The American Spectator

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Why Not Goldwater?

2.20.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 6)

McCain was inevitable thanks to the self-inflicted crack up of the conservative movement and the fracturing of the Republican Party. Rush Limbaugh predicted this when many conservatives started bashing Republicans and cavalierly handed Congress over to Democrats in 2006. Sadly, his listeners weren't listening and he's forgotten his own prediction. Worse yet, some conservatives swallowed liberal propaganda saying it was ok or even better for conservatism when Republicans lost an election or two. How does handing power over to the most liberal and radical Democrat party since the 1970's make things better for conservatives or the nation? Do some conservatives prefer being in the minority, because they'd rather gripe than govern? Does anyone still naively believe the myth that "blue dogs" are "conservative Democrats?" Learn the lesson -- there are NO conservative Democrats.

The tragedy is that conservatives have won only pyrrhic victories on issues that heated them up in the last three years. This is best illustrated by the hysteria over Arab DPW owning a few US port terminals. Many conservatives, following the lead of liberal Chuck Schumer, went ballistic and stopped the deal or so they thought. The reality is DPW still owns the terminals and will for years to come. The downside is they will own them without modernizing the facilities or allowing the US to set their international standards for protecting ports against Muslim terrorism. The only victors were Muslim terrorists, their fellow travelers/Democrats and labor union felons working at U.S. ports. Pick a topic where much of the conservative base has either castigated President Bush and Republicans and I will show you a hollow victory and Democrat's being the big winners -- immigration, earmarks and Federal spending being the most obvious.

Who was it that masterfully crafted a successful big tent GOP coalition made up of Republicans (conservatives and moderates), independents and less liberal Democrats? It was none other than pragmatic Ronald Wilson Reagan. If it was good enough for Reagan might it not be good enough for McCain too? Have conservatives grown so far from Reagan that they can blow off the Gipper and his model for political victory? I know many conservatives prefer style over substance, but have they also fallen for the Democrat lie that a defeat for the GOP is a victory for conservatives? That is not only bad political strategy it is wrongheaded thinking.

Instead of focusing on the GOP as Jeffrey Lord did I would like for conservatives to think about the Democrat successes -- FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton. Is there a reason for conservatives to rally to John McCain despite his glaring flaws? Yes, their names are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Two potential Presidents who would make Carter look competent, brave and patriotic. To paraphrase Barry Goldwater, time to grow up conservatives, pull your heads out and defeat Democrats or acquiesce to their domination of U.S. politics again for generations. As for me and my house I'd rather fight than submit.
-- Michael Tomlinson

Did John McCain "reach out" to Arizona Governor Evan Mecham? No, his just put a knife in his back and cheered on the political lynch mob against him. Why not victory? To keep himself in office, McCain will never allow it.
-- Michael Skaggs
Kentucky

BOB LOTT? WHY NOT?
Re: Jeremy Lott's Bob Lott for President:

Jeremy Lott says, "we cast those ballots (for third party candidates) to send a message but nobody listens." Perhaps Mr. Lott is on the wrong end of the equation. Maybe he and others like him, who cast worthless ballots, are the ones who need to listen: waste your vote if you want to, but don't expect us to follow you.
-- Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

Mr. Lott, Jeremy that is, you ask a question that I would like to attempt to answer. I do not pretend to answer for anyone else, only myself. You point to the disdain, indeed contempt, that John McCain is held in by conservatives, and ask if we seriously believe that Mitt Romney would have been any better. My answer is a huge YES.

Let me explain. John McCain has demonstrated his disdain for conservatives over and over in no uncertain terms. Indeed, he has demonstrated a particularly vicious, and volatile, and even violent attitude toward anyone that would dare to openly disagree with any of his stated opinions, or policy decisions. His temper is, in fact, legendary.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, exhibits the classic traits of a problem solver that MBAs are trained to be. He has preferred policy positions, but he is open to being objectively shown that he is either wholly or partially wrong. We see a man that will change course, when shown the error of his ways. His detractors in the GOP universe made much of his "flip flops" on policy points, particularly on abortion. Yet, in my opinion, what we saw was a man that, when he was placed in a position of having to actually think about certain positions, actually learned from the experience and admitted that he had been wrong before. I believe that we saw a man that would have started out as a moderately conservative occupant of the Oval Office, but would have been open to being convinced to take more deeply conservative stances. I believe that he would have populated his staff with a majority of folks that were more conservative, and would have truly listened to their advice. I believe that he would have especially done this in the area of military affairs, an area where he had no real personal first hand experience. This as opposed to McCain who seems to think that he is the second coming of Clauswitz despite his ranking in his class at Canoe U and the results obtained almost as soon as he was first introduced to combat.

Finally, Mr. Lott, I would like to say that my opinion is that of one who was not a particular fan of Mr. Romney. He was not my first choice, nor my second choice. I just felt that, in the vernacular of the sports genre, he had a greater upside potential, while McCain is virtually at his ceiling and has a huge downside risk. So, yes, Jeremy, Romney would have been very much better.
-- Ken Shreve

FAULTY INTELLIGENCE
Re: Tom Bethell's No Intelligence Allowed:

Expelled! I saw the trailer on the website -- an excellent project & so awesome to see the truth getting out. I will definitely be going to see the whole film & encourage others to do so. Thank God for Ben Stein and all these scientists.
-- Kathy
Arizona

Tom Bethell's review of the anti-Darwinist film Expelled displays a staggering ignorance of science. I am aware that The American Spectator is a politically conservative publication, but since when did denying overwhelming scientific evidence become a conservative position? Expelled -- a film financed and produced by creationist propagandists -- merely repeats a tired litany of baseless accusations and untruths about evolutionary biology, and Bethell has swallowed them hook, line, and sinker.

Bethell's ignorance of science is particularly reflected when he asks "What does the science show? The vast majority of species that once lived are now extinct. New animal designs and "models" appear in the fossil record without detectable precursors. But fossils can't reveal ancestry so in the end they don't get us very far." These are misconceptions based on the profoundest ignorance of paleontology and molecular biology, both of which testify to the abundance of evidence for those very transitions creationists would like to pretend don't exist. The pages of every major scientific journal in biology, genetics, and paleontology are filled with detailed, scientific evidence for the common descent of all organisms on Earth. But it is easier for creationists to pretend this evidence is part of some kind of vast conspiracy cooked up by 'Big Science' (to use the favored term of the producers of Expelled) than to compete in the fair marketplace of ideas by producing their own peer-reviewed refutations.

Letter to the Editor

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