GOP Vixen

How McCain can win the White House

So the other day I touched on McCain's need to win the moderates to win the presidency, but Mac's appearance to the Council for National Policy prompted me to expand upon these thoughts in my Los Angeles Daily News column today:

"Hey Sen. McCain, wanna know how you can win in November?

Let's go back to Friday and the Council for National Policy, where you met behind closed doors with - and I say this as a lifelong Republican - some of the right-wingerest of right-wingers in a pre-election kiss-up. The super-secret CNP, founded by Tim LaHaye as a forum for select conservatives, reportedly includes members such as James Dobson, Bob Jones III and Amway co-founder Richard DeVos.

'I don't think he came close to saying something to excite conservatives sitting on the sidelines waiting to hear something that would get them on his team,' Richard Viguerie, a longtime business associate of Sun Myung Moon, was prominently featured saying in The Washington Times, Moon's baby. 'Everything he said was rehash of what he has said before.'

Viguerie, according to the Times, echoed a sentiment of other CNP members: 'He didn't assure us he would bring conservatives into his White House or administration.' Viguerie was also upset that McCain wasn't more candid about his personal - that's the keyword, folks - faith.

McCain, don't worry about exciting the Christian Right. They'll be 'on your team' at a place called the ballot box when they're wretching at the thought of a Democrat-controlled White House. Yeah, even as they run to the next secret-handshake CNP meeting to gloat about their alleged 'protest vote.'

Everything you said was a rehash? Cool, Mac, because you shouldn't be changing your message right now to please the right. No assurances of CNP-acceptable righties in the White House? No promises needed.

Let them rant. Let them complain. Keep shaking off anti-Catholic televangelist John Hagee. You've got work to do. It's called 'being yourself.'

Because that, my friend, is the only way you'll win the election come November.

You are one of the few Republicans, in this day and age and after eight years of Bush's divisive presidency, who has the ability to handily lay claim to the middle. You need the ever-growing middle, moderate sea of voters to win the White House. You don't need to do anything that will get you painted as a panderer to the far right. The middle's reaction to that would be a sort of synchronized electoral 'ick.'..."

Read the whole thing!

McCain the Middleman

I'll be on The Martha Zoller Show at 8:20 a.m. Pacific time/11:20 a.m. Eastern this morning to talk about the presidential campaign here on out, specifically my hombre McCain. Listen live here!

Here's a little advice for McCain which won't appeal to some conservatives, but is necessary to win in November: Don't change. Be Mr. Maverick. No pandering to groups or people with whom you've never aligned before just to make CPAC happy.

Because the November win and the White House remaining in GOP control hinges on the middle. That big mass of moderates that seems to grow with every election, that group that stays in the polls' "undecided" column right up until Election Day. Buoyed by her wins, Hillary will now go after Obama at the kneecaps and their respective agendas won't long be shrouded in identity politics or feel-good, happy happy rallies. The left will be struggling to find its core, the left will be exposed, and the middle will be for the taking.

McCain will pick a more dyed-in-the-wool conservative VP. The angry Anybody But McCainers have already used up their 15 minutes of fame and  their calls to boycott the polls or vote for the Dem to teach the GOP a lesson will be regarded as more than silly by the voters in just a few months. Mac is back, and the more important thing he can do right now is not change. Heck, he should emphasize his compromise record. Stress that the real change is reaching across the aisle once in a while to get things done in D.C.

Be yourself, Mac, be yourself. Seize the middle!!

Coulter Claptrap

I just watched Ann Coulter on the Today show make an ass out of herself by trying to argue Clinton was a better choice for conservatives than McCain. McCain haters apparently did not learn anything by trying to push Romney as more conservative than McCain. Mitt Romney more conservative than McCain, are you kidding me? In fact Mitt’s conservative credentials were well behind both McCain and Huckabee. Conservatives did not buy the whole “McCain and Huckabee are really liberals and Mitts the real conservative” nonsense on Super Tuesday.

Statements like Coulter was spewing this morning only hurt her standing with conservatives. When the race is fully under way and the stark differences between McCain and the liberal democrat become clear, Coulter and her ilk will either have to eat crow or shut up and sit out the race.  Conservatives might forgive you for trying to pass Romney as a Reagan conservative, but they will not stand for you supporting Clinton or Obama.

The case for John McCain

Just in case you needed any inspiration as we head into the Florida primaries and toward Super Tuesday, this past Sunday was endorsement day at the L.A. Daily News. I penned the case for John McCain (whom the paper as a whole also endorsed) and other op-ed writers pitched other candidates -- including Dan, aka GayPatriotWest, aka Wordluf, endorsing Rudy Giuliani.

Also, for a chart on the back of the Viewpoint section, we had to name our dream team and what their campaign slogan would be. I picked McCain and Lieberman, with the slogan "Cojones over 'change'!"

For the scariest candidate, I had to pick Mitt. And in picking the candidate we'd most like to be stuck with on a desert island? Dennis Kucinich, of course, because the UFO could rescue us.

Also on the chart, Daily News editorial cartoonist Patrick O'Connor picked Bill Clinton as favorite candidate, Bill Clinton as his ideal running mate, Bill Clinton as the scariest candidate, and Bill Clinton as most likely to be the next president.

Remember, it could be worse...

Remember when Sen. "Macaca" Allen was hailed as the Reagan Second Coming and standard-bearer of the Republican Party, sure to be the GOP nominee for 2008? Remember that when you think that this year's crop isn't good enough. In a case of free association gone mad, the only thing that made me think of him was seeing machaca on the Mission Burrito menu this evening.

In other odd campaign observations, I noticed -- in what was actually aired of Duncan Hunter's goodbye speech -- that he had some sort of southern accent. He was born in Riverside, represents Alpine... where did the southern accent come from? Or is it a case of "when in South Carolina..."?

Rudy, We Hardly Knew Ye

Rudy Giuliani may end up running the campaign that never was. One of the stories out of New Hampshire that did not get much play in the press was the fact that Rudy spent over a million dollars in New Hampshire and was only second to Mitt Romney in the number of visits made during the campaign. Even though Rudy was polling in the twenties last November, he threw in the towel and gave up on New Hampshire.

Rudy was also ahead in Michigan in mid November but now he is packing up and leaving the state. I can understand not putting up a fight in Iowa, but as soon as the polls don’t go your way in a state you should not just give up and walk away. If you want the job of President, people expect you to fight. It also send a bad message to say I don’t care what people think in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and South Carolina.

In a bid to remain relevant, Rudy has come out with a grand plan to cut capital gains taxes, eliminate the death tax and make Bush’s tax cuts permanent. Yawn. With the exception of the Fair Tax being pushed by Huckabee, Rudy’s plan sounds the same as every other republican tax plan. Rudy is now behind Huckabee and McCain in national polls and old, stale ideas are unlikely to change his slide.

Its bad form for a candidate for President to blow off half a dozen states because they are not big enough or as soon as polls start to go south. I do not have many good things to say about Hillary but at least she has put up a fight in every state. Some have said Rudy has a good strategy but I would take any of the three Republicans that have been fighting for every vote these past few weeks. I can respect a person that fights and loses, but not someone that will only fight if they think they can win.

Paul Popped

In my opinion, every Republican candidate has the potential to be a good President with one exception, Ron Paul. Since I live in Texas, I have been familiar with Paul for some time and I personally know some hard core Paulistas. While many of Paul’s supporters I know would have you believe that Paul is the last knight defending the constitution, it does not take long before the conversation turns to black helicopters and dark conspiracies. It really starts to get creepy when you are told that 9-11 was an inside job and the "Jews" were in on it.

I always tended to pass off many of the nuttier Paul supporters as exceptions rather than the rule but it turns out their views are not out of line with many of Ron Paul’s own views. The New Republic has dug up numerous quotes from Ron Paul newsletters that leave little doubt Paul is a racist and a conspiracy connoisseur. These are from Ron Paul’s own newsletters so unless Paul claims he did not read his own newsletter, I don’t see how he can disavow knowledge.

Paul supporters owe it to themselves to read the racist ranting of Ron Paul. I expect most reasonable people to quit supporting Paul after his views become more widely known. I certainly understand the anger driven by both Republican and Democrat insistence on taxing, spending, and legislating every aspect of our lives, but Ron Paul is not the answer and if you believe his newsletters, he never was.

Mac Daddy!

Four votes in Dixville Notch for John McCain! Also seven for Obama, two for Romney and, ahem, none for Ms. Teary Eyed Clinton.

Ron Zombies

All I can say about this video of Paulistinians chasing Sean Hannity is it reminds me of "28 Days Later"...

Keep foreign policy on the front burner

Or so I plead to voters today in my Pajamas Media column:

"...Going into Iowa, a Dec. 19 Washington Post-ABC News poll asked likely Republican caucus-goers to name the single most important issue in their vote; foreign policy came in at less than 0.5 percent.

The poll also asked which candidate 'best understands the problems of people like you.' But the next president needs to have a firm understanding of the problems of people who aren’t like you to both keep the nation safe and to ensure the United States is a productive, proactive leader in the global community instead of an isolated sitting duck.

Foreign policy is not just the territory of snooty wonks with personal agendas to grind. Tucked away in America’s heartland, it may be easy to forget that assassinations far away, Hugo Chavez’s political shell games, extremism in the U.K., or the machinations of Iran affect the future of our country and its friends as well. It affects whether, in the future, sons and daughters in uniform will be able to fight effectively (like if enough troops had been sent into Iraq from the beginning), as well as when they might have to fight again.

Foreign policy can buoy the conscience of this nation — or, if we turn our backs on the Rwandas of the future and the like in the form of an immorally non-interventionist policy, it can decimate the conscience of our nation..."

Read the whole sucker!