The American Spectator

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Why Not Goldwater?

2.20.08 @ 12:01AM

CONSCIENCE OF A McCAINIAC
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Why Not Victory?:

Because John McCain is not conservative to his core. He would have to repudiate McCain/Feingold, Comprehensive Immigration Reform (he may be close) and other of his signature issues. That is too tough to do if not impossible. The man believes what he believes and has shown it, and contempt for most of us along with it. Indeed he should be himself, and perhaps his campaign will be the exception to the rule as outlined by Mr. Lord, but he can save his breath in asking for my vote and concentrate on the great Americans he seems to see everywhere across the aisle and our in the vast moderate middle of America. He doesn't need my vote if he is so right in his thinking, one thing for sure, he can count on my general election vote NOT going to a Democrat. I'll give him that much.
-- Roger Ross
Tomahawk, Wisconsin

I enjoyed the article, but thought it was somewhat myopic. Eisenhower won two terms as a "liberal or moderate" Republican. Goldwater got destroyed in 1964 while ideologically pure. I hope McCain is as conservative as can be. He shouldn't make undo compromises with skunks like Reid & Pelosi. But, he has it all over Hillary and Obama in many areas.
-- Howard

Jeffrey Lord's article, "Why Not Victory?" was an interesting, if flawed, history of Republican presidential politics since the New Deal. In tone, it reminds me of the lament of 1952's Taft-supporting conservatives in decrying Republican establishment figures such as Thomas E. Dewey and Henry Luce as being insufficiently conservative or failing to draw a strong enough contrast with Democratic candidates. "We followed you down the road to defeat," bellowed Senator Everett Dirksen to the establishment Republicans at the 1952 convention.

Mr. Lord gets a few points of history wrong, however. One is attributing Wendell Willkie's loss in 1940 to the third term seeking FDR as a result of Willkie's liberal policies. In fact, Willkie first came to prominence as a business critic of the more statist policies of the New Deal. Where he saw eye-to-eye with FDR was in recognizing the very real peril that Hitler and Imperial Japan represented to U.S. interests and to freedom everywhere. Events proved both Willkie and FDR correct on this fundamental issue, and demonstrated the shortsightedness of Senator Robert Taft and other Republican isolationists. Willkie's run against Roosevelt began to lose steam when he became more conservative and strident in criticizing the incumbent president, not earlier when he was more moderate.

Mr. Lord also tends to elide the ascendancy of Republicans by following the moderate course set by successful candidate Dwight Eisenhower. And he perpetuates a demonstrable error in saying that President Gerald Ford shared with Democrat Jimmy Carter a disdain for President Ronald Reagan. In fact, while Ford stated in his memoirs that Reagan's intra-party nomination fight in 1976 had undermined his race against Carter, during Carter's presidency Mr. Ford came to view his successor as perhaps the worst post-war president. Ford strongly supported Ronald Reagan's successful campaign against Carter in 1980, and the two Republican presidents maintained a cordial relationship for many years thereafter.
-- Erik Axelson
Santa Barbara, California

Jeffrey Lord hits the question that has always bothered me. Why is it always conservatives that have to compromise their principles with liberals, and never liberals who have to "reach out" to conservatives? Conservatives, time and time again, get hit with the biggest guilt trip on the planet -- unless they give away the keys to the shop, all is lost and it will be their fault. I don't buy it, rolling over and hoping that a liberal will appreciate your sacrifice and bother to scratch your tummy with their foot once in a while -- well, it's demeaning and undignified. Staying at home and refusing to support a phony like John McCain is a real option and you don't need to feel guilty about it.

Sure, the price might be that a liberal gets elected, but that is democracy for you -- sometimes the worst guy wins, but there will be another election where maybe you get to turn things around. In the meantime, you get to fight another day and fighting always comes easier if you have your convictions.

The only time conservatives are taken seriously is when the "pragmatists" realize that their principles can't be bought. It worked fine for Margaret Thatcher; she wasn't called the iron lady for nothing. If conservatives had stuck to their principles and never bothered with the "reaching out" nonsense, McCain would never have gotten as far as he has, he would have been stopped dead in his tracks years ago.
-- Christopher Holland
Canberra, Australia

While I agree with Mr. Lord that the GOP tends to do better in presidential elections in which its candidate represents a clear and unambiguous conservative alternative to the Democrat candidate, I find his analysis of the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate to be flawed.

It is true that Nixon came away the loser in that debate, but only to those who viewed the debate on television. To the smaller audience of Americans who listened to the debate on radio, Nixon came away the clear winner.

This would indicate that Nixon's misfortune in that debate was almost solely the resort of his poor optics, and not due to the messages he delivered that night. His political instincts were correct, but his pale and shifty optics distracted the television audience from what he had to say.

That does not mean I'm a fan of John McCain's constant giving in to the Democrats, because I'm not. The world has changed since 1960, and America has changed along with it. However, I think it entirely possible that, just as America in 1960 had tired of conflict overseas and at home, as well as the constant fear of nuclear confrontation with Russia, and was looking for a candidate who was willing to reach out the other side as a means of bringing peace and stability to their lives, so America in 2008 may be just as tired of constant conflict at home and abroad, as well as the fear of becoming involved in more confrontations with Iran and Russia and China, and may well be looking for another candidate who is willing to reach out to the other side in an effort to bring peace and stability to their lives.

Though I hold a significant level of disregard for McCain, he may ironically turn out to be the strongest candidate the GOP could have nominated for this particular election year.
-- David Blackmon

Why vote for McCain? He is just another Democrat in RINO's clothing. In November we will have 2 Dems running for President. McCain has always shown disdain for Conservatives, but now he needs us -- why? He always has touted that he didn't! All you have to do is take a look at who he surrounds himself with: Juan Hernandez, Kennedy, Leiberman, Grahmnesty, Clinton, the list goes on! McCain is only out for McCain -- something he has done for years.
-- Kathy
Arizona

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