Friday, February 01, 2008
Steyn channels moi
This, this election, the policies that McCain and Hillary agree on, it would be like those elections they have a lot in Europe, where a very mildly left of center party runs against a very mildly right of center party. Chirac vs Royal kind of election -- that's what JJ is pining for?
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More here: they had a completely unprofitable quarrel over the minutiae of whether Romney was enthusiastic enough about the surge in good time. Precisely. This line of attack on McCain's part was (1) chickenshit (2) idiotic (3) selfish (4) detrimental to the wider effort. I mean, OK, that's his forte, and he wanted to kneecap Mitt just before Florida. But he did it (and continues to do it) in a way that pisses a lot of people (including moi), and in a way that's bound to come back and bite him, despite all those gazillion endorsements and whatnot. I say -- not good.
Worse, Hillary last night was closer to what most Americans (and even most conservatives) believe about immigration than John McCain. Ouchhh!! And remember, that's the sort of think Billy boy managed to do back in '92 to Bush pere -- pass him on the right ever so slightly in a few, well-calibrated points, to insure victory. I wouldn't be too surprised if Hillary would try the exact same play out of the Clinton playbook with McCain. And he's vulnerable to that, since he does not have a solid base on his right (one that would just sit there and take anything he says or does), whereas she will hold on to her pinko base no matter what.
Instead, McCain denounced Wall Street and deplored profit-taking — again, undercutting a whole raft of potential GOP appeals. He may calculate that he can reverse all this once he has the nomination, but politics doesn't work like that. His words will be quoted against him — or against any other Republican nominee. That debate was a disaster, I'm telling ya. It's gonna come back and haunt whoever will be the Republican nominee.
Mona Charen piles up: When McCain was given up for dead last summer, he was witty and fun on the stump. Now that he is the frontrunner he is snarky and obnoxious.
AI, you've become AA! Look, is it so hard for you to understand that if we get Romney, Hillary OR Obama will win.
It's too early to think about that. Right now there are primaries, and "electability" is not the only consideration. It's a vague concept, prone to huge errors. Historically, I think parties tend to pick weak(er) candidates when focusing almost manically on that elusive chimera.
That's what VDH is saying. People make the best the enemy of the good. Except for Romney where the mediocre is the enemy of the good.
I still want a fight about your first comment on this page. This thing about McCain's vs Rommney's 'enthusiasm' for the surge is very important and right for McCain to take credit for. It is right and good that he busted Rumsfeld a new asshole on that and pushed Bush into what was a correct, difficult, unpopular, and courageous decision. What was Romney doing in those days, AI? Providing some socialized medicine schlock for Massachusetts? It is entirely just that McCain lay claim to all the foreign policy and defense territory and that Romney simply cede it. If you think that territory is important in this era, then you'l vote for McCain. If you think it's well enough to leave to a flipflopper like Romney (imagine him making Bush's decision on the surge), then you have your choice given to you on a silver platter.
OK, I read Mona. She sounds like she should be writing for "Us". Let's see the text of Romney's where one has to deliberatly misread in order to see his wavering will about the surge.
Thomas Sowell chimes in: There are short, blunt lies — and he told a big one on the eve of the Florida primary, when he claimed that Mitt Romney had advocated a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. [..] Confronted with his lie on Wednesday night’s debate, McCain blustered and filibustered in a manner reminiscent of Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny, when he was caught in a lie during a navy inquiry.
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