Rush is Wrong
I heard this on Limbaugh's program Friday and could only shake my head.
Top talk radio host Rush Limbaugh dispelled any doubts on Friday that his feud with Sen. John McCain would prompt him to sit out the 2008 presidential election - if the Arizona Republican and New York Senator Hillary Clinton were the two choices.
"I would not support Hillary Clinton for president," Limbaugh stated flatly during his radio broadcast. "And I would not abstain from the election."
With apologies to the Great One, I would.
And here's why:
Over the years Limbaugh has been at odds with the Republican maverick, complaining that McCain bucked the Bush Administration on tax cuts, was unwilling to criticize Senator John Kerry during the presidential race and has attacked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
And that's not all; there's also his support for the Kyoto Protocol, which would cripple the American economy single-handedly, his hostility to the First Amendment under the camouflage of "campaign finance reform," and his never-to-be-forgotten frontal attack against religious conservatives in the 2000 GOP primaries.
A McCain run for the nomination in 2008 would fracture the Republican Party. A McCain presidency would functionally and effectively destroy it as "Sailor" hauled it by main force all the way back past the Goldwater uprising to the dismal mists of Rockefellerism. No conservative of any stripe would be welcome in a McCain GOP, led by a president who would favor pretty much the entire John Kerry domestic agenda.
I'm unaccustomed to adapting the stance of the "we'd be better off losing" crowd, but in McCain's case, I wouldn't see any practical alternative. I remember what Pappy Bush's flight from Reaganism, both domestically and in foreign policy, did to the Republican Party; without him, there'd have been no opening for Ross Perot and, ultimately, Bill Clinton to exploit, and the country would have been spared that disastrous eight-year detour that led directly to the horrors of 9/11. Call me loopy, but I would rather not repeat bitter history that is so embarrassingly recent.
Put another way, if we're going to be inflicted with a left-leaning president, I would prefer that that left-leaning president be a Democrat, because that would be far better for the GOP. Don't believe me? Which party picked up fifty-two House seats and an ultimate ten senate seats in 1994, after Donk Lite was replaced (with a vengeance) by the real thing?
I don't think it will come to that because I don't think McCain is a serious 2008 contender. His best shot was in 2000 and he came up short. But I do think that if he does run and wins the nomination, the party split he'll generate will pave the way for Mrs. Clinton to win easily.
Yes, I'm the same guy who has ridiculed the notion of "If I can't have my candidate, I'm taking my ball and going home!" on the Republican Forum for years. But this isn't about not getting my choice in (seeing as how Jeb Bush insists he won't run; I like George Allen because he was a governor before he was a senator, but he's got to first survive the challenge of his gubernatorial successor, Mark Warner, next year); it's about averting the one choice that would leave me with no choice either way.
If it's McCain-Rodham in '08, I won't be casting a vote for president.
Maybe el Rushbo can hold his nose that tightly, but if it comes to that, that'll be a rare instance of his famed instincts failing him.
Top talk radio host Rush Limbaugh dispelled any doubts on Friday that his feud with Sen. John McCain would prompt him to sit out the 2008 presidential election - if the Arizona Republican and New York Senator Hillary Clinton were the two choices.
"I would not support Hillary Clinton for president," Limbaugh stated flatly during his radio broadcast. "And I would not abstain from the election."
With apologies to the Great One, I would.
And here's why:
Over the years Limbaugh has been at odds with the Republican maverick, complaining that McCain bucked the Bush Administration on tax cuts, was unwilling to criticize Senator John Kerry during the presidential race and has attacked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
And that's not all; there's also his support for the Kyoto Protocol, which would cripple the American economy single-handedly, his hostility to the First Amendment under the camouflage of "campaign finance reform," and his never-to-be-forgotten frontal attack against religious conservatives in the 2000 GOP primaries.
A McCain run for the nomination in 2008 would fracture the Republican Party. A McCain presidency would functionally and effectively destroy it as "Sailor" hauled it by main force all the way back past the Goldwater uprising to the dismal mists of Rockefellerism. No conservative of any stripe would be welcome in a McCain GOP, led by a president who would favor pretty much the entire John Kerry domestic agenda.
I'm unaccustomed to adapting the stance of the "we'd be better off losing" crowd, but in McCain's case, I wouldn't see any practical alternative. I remember what Pappy Bush's flight from Reaganism, both domestically and in foreign policy, did to the Republican Party; without him, there'd have been no opening for Ross Perot and, ultimately, Bill Clinton to exploit, and the country would have been spared that disastrous eight-year detour that led directly to the horrors of 9/11. Call me loopy, but I would rather not repeat bitter history that is so embarrassingly recent.
Put another way, if we're going to be inflicted with a left-leaning president, I would prefer that that left-leaning president be a Democrat, because that would be far better for the GOP. Don't believe me? Which party picked up fifty-two House seats and an ultimate ten senate seats in 1994, after Donk Lite was replaced (with a vengeance) by the real thing?
I don't think it will come to that because I don't think McCain is a serious 2008 contender. His best shot was in 2000 and he came up short. But I do think that if he does run and wins the nomination, the party split he'll generate will pave the way for Mrs. Clinton to win easily.
Yes, I'm the same guy who has ridiculed the notion of "If I can't have my candidate, I'm taking my ball and going home!" on the Republican Forum for years. But this isn't about not getting my choice in (seeing as how Jeb Bush insists he won't run; I like George Allen because he was a governor before he was a senator, but he's got to first survive the challenge of his gubernatorial successor, Mark Warner, next year); it's about averting the one choice that would leave me with no choice either way.
If it's McCain-Rodham in '08, I won't be casting a vote for president.
Maybe el Rushbo can hold his nose that tightly, but if it comes to that, that'll be a rare instance of his famed instincts failing him.
posted by JASmius at 7:37 PM
<<< Home