Anxiety overcomes conservatives as McCain solidifies frontrunner status

January 30, 2008

Last night, not too long after John McCain was declared the winner of Florida’s Republican primary, National Review’s Michael Graham wrote an item called, “It’s all over.”

Assuming there is no shocking revelation or health issue, the GOP nomination is over. Conservatives need to start practicing the phrase “Nominee presumptive John McCa….”
Sorry, I can’t say it. Not yet.

But it’s true. When the campaign comes here to Massachusetts on February 5th, I’ll proudly cast my vote for any option on the GOP ballot other than You-Know-Who. But it will be a futile gesture. Mr. “1/3rd Of The GOP Primary Vote” is going to be the nominee.

It was easily one of the more grounded responses from a conservative blogger in response to McCain’s success. The War Room’s Alex Koppelman did a great job pulling together some of the “greatest hits” from the far-right last night, all of which, with varying degrees of subtlety, reflect a conservative base that considers the Arizona senator an absolute disaster for the party and the conservative movement.

Given this, I can’t help but notice just how feckless the hard-right wing of the Republican Party looks today. The anti-McCain contingent of the GOP, at least at first blush, looks like it should be a force to be reckoned with. Rush Limbaugh, Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum, most of the Fox News crowd, most of the right’s talk-radio hosts, and nearly all of the leading conservative bloggers consider John McCain completely unacceptable.

And yet, here we are, looking at a political landscape in which McCain is the undisputed frontrunner for the Republican nomination.

I think it’s a disaster for the far-right for more reasons than one.

The obvious, of course, is that they’re about to get stuck with a candidate they hate, and there’s apparently not a whole lot they can do about it. McCain has demonstrated an ability to win without this contingent, and he’ll owe them almost nothing moving forward. It’s a message that’s hard to ignore: this crowd lacks the power they like to think they have.

But I’m also left with the feeling that the hard-right conservatives are also slowly realizing that they also lack the ability to threaten Republicans to stay in line. As a Dem, I’ll gladly concede that McCain has clearly moved to the right over the last couple of years, but at the same time, consider some of these truths:

* McCain broke with his party on taxes, immigration, an anti-gay constitutional amendment, judicial nominations, environmental policy, and campaign-finance reform;

* He’s best buddies with the media establishment;

* He considered leaving the GOP altogether in 2001 and talked about joining John Kerry’s ticket in 2004.

And he’s still the Republican frontrunner.

When there’s a key political dispute in DC, the hard-right wing of the party likes to threaten: “Play ball or your career’s in jeopardy. We’re the Republican base and we’re calling the shots.”

Except, with McCain’s ascendancy, these guys look like a paper tiger, who wavering GOP lawmakers may take a little less seriously in the future.

No wonder they’re going crazy.

I just cannot believe that McCain is not a big enough asshole for all Republicans to support. Their standards are so low I thought most any trog would please them.

BTW, CB do you ever run across JRS Jr commenting on any of the right wing blogs? I’d like to drop by and take a dump on his favorite blog every once in a while.

  • I can offer one data point – my wingnut brother is sounding extraordinarily angry, bitter, depressed and demoralized this morning (from the emails I’m getting).

  • The real interesting question here is how McCain responds to his new good fortune.

    Think about this. From 2005 through late 2007, he tacked hard right and twisted himself into pretzels trying to make himself acceptable to the likes of Falwell and Norquist… and came face to face with political oblivion at the end of that process.

    Sometime late last year, he seemed to decide, “Screw it, I’ll go back to ‘straight talk’ and see what happens.” Lo and behold, he’s all but won the nomination–but the extremists he failed to fluff still hate him.

    So is he going to reach for the middle (the accepted general election tactic) and go Sister Souljah on the right-wing nuts, hoping that Clinton scares the nuts back into his corner anyway? Or does he try to shore up his right-wing bona fides, maybe by pledging to rip Nancy Pelosi’s still-beating heart out of her chest and eat it on live TV?

  • Jeb Bush and his machine have been backing Romney hard in FL, indicates Bush establishment doesn’t have as much stroke as they think.

  • I find it amazing that McCain is in trouble for not wanting to torture people.

    It seems he is in a very strong position when he says:

    “Look I was tortured and the thing that got me through it was the knowledge that America doesn’t torture.”

    How can conservatives now say that the MAINSTREAM Republican position is to be in favor of torture??????

  • Right on CB. And to throw salt in the wounds of the right wingers, Rudy will be throwing his endorsement to McCain at the “sacred ground” of the Reagan library – so ironic.

    Needless to say, McCain will have to heal some wounds and lean a little more right tan he is used to to seal up the nomination. In the meantime, I can’t wait for all of them (Rush, Hannity, Coulter, etc.) to get on their knees for John McCain.

    Today is the day that the moderates got their party back from those so called neo-cons aka right wing hijackers.

  • This goes to show that the enemy of my enemies is NOT my friend. I’m glad he irritates Rush and them, but it’s too bad he’s such a friggin war monger.

  • I can’t wait to see that fatass Limbaugh do his flipflop on McCain.

    Uh, you know that guy I really hate? He’s not so bad…

    Unfortunatley his listeners aren’t bright enough to know he’s full of shit.

  • I spent many hours on the phone and computer working to defeat John McAmnesty’s shamnistsy bill. I will NEVER vote for that son-of-a-bitch! I am a conservative, but would rather see a demoncrat in the White House than a lying, give America away, open border, amnesty supporter like McAmnesty. NO MCCAIN!

  • The mainstream media, especially Fox Propaganda (if they are “mainstream”), anointed Giuliani as the nominee months ago. (Goodbye Rudy. Tuesday.)

    The Republican establishment (except for JRS of course) hates McCain. Now McCain is out in front. So what happened?

    It’s those pesky voters! You can’t sell your brand of dog food if the dogs won’t eat it.

    What made Republican voters stop listening to their overlords? Perhaps it was being told for so long that the Bush brand of dog food is delicious!

  • “Rush Limbaugh, Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum, most of the Fox News crowd, most of the right’s talk-radio hosts, and nearly all of the leading conservative bloggers consider John McCain completely unacceptable.”

    “I think it’s a disaster for the far-right for more reasons than one.”

    wow! what a bummer! see my crococile tears?

  • dear michael graham,

    so your preferred choice would be “mr. ALMOST 1/3 of the gop primary vote?”

  • Man, this is a sweet, sweet day…

    What an unmitigated disaster this guy would be in November. At one point he spoke of Florida watching over his family on an extended tour. I assume he meant his time as a POW. It might have been nice if he had looked after his first wife when he returned, instead of dumping her on the side of the road.

    “While it’s prudent to never say never, as things stand, if McCain gets the nomination, I would work towards his defeat in November before I’d vote for him …

    “The best thing for the future of conservatism in America would be a McCain loss in the general. And we need to start tearing the Republican Party apart and re-building, from the ground up.”

  • No wonder they’re going crazy.

    the maverick John McWayne rises to ascendency in the republican party. 70+ years old, carries a rabbit’s foot and a lucky penny around for good luck. talks about the islamist threat like it’s a d-day assault on christmas. willing to keep troops in iraq for the next 100 years. admitted in the past to not being up to snuff on economics.

    it’s a dream come true, isn’t it?

  • What the conservative noise machine fails to realize is that their “base” is smaller than they think. Remember how Bush campaigned in 2000? As a”compassionate conservative,” not the hard-line, rigid idealogue he was revealed to be once he was elected — which says to me he (Rove) knew he had to appeal to a sizeable chunk of moderates in the Republican party. But after 2000 and 2004 (decided on the “you don’t change leaders in the middle of a war” meme), the noise machine had this giant kool-aid party where they convinced themselves (because they only listen to each other) that the whole Republican party totally agreed with them. Well, guess what? They don’t. There are fiscal conservatives who want “amnesty” for illegals to keep the economy going, social conservatives who think Iraq was mistake and “national security” conservatives who want stem cell research. Why do some of those folks like McCain? For the same reason Rush and Company hate him. They think he has a mind of his own.

  • “it’s a dream come true, isn’t it?”

    in some ways, perhaps.

    but on the other hand, mccain may be the only republican that a democrat could vote for. in many respects, he’s almost an acceptable, middle of the road candidate.

    i said almost.

  • I read the link over at the National Review and I thought this line was interesting:

    “Every day, he [Mccain] dreams of a world filled with happy Democrats and insulted Republicans.”

    Interesting because of the words ‘happy’ and ‘insulted’. The right’s antipathy is not entirely about McCain’s stance on certain issues. It’s because of some weird tribal loyalty thing. At the height of pro-Bush hysteria, McCain showed a microscopic grain of independent thought or at least did not line up with Limbaugh on every single issue and therefore cannot be forgiven. INSULTED. Curious. It’s about wounded pride. Them and us.

  • The best thing about McCain, from a Democratic point of view, is that his defeat in November will allow the GOP hard right to avoid facing its electoral irrelevance for another cycle. By loudly kneecapping McCain now, the hard right disavows his candidacy and can continue to pretend that, had the Republicans nominated a “true” conservative, they could have avoided disaster. Or at the very least, they can pretend his failure doesn’t reflect a the larger conservative failure, both electorally and in terms of governance as well.

  • As long as it’s not a disaster for us, and I have some concerns that with McCain as the nominee, that may be more of a possibility than if, say, Romney is the nominee.

    I take some comfort in voter turnout, which would seem – so far – to show that Republicans are not particulary excited about their choices, and Democrats are. I don’t know if anyone has seen any numbers on whether, in the open races, there was any significant Democratic cross-over to vote or caucus for any of the GOP contenders, but I’m thinking that is unlikely. We already know, I think, that there has been Republican cross-over to the Democratic side.

    It’s always possible, and those who hate Hillary are always quick to reminds us, that if she is the nominee, many of the Republicans and independents who crossed over to vote Democratic in the primaries will either stick with the GOP nominee, or perhaps, will just stay home.

    If Democrats continue to turn out in the record numbers they have, I have a hard time seeing how any GOP nominee beats us. Yes, I know the head-to-head match-ups show that McCain has a chance or is ahead, but I don’t know enough about the science of polling to know whether it factors or weights for trends in turnout.

    What’s the effect of a Giuliani endorsement for McCain?

  • That’s right Steve…It’s just now dawning on them. It’s not like they’ve had years to figure this out or anything…not like they didn’t know that no republican especially a right wing conservative republican could win the WH…Bush’s disapproval rating has been low for how long now? So they cry at the liberals we don’t have a candidate that represent us, just someone who’s almost as liberal as you are…this is all we got..boo hoo…they hate him so we’ll love him and meanwhile they get another republican in the WH. So you go on spouting how McCain’s not like them …he’s not that bad…hell, he was almost a democrat and pretend this isn’t what they planned all along to maintain control of the WH. The press will say anything that makes McCain look good and are only used to control the message…Bush repubs hate him so you’ll love him.
    HE’S STILL A REPUBLICAN. Answerable to the republican party. He’s still for “more wars”, Iraq occupation forever, no national healthcare, tax cuts for the wealthy becoming permanent. The right wing base is getting a lot more than they would with a dem president and they know it. Everything they say or do has a dishonest motive.

    I think the republican leaders understand very well that this is their only chance to regain the WH no matter how they pretend to be against McCain’s nomination. They think this is the only way to win independents and some dems over…McCain’s as liberal as the rest and almost a democrat…he’s the real middle fiddle. Bullshit…McCain’s insane and I ain’t buying that the base won’t support him all the way.

  • The wingers’ consternation will be short-lived. If there’s one thing they’re good at it’s finding or even making up reasons to love their Fearless Leader. Look for a series of “Senator McCain and I have had our differences but…” statements from the far right and their media mouthpieces. They’ll all click their heels together, shout “Jawohl!” and do whatever it takes to remain close to power.

    The media’s ongoing love affair with McCain will help him immensely going forward and the Dems’ nomination of HRC will cinch the election for him as well as picking up one or two seats for the Repubs in the Senate and a dozen in the House.

  • I sense the ground has shifted. I doubt a Republican campaign could get away with what it once did, and I don’t think the press is as frightened or beholden to the next gen of Republicans. Which might speak to the possibility of an Obama campaign.

    What this would mean is that instead of proving ourselves on defense and showing we’re assholes, we could keep being the same high-road, compromisers we always were and have the electorate come to us.

  • It’s a message that’s hard to ignore: this crowd lacks the power they like to think they have.

    They were always nothing more than blowhards – “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blooooooowwww your house down!” And just like the story, those who built their homes on sand could be so threatened, and…

    If McCain accomplishes the marginalization of the fascist fathead wing, he’ll deserve the approbation of all good people. And marginalizing rather than killing these turds is better – so they are there to experience their failure.

    Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of mouthbreathers.

  • Memekiller,

    The strength of the Republican party has been that its members will vote Republican, regardless. If that discipline collapses, then the natural tendency of Democrats to be too pure to vote for any given Democratic candidate may be countered and we’ll win. But the press will still implicitly endorse someone – they always have a favorite. It’ll be interesting if that candidate is McCain or Obama. (We already know MSM hates Clinton and has never really gotten behind Romney.)

  • Rob (#11): thank you. Now go crawl back under your rock, where it’s dark enough that no one can see what a fat, ugly, mouthbreathing little loser you are, boy.

  • ***Anne*** the huge voter turnout is due to the outrage at what has happened to our nation and the urgent involvement that voters feel is necessary to stop what has happened. The majority of Americans according to a Pew poll call themselves progressives and even if the Hillary haters stayed home(which they won’t) she would win in a landslide because no one really wants another republican in the WH after the disaster they have created. The voters will be out in droves to change the direction this country has taken. Just look at Bush’s disapproval ratings for years…and he had the full support of the republican party. If Hillary is the nominee, some voters may not like it but she is still a democrat and they will not vote for another republican.

    ***btw***Edwards is dropping out of the race (now we can cry) because he does not want to see a ‘brokered’ convention but one in which voters have selected their candidate through the primaries and not through some sort of horse trading . A true statesman and the only true progressive candidate. Question is now, how do we make the other two dems more progressive?

  • “The best thing for the future of conservatism in America would be a McCain loss in the general. And we need to start tearing the Republican Party apart and re-building, from the ground up.

    Well, it worked for Tiger’s golf game.

    I’m sure McCain will kiss a lot of wingnut butt to win over Rush and them.

    McCain rolled over on torture even though he did present a bill earlier on.

    I always said that McCain flipfloped when he didn’t need to. If he had stayed the course on who he was before dinner with Falwell, he would have been the Rep contender all this time.

  • JRS Jr.

    Dukakis led GHWB by 17 points in late summer polling before losing to him by 40 states. Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan in the polls almost all the way to the election. Hell, a few weeks back the two big polling draws on the Republican side of this election were Giuliani and Thompson. Polls change.

  • Obama hasn’t been around on the national stage long enough for us to really know what his plans are. People project what they want or fear on him without really knowing his stands. I already know his economic plan isn’t all that great and his views on SS scare me. I want him to say what he plans to do and for him to get feedback NOW, before he becomes ‘unreachable’. So far Hillary is far more progressive than Obama so how do we get him to become more progressive? He calls for national change but is he willing to change? He says his only concern for “Not For Profit” health care is that ins employees would lose their jobs…well, yeah. That’s how we get to not for profit. They can be retrained or hired by the government to help with a national HC plan. Let’s get him talking on these issues so we can each know how we stand.

  • It’s so funny to see the hubris of right-wing bloggers and activists talking casually about “breaking up the GOP and rebuilding it from the ground up.” They sound like 19-year-old Trotskyites thinking they’re going to remake the world in their image. Politics is just filled with people like that (on the Left too, of course).

  • I suspect that at least to some degree McCain is responding to the water-carrying class. “Oh please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”

  • There’s an old proverb—Chinese, I think, that says something about a single grain of sand being powerful enough to tip the scale. The anti-McCain contingent of the GOP is much, much more than a single grain of sand; they’ve become a vocal sub-section of the conservative agenda, and for Republicans to summarily discount them in next November’s outcome would be the equivalent of the Titanic steaming at a full power through the night, knowing that there were icebergs in the vicinity.

    Which they did, of course—and we all know how that one played out.

    I don’t think we’ll see some great “coalition-forging” event this time around. Newt’s “contract” lies in a smoldering heap, several of the heavyweights in the Jesus” camp are either dead, disgraced, or under investigation, and the different factions just don’t trust each other any more. Limbaugh has it right on the money when he says, “I’d rather everything got screwed up on a Dem’s watch.” It’s a prevailing sentiment in politics today

    Oh—and that Titanic thing? If a Dem is at the helm, it’ll be clear sailing—because it’ll be the icebergs of the GOP sinking each other this time around….

  • Danp said:

    I suspect that at least to some degree McCain is responding to the water-carrying class. “Oh please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”

    I don’t know if McCain is that smart, but you have a clever insight, Danp.

  • It’s the moment of truth for the Republican Party.

    Are they truly going to follow up with all their threats, considering that they do not like McCain? Or will they, as usual, just fall in line, as they always do, and vote for whatever candidate is presented to them?

    It will be interesting to see whether they will actually do what they said they would do, in the event ‘their’ desired candidate wasn’t the nominee: Start a third party.

    It would be nice to see the Republicans actually do what they say, instead of cowering to the Republican Establishment, as usual.

    I’d actually be excited about conservatives having their own party with their own nominee.

    My guess is that they’ll keep mumbling but vote for McCain anyway, as usual. Republican herd mentality. That’s what has got them into power everytime before.

  • Oh how I hope the chi-cons try to rebuild the GOP. The in-fighting would be delightful and the Rube [Jonah] Goldberg device that resulted from their efforts would blow up in their faces like an exploding cigar.

    However, I agree with those who say that the fRighties will fall in behind McCaniac if he gets the nod. Gotta stay near the teat of WingNut Welfare.

  • It’s nice to see the Republican rank and file (at least more than a third of them) repudiate the insanity of the Republican leadership. To buck the MSM & VRW Media take some strength.

    And I like having JRS, Jr here as a commenter. I am beginning to undestand his self-description of being a “moderate.” Hey, he’s no Rob or seaberry, right?

  • I agree with BuzzMon…. JRS is a good addition as a commenter here on Carpetbagger. He writes so you can understand his stance. Can’t compare him to some of the Republican trolls who occasionally pop up here.

    You may not agree with what he says, but at least, it’s well written. He uses his brain, in my opinion.

  • As long as it’s not a disaster for us, and I have some concerns that with McCain as the nominee, that may be more of a possibility than if, say, Romney is the nominee.

    Agreed. I’m glad to see Republican voters supporting the lesser of their evils, but McCain will also be the hardest candidate to beat in the general. We shouldn’t really be celebrating just yet.

    The best thing about McCain, from a Democratic point of view, is that his defeat in November will allow the GOP hard right to avoid facing its electoral irrelevance for another cycle. By loudly kneecapping McCain now, the hard right disavows his candidacy and can continue to pretend that, had the Republicans nominated a “true” conservative, they could have avoided disaster. Or at the very least, they can pretend his failure doesn’t reflect a the larger conservative failure, both electorally and in terms of governance as well.

    So true. If McCain loses the general, they’ll parse this for all its worth. It’s kind of a bummer actually. I was really hoping for the most rabid, right-wing Republican they could muster, only so that when he was beaten in the general, they couldn’t fall back on “not conservative enough” as an excuse and might have to do some serious thinking about the state of conservatism.

  • I think it’s a disaster for the far-right for more reasons than one.

    Perhaps, but with a race and gender war going on in the Democratic Party, it looks like their far-left is headed to a very minor role or extinction. The far-left had wrongly thought that the 2006 election wins were about them, but it now appears that the Democratic Party actually shifted towards the right.

    But I’m also left with the feeling that the hard-right conservatives are also slowly realizing that they also lack the ability to threaten Republicans to stay in line.

    I agree, and that is the reason I switched parties in 2004. The first time I had ever registered and voted was in 2002, as a Republican, in order to throw more support behind W; however, after watching the Republican controlled Congress backing away from or not fully supporting W‘s initiatives (e.g. Social Security), I registered as a Libertarian in 2004. Did vote the entire Republican ticket, though W was the only one that I fully supported, and even he isn’t a true conservative.

    IMHO, both major parties have been shifting towards the Center-Right since Reagan, and now, both party’s Center-Right find McCain attractive as a Presidential candidate. McCain’s win in Florida doesn’t bode well for either Obama or Hillary, and their far-left anti-war Race vs. Gender supporters.

    If McCain ends up winning the Republican Presidential nomination, it will certainly hurt the far-left more than it does the far-right, as many Independent and Democratic voters will certainly vote for McCain, and with the far-right grudgingly voting for him also.

  • McCain’s ascendency is testament that even Republican voters want change away from the past Bush years. If the Democrats want to offer America real change, their nominee will be Obama. The general election will come down to one candidate for Iraq, one not for its continuance, one candidate who is middle of the road, and one candidate who truly does lean to the left of center. McCain or Obama – for each as president, the far right will wane into irrelevancy. Now, if Ms. Clinton were to ascend to the WH, the far-right base would be rejuvenated, and would once again, as they did in the nineties, come out of the woodwork to do battle with their mortal enemy – a Clinton! -Kevo

  • Seaberry, The problem with most of the commenters here is that they don’t realize that they represent a small minority of the American voters with their “progressive platform” (btw, is that a synonym for populist pandering?). Their political views are a bit out of step with reality and they just don’t realize that mainstream America is several steps to their right.

  • JRS Jr @ 23

    Thanks for that link.

    62% Think American Society is Fair and Decent
    43% Believe U.S. and Allies Winning War on Terror
    Number of Republicans in U.S. Increases in December to Two-Year High
    13% Say Congress Doing Good or Excellent Job

    It appears, as I pointed out in post 43, that America is shifting away from the dogma of the far-left…

  • JRS Jr. and Seaberry, re “America is shifting away from the dogma of the far-left” and similar sentiments…

    If you have enough of an open mind or sufficient courage, I’d suggest you look at The Pew Reasearch Center’s Trends in Political and Core Values 1987-2008. The link points to a summary, and from there you can download the 112-page report, which repeatedly refutes your assertions. Just a sampling, from the summary:

    Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive national security policies have improved the political landscape for the Democrats as the 2008 presidential campaign gets underway.

    At the same time, many of the key trends that nurtured the Republican resurgence in the mid-1990s have moderated, according to Pew’s longitudinal measures of the public’s basic political, social and economic values. The proportion of Americans who support traditional social values has edged downward since 1994, while the proportion of Americans expressing strong personal religious commitment also has declined modestly.

    Even more striking than the changes in some core political and social values is the dramatic shift in party identification that has occurred during the past five years. In 2002, the country was equally divided along partisan lines: 43% identified with the Republican Party or leaned to the GOP, while an identical proportion said they were Democrats. Today, half of the public (50%) either identifies as a Democrat or says they lean to the Democratic Party, compared with 35% who align with the GOP.

  • “Seabury” would seem to be a pretty good example of what Hofstadter was writing about almost 50 years ago. The “far left”? It’s probably correct to put Dennis Kucinich and Tom DeLay about as far from “the center” as each other… but Kucinich is considered a weirdo even by most of us who are to the left of that dead-center point, while DeLay was the most powerful figure in the Republican Party for a decade–and far dirtier and more partisan to boot.

    The difference isn’t between left and right; it’s between those of us who derive our opinions from reality and those who live in an ideological/partisan fantasy world. At this point, that favors the Democrats–as beep’s post at 47 indicates, as well as most of the rest of the polling from the last three years. Thank the Duhciderer and his congressional enablers for that–and hope, for the sake of the country, that McCain holds to his reality-based worldview in the face of pressure from the nuts on the right.

  • Seaberry, The problem with most of the commenters here is that they don’t realize that they represent a small minority of the American voters with their “progressive platform” (btw, is that a synonym for populist pandering?). Their political views are a bit out of step with reality and they just don’t realize that mainstream America is several steps to their right.

    Um … actually, Americans agree with progressive policy positions in impressive numbers.

    Most Americans want the government to do more, not less (58% to 42%).

    Most Americans want the government to help those who can’t help themselves (68%).

    Most Americans wanted a higher minimum wage (84%).

    Most Americans support embryonic stem cell research (61%).

    Most Americans want less restrictions on abortion (56%), and most support Roe v. Wade (62%).

    Most Americans think gays and lesbians should have equal job rights (89%), support gays in the military (60%), and gay marriage is gaining steam (an increase of 10% of the past few years).

    Most Americans favor stricter gun control laws (58%).

    Most Americans think we should do more to protect the environment and take actions to stop global warming (ranges from 55% to 86%, depending on the issue).

    Most Americans want a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants (80%).

    Most Americans want health care for everyone (69% think the government should do it, and a whopping 82% are willing to pay $500 a year more in taxes so that everyone is covered).

    I could keep going, but I think you get the point: Americans are, in fact, incredibly supportive of a progressive agenda. Simply repeating the typical rightwing narrative is your choice, but it doesn’t come anywhere close to reflecting reality.

    Of course, I doubt that will stop you or Seaberry from saying otherwise, since reality hasn’t made much of an inroads with either of you.

    Note: All numbers come from Pew, Gallup, PollingPoint and other sources I’ve saved via del.ico.us to refute this “progressives are a minority” canard. Too many links would put this comment in the spam folder, so I didn’t include them, though they are available.

  • I love the use of the terms moderate, far-left, & far-right as if it were so simple.
    I agree that this great blog & most of the commenters here could be called liberal or progressive, to the “left” of the general public.
    And what does that mean? Nada, Zip, Zero.
    Let’s keep it specific. We hate the Iraq war/occupation. We think that you guys are idiots for not seeing it that way, although there are many other issues on which we may agree.
    Don’t do that bullshit “war on terror” conflation with the war & occupation of Iraq, what, are we as stupid as Fox “News” watchers?

    Nice having you here, but we’re still going to call you out when we disagree.

  • There are a lot of shoes waiting to drop for McCain. He’s still playing to his home crowd right now and still there is a remarkable amount of grumbling about him already. Just wait until the general when St. John has to appeal to the independents and we’ll see what the right and far right have to say about his positions then.

    The loud rumblings that McCain is neither pro-Christian enough, anti-abortion enough, anti-immigrant enough and anti-Democrat enough are already making waves among the Republican faithful. When John has to go beyond the loyal 30% that are what’s left of the righty base, John will alienate them even further to garner the support of independents that are aching for a departure from Bushist rule, yet necessary for a win in November.

    JRS and Seaberry, the commenters on this blog reflect a lot more of the mainstream than you may realize. Jim Cramer even took off his “Mad Money” clown hat and had these sober words for those thinking that Republican deregulation is what the heart of America wants.

    “Do not be fooled by the sirens of laissez faire,” (Cramer) told a packed audience at Bucknell University’s Weis Center for the Performing Arts in the continuing national speakers series, “The Bucknell Forum: The Citizen & Politics in America.”

    “Ever since the (President) Reagan era, our nation has been regressing and repealing years and years worth of safety net and equal economic justice in the name of discrediting and dismantling the federal government’s missions to help solve our nation’s collective domestic woes,” he said. “We call it deregulation … a covert attempt to eliminate the federal government’s domestic responsibilities.”

    “… You, the next generation of corporate and government leaders, should know and understand the limits of what even the best of capitalism and the marketplace can do to promote the general welfare. As future citizen capitalists you must not embrace the unrequited love of the government of the United States for private enterprise,” he said. “Be wise enough to see that government regulation is a necessary evil.”

    Time to take the blinders off guys.

  • Michael Graham wrote: “Mr. “1/3rd Of The GOP Primary Vote” is going to be the nominee.”

    Boo Hoo! Next time don’t make your primaries winner take all and maybe this won’t happen to you.

    Idiot!

    As for anybody who is confused here, John McCain is NOT a Moderate. He is as conservative as conservative can be. The fact that he does not kawtow to the Know-Nothing or the Theocratic wings of his party, and that he opposes corruption (campaign finance and earmarks) does not make him a liberal or a moderate. He simply isn’t.

    And I’m sure that a long campaign of Hillary against John would make that very clear to America. Whether Barak can do the same I’m not so sure about, but hopefully.

  • The dominators of the Republican party have simply lost touch with their base voters. It’s as simple as that. As soon as the party starts to be dominated/run by these hardcore loonies, people get sick of it; so, they pick someone who is reasonable and not a partisan fighter (McCain). It happened to the Dems in the 60s and 70s, when they focused too much on divisive issues like the death penalty or abortion. Now, the Repubs have their turn. History repeats itself.

    Hopefully this means will have a few presidencies where the budget can STAY BALANCED and we have a president who knows what de Montesquieu meant by “checks and balances”

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