The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Remedial History

7.18.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 4 of 5)

McCain and the Republican Party are going to have to do more than occasionally turn our way and blow kisses to us. The Party must return to being the Party of Lincoln while also becoming the true Conservative Party of the United States of America.
-- Mike Dooley

Some Republicans, as exemplified by Michael Tomlinson, almost get it; but not quite. John McCain can not win the Presidency without Conservative votes. Granted. The Republican loss of the US Congress in 2006 may have been due to the fact that a significant number of Conservative voters stayed home. But no one ever asks: why?

Conservatives and conservative voters have been the mainstay of the Republican Party since WWII. Yet, we still have not seen a truly conservative Commander in Chief in the White House in all of that time. Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, GHW Bush, GW Bush and even Ronaldus Magnus [Ronald Reagan] were not Conservatives. And yet, Conservatives voted for them. Why? Because they made promises to adhere to and advance Conservative principles. Unfortunately, they largely failed. They advanced mostly Liberal policies and seated largely socially liberal Supreme Court Justices. Oh, they advanced some conservative programs, but by and large, they ruled left of center.

None of these Republicans could win national office without Conservative support. Why did we have eight years of Bill Clinton? Because Conservative voters felt that GHW Bush had betrayed them with his tax hike and the Republicans ran another socially liberal candidate against him in 1996. Conservatives stayed home. Yet in 1994, the Republican Party ran a host of very conservative Congressional candidates and swept the Congress. GW Bush ran as a conservative in 2000 and won, barely. In 2004 he was re-elected largely because Conservatives refused to see John Kerry as Commander in Chief in a time of war. Do you see a pattern here? Conservatives vote, Republicans win. If you do not run a socially conservative candidate Conservatives stay home. So who is the Republican Party poised to run for President in 2008? The one man in the Republican Party who is most loathed and mistrusted by Conservatives. If he fails to gain election to
the White House, the Republican leadership has no one to blame but themselves.

Now, Conservatives might vote against Barack Obama. We do not desire to live in the People's Republic of North America. But, no Conservative is going to vote FOR John McCain. In fact, the best thing that ever happened to McCain's candidacy is Obama. I seriously doubt that very many Conservative voters would have gone to the polls if the choice was between McCain and Clinton. The Republican Party might want to think about that before they run liberal-moderate candidates in the future. If they want Conservative support, that is. As I said, some Republicans almost get it.
-- Michael Tobias

GOLDWATER VS. McCAIN
Re: Quin Hillyer's reply to Edmund Dantes's letter (under "Homespun") in Reader Mail's Arrogant Nonsense:

It's not that I disliked Mr. Hillyer's speech. It conforms nicely to the demands of the Toastmaster's Handbook, and is in every way appropriate for delivery in a small room full of people not given to political discourse. But it is inappropriate for inclusion in a magazine read by well-informed conservatives searching for a reason to vote for John McCain.

Nor do I doubt that Hillyer believes his effort to compare McCain to Barry Goldwater was meant as "the highest of praise." Unfortunately, McCain suffers badly in the comparison.

I doubt Goldwater would have spent much time talking about immigration "reform" as a wave of illegal immigrants, and God only knows how many terrorists, crossed an undefended American border during time of war. I don't doubt that he would have demanded that a fence ten feet tall and fully electrified be erected along the entire length of that border, or that he would have mentioned that fence daily until it was a fact of life. Discussion of such a fence has been in progress for several years, but McCain has been significantly silent on the subject. Is he more interested in the pursuit of power than in the best interest of his constituents? Goldwater wasn't.

I doubt Goldwater would have had many qualms about methodologies used in the interrogation of men dedicated to using suicide bombing, biological warfare and atomic weapons in an effort to make America into "a shadow of itself." I do not doubt that if he were now president, Iran, Syria and at least one Latin American nation would know what a bad idea it is to aid and abet those inclined to use terrorism and/or extortion against the United States and its allies.

I likewise doubt that Goldwater would have appointed judges "no worse" than the loathsome Kennedy and O'Connor, or that he would preside over an administration "no worse...than a holding pattern."

I know there would be no Goldwater-Feingold Act depriving Americans of their freedom to speak in the weeks immediately prior to a presidential election.

I am one of many people who, on the basis of promises made late in the campaign, voted for Bush against my better judgment. We were betrayed. We now seek a credible reason to vote for John McCain, but so far find none. Comparing him to one of the giants of conservative thought only lowers my opinion of the man.
-- Edmund Dantes
Coshocton, Ohio

Quin Hillyer replies::
Mr. Dantes is mistaken if he "doubt[s] that Goldwater would have appointed judges 'no worse' than the loathsome Kennedy and O'Connor," seeing as how it was Goldwater more than anyone else who convinced Reagan to appoint O'Connor in the first place, and that it was because of Jerry Falwell's complaints (in retrospect, on-target complaints) about O'Connor that Goldwater said that every good American should give Falwell "a swift kick in the a$$."
-- Quin Hillyer

A LIFE OF ITS OWN
Re: Mike Dooley's Letter (under "The Last Word") in Reader Mail's Little Big League:

Letter to the Editor

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