Wishy-washy McCain
Posted by guest blogger Locutisprime.
McCain is being... well... himself :
Always a maverick, GOP presumptive presidential candidate John McCain is calling for new energy policies that are sure to both please and stymie his Republican base.
“The price of oil is too high, and the supply of oil too uncertain,” McCain said in a speech in Houston Tuesday afternoon.
He may see himself as a maverick, but he had better start seeing himself as those he is courting for their votes see him. Placating and appeasing those who would see America become more dependent on foreign oil, is as bad as placating and appeasing those who would stand idly by while America is attacked by these same forces in the middle east once again.
While hard-line conservatives may be unhappy McCain would not pursue exploration in ANWR, a Rasmussen poll released Tuesday found this position would please most Americans. According to the poll, 67 percent of Americans supported drilling for energy off the coasts of California, Florida and other states. Only 18 percent disagreed and 15 percent were undecided.
In my opinion, Mark Twain said it best when he said "there are lies, there are damn lies and there are statistics." I feel the same way as it concerns polls. Polls like statistics, purposely skew the result by means of structuring of the questions toward the desired result.
If John McCain truly wants to get his fingers on the pulse of the nation, he first needs to look at some of his long held positions on issues like illegal immigration, and his coziness with the liberal socialist left. Then he needs to put down the push polls and the media driven politics and begin truly connecting with the American people.
Then he needs to get out and start meeting the people in the heartland and all across this nation. Stop talking so much John and start listening and thinking about what the people are saying! That is where the secret to success or failure for your candidacy lies. Right now, McCain's odds of getting elected in comparison to Obama, are somewhere between dead even to less than even.
He has to overcome that thin separation and begin to truly drive the wedges that will improve his odds significantly between now and November. And he can only do that by listening to the people while revealing Obama as the weak and manipulated candidate of socialist extremist left that he truly is.
As it concerns the war in Iraq, the common recurring phrase is that no options are off the table. Yet every time there is a discussion of oil and the dire future that Americans are facing, caveats are immediately inserted into the political conversations nationally to take common sense off the table. And if John McCain doesn't abandon that premise and begin talking to the people and actually practicing straight talk, he will find himself on the losing end come November.
Obama has already provided more than enough disparity of comparison, to make McCain's campaign the more sensible and reasoned position for those who truly care about the future of their country. But McCain continues to hedge and to want to wear the moderate mantle of supposed bipartisanship.
These are extreme times that we live in. Times that call for forceful and determined leadership. Not times where moderation and the politics of political correctness should govern or control the fate of this country. In the past, those who answered the call were called statesman. Being a statesman isn't an easy calling. One has to abandon much of the party rhetoric and pursue common sense to be a statesman. And be willing to suffer the slings and arrows in the media for having made the choice to dump politics and pursue the truth.
Barack Obama has the market cornered on the politically correct appeasement mentality of socialist relativism in this election. I say let him run with it. The young and the ill informed and those who have spent a lifetime hating their country will revel (as they already have) at the opportunity to see America diminished and weakened. But the America that actually provides the momentum and thrust and the America that has moved this country to the leadership position that it has enjoyed for the better part of the last 100 years, won't buy into that soft pedaled populist crapola.
They know what makes the world turn and who is responsible. And they are firmly prepared to vote that conscience come November. But they are not prepared to compromise their safety and future on anyone who cannot buck up and get the job done.
We have lived through and witnessed what the lack of determination and commitment to our future has provided over the last four years. Americans, especially conservative Americans want and expect more than that. The liberal left likes to point bony fingers and cast spells of name calling, as if that is going to sway the minds of the informed majority.
McCain is neither "Bush light or McSame." But his present stand on issues such as illegal immigration and pursuing American oil resources casts him as Obama light and McBlame to many conservative American voters. He either has to address that perception and change his commitment to the American people, or he had better be prepared to live with the consequences of having lost this election.











This is an excellent article--well presented and well thought out. Your last paragraph provides a summation of the good and the bad and the ugly consequences of our political system today.
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Posted by: mc | Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 08:13 PM