I'll Concede McCain Is The Only Goldwater Republican In This Race

The Washington Times invokes a Goldwater quote to rally conservatives around the McCain cause. I will go one better and concede that McCain actually is the only Goldwater Republican in the current race. Please see below.

Barry Goldwater still has fans out there.

"Let's grow up, conservatives. If we want to take this party back — and I think we can — let's get to work," the Arizona senator told the 1960 Republican convention, as he withdrew from the race and cast his support behind Richard M. Nixon.

They remain fighting words for those weary of party bickering.

If my protests over McCain began and ended on policy disputes, perhaps I might just be able to suck it up and support his campaign. Here's the problem, he's absolutely unelectable and Goldwater, better than anyone else, represents exactly why.

Whether conservatives wish to acknowledge it, or not - by all accounts, we will face a war weary electorate in the Fall. I realize that 9/11, Iraq and Global Jihad is the beginning and end of everything to many. Unfortunately, that is far from the case for all, especially among Independents McCain will need to win.

Just so we're clear. Into a war weary electorate and notoriously dirty Clinton attack machine, you wish to run a candidate who sings about bombing Iran, suggests troops in Iraq for 100 years, offers up a vision of however many wars still to come to bolster his only qualification ... and last but not least, as already on the record, though I won't link it, he's been documented as having "unhinged" episodes of expletive-laced rants. And his liberal colleagues in the Senate haven't yet begun to leak all they've heard. You think a liberal media that is decidedly anti-war won't make anything much of that?

My friends, here's but a small preview of a McCain candidacy in the Fall. It's the Daisy Girl ad that helped to eliminate Barry Goldwater against Johnson in 1964. It's a lovely picture of McCain in 08. Enjoy it while it lasts, the end's a blast. Will McCain emerge as a Goldwater Republican in the Fall? You can bet your azz on that!

Comments

[seekeronos]

The GWOT and the containment of global Jihad are important, but more so is the economy, securing more independence from foreign oil by developing our energy resources (both renewable and non-renewable) and preventing SS from crushing our children and grandchildren with a burden they cannot and probably will not bear.

Folks, there is a happy balance: we can kill the terrorists, but only if we can field the armed forces and make sure the farmers can grow our food, and that both supply and demand mesh.

If you want a shot at keeping the American economic dream alive, and a shining hope for the third world to emulate, you'll want to vote for Mitt Romney in your primaries.

If you want to hunt terrorists and occupying foreign countries and bankrupting our grandchildren in the process, then be my guest and vote for John McCain.

[IslamoLlama]

Goldwater lost the election of 1964. Under Johnson we decided it would be a swell idea to pick a fight with Vietnam, to defeat the threat of Global Communism. We sat around in the jungle for 15 years, killing Gooks, so we could feel good about how we were spreading Democracy (with rigged elections and hand-picked candidates) to the Far East.

Gee, that sounds familiar.

I won't lie. I suspect that Hillary Clinton is my generation's Tricky Dick. I think she'll give us a secret plan for getting out of Iraq - kinda like McCain's secret plan for catching Bin Laden - then leave us there for another six years. I think she'll probably get busted pulling the same dirty tricks that Bush pulled - wire tapping and arm twisting and ignoring the will of Congress with signing statements - and that this time the Republicans will come around out of pure, frothing CDS to restore the Constitution entirely out of spite alongside Ted Kennedy, Russ Fiengold, Chris Dodd, and a host of other ultra-liberal extremists. And that the Republic will eventually be saved.

That's really the light at the end of a very long tunnel I see in a Clinton Presidency. But I'd rather not relive the 70s, politically speaking. They kinda blew. I'd much rather see Obamarama's magic unity pony skip the bullshit and play the bipartisanship card and get us back on the right track the less painful way.

:p A guy is allowed to dream.

[Kevin Bowman]

When Barry Goldwater's name is used as an insult among ostensible conservative Republicans, it is either a sign of the apocalypse, or a sign that some form of derangement has set in. And I haven't seen the four horsemen yet.

Ditto, when supporters of a self-described conservative candittae criticize the other candidate as a warmonger. I don't see locust yet...

If McCain takes the nomination, refusing to support him because he is, in your view, unelectable is a position that defies basic priciples of logic. That makes no sense at all.

[Wahoo Willie]

"Under Johnson we decided it would be a swell idea to pick a fight with Vietnam."

Truthfully Ike got us in that one with a few advisors, then kennedy sent a few more advisors. The came the Turner Joy incident when the huge naval armada of North Vietnam fired on a US destroyer and Johnson went hell bent for leather. During the election he thought Amurcan Boys shouldn't be sent to do the job of vetmanese boys...the rest is history....or a harbinger.

The commercial was really, really cool unless you were one of us kids who had to hide under our desks in duck n cover drills.....ah the good old days.

[Dan Riehl]

I don't think McCain is a warmonger, I pointed out how the libs and media will portray him. I assume most readers are intelligent enough to understand the difference. McCain's media friends turning on him will be a debacle. And many on the Right will take satisfaction in it as payback. Perhaps the GOP already knows the GE is lost and is willing to allow McCain to allow his ego into being the sacrifical lamb.

[Gawdfather]

Bob Dole ran against an incumbent president in the fantasy-world 1990s.

McCain will be running against the most polarizing person in politics, Hillary Clinton, in the middle of a War that defines the era. Big damn difference.

McCain will crush Hillary in bellweather toss-up states like Ohio and Missouri, and with his crossover appeal would have a good chance of winning states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Rasumuusen today:

McCain 48%
Hillary 40%

McCain 47%
Obama 41%

The presidential election is not one election, but 50 individual ones that take place on the same day. McCain has the best chance to win more of those 50 than any other candidate in either party.

[Terry]

As to McCain's electability, Rasmussen has a poll out today that suggests McCain IS electable. In the poll just completed, McCain beats both Obama and Hillary by 7-8 points. Now clearly polls this far in advance of an actual election are not all that reliable as a forecast tool; however, as a point in time datapoint in a period in which Obama has been painted as better than the Second Coming, I think it does suggest that it's way too early to write off McCain's chances.

[Dan Riehl]

Stick around until Fall. You'll see. You folks haven't been looking at Dem turn-outs versus the R's. You think McCain will win Florida? Hah! Hit my tip-jar, the bridge is in the mail, I swear.

[Gawdfather]

Hell yeah McCain will win Florida. With the Cuban political machine (the Diaz-Balart brothers and Mel Martinez) and the Crist machine going full-bore for 8 months, Florida won't be a problem at all.

[Dan Riehl]

Yeah, we really slammed them in Fla even when Bush's bro was Gov, huh? LMAO

True believers, gotta love 'em.

[Roy Mustang]

Vietnam was called Nixon's war for a reason.

LBJ's great sin was the Great Society. Welfare. Mediacid. Medicare. He destroyed individualism and made a whole class of people dependent on the government for survivial.

LBJ's legacy still haunts us today....

[BobInStamford]

LBJ's great sin was the Great Society. Welfare. Mediacid. Medicare. He destroyed individualism and made a whole class of people dependent on the government for survivial.

LBJ's legacy still haunts us today....

Where do you idiots come from??? Back to the Wilderness for you mouthbreathers. Enjoy your 80 year old candidate.

[seekeronos]

The BoobInStamford is a case in point of LBJ's legacy.

How's about you get back to flipping burgers and saving up for my pension, doofus?

[Kevin Bowman]

Dan sez:
"I don't think McCain is a warmonger, I pointed out how the libs and media will portray him. I assume most readers are intelligent enough to understand the difference."

Sorry, Dan, I did not mean to accuse you of something you did not do. That particular comment was directed at the following statement in the first comment from seekeronos, which sounds like something from a Jimmy Carter supporter in 1980:
"If you want to hunt terrorists and occupying foreign countries and bankrupting our grandchildren in the process, then be my guest and vote for John McCain."
I should have been more clear. The other parts about Goldwater were more directly in response to your post.

[Terry]

"Yeah, we really slammed them in Fla even when Bush's bro was Gov, huh?"

As a matter of fact, we did slam the Dems in Florida. In 2004, GWB easily beat Kerry, by 5 percentage points, and we replaced a Dem Senator with a Rep, Mel Martinez. I have a winter home in Florida, and even the local Dems acknowledge that McCain will easily beat either Osama or Hillary.

[Artus Register]

It is laughable to compare McCain with Goldwater other than to illustrate his abject unelectability. Unlike McCain, Goldwater was actually pretty conservative, and had some understanding of the limitations the Constitution placed on government. McCain will have none of that. This unbalanced, egotistical warmonger (yes, unless the definition was changed, McCain personifies warmonger) has watched Herr Bush behave like an emperor for seven years and is salivating at the idea that he too can behave without the restraint of law.

Like him or not, Ron Paul remains the only GOP candidate who can defeat the Democratic nominee. A pro war Republican will be defeated soundly, by a margin similar to a Goldwater or Mondale thrashing.

The frightening choice for Americans looks to be between choosing a crazed, megalomaniacal and unrepentant liar like McCain, who will doubtless continue the Bush Doctrine of doing exactly as he pleases while a sissified congress meekly refuses to lift a finder in opposition, or give the statist Democrats the presidency to go along with both houses of congress, and watch them railroad a thousand grossly expensive, freedom-usurping laws a week down our collective throats with absolutely no concern about how any of them will be funded. Some choice.