda,
you’d think not. But again, the media think conservatives are too
stupid to remember that McCain was considered so anti-Bush, he was
reportedly offered the number two slot with John Kerry in 2004.
Can he win the nod without the right? For the record, during
McCain’s first attempt at the presidency in 2000, he won only seven
primaries for a total of 193 delegates out of a possible 2,066.
More telling is that most of those seven were “open” primaries where the voting was not limited to
Republicans. In his biggest win, Michigan, the great majority of his votes came from Democrats
and independents.
It is worth noting also that McCain’s victory in Michigan, as
well as five others, came after his loss in South Carolina, where the left
still contends that nefarious forces doomed his candidacy. The fact
is that a McCain win in South Carolina would have been an anomaly
considering that the rest of the South voted overwhelmingly for
Bush in both the primaries and the general election.
So it would seem that Giuliani doesn’t have the agenda to win
the GOP bid and McCain, who has the fawning devotion of the media,
lacks that of the Republican base. Still, that won’t stop liberals
from trying to persuade conservative dunderheads to mend their
winning ways.
