Perri Nelson's Website 

John McCain leading a conservative revival?

The man who helped co-author the bill that squelches the first amendment rights of most ordinary Americans claims he can lead the GOP back to common-sense conservatism.

WASHINGTON (AP) - On the heels of devastating GOP losses, Sen. John McCain called on the Republican Party to return to its common-sense conservatism - and implicitly cast himself as the one who can lead the party's rebirth.

"We lost our principles and our majority. And there is no way to recover our majority without recovering our principles first," the Arizona Republican said Thursday in the first of two speeches that could set the tone for a potential presidential campaign.

On the same day he launched a presidential exploratory committee, McCain said voters felt that Republicans valued their incumbency over their beliefs on such conservative standards as limited and efficient government - and he urged a return to those tenets.

You could start by repealing the incumbent protection act known as McCain-Fiengold.

"Americans had elected us to change government, and they rejected us because they believed government had changed us," the four-term senator said. "We must spend the next two years reacquainting the public and ourselves with the reason we came to office in the first place: to serve a cause greater than our self-interest."

Yep, you changed government, ushering in more pork spending than even the big government Democrats had ever done. You changed yourselves from believing in limited government to a party that seemed to want to outdo the Democrats in big-government related spending. You took away our right to speak freely about politicians in the 60 days leading up to an election. You gave us one of the biggest entitlement expansions in history, and you blew away our chances of getting originalists in the judiciary with your weak kneed compromising "gang of 14".

...

"Hypocrisy, my friends, is the most obvious of political sins. And the people will punish it," McCain said, explaining that while Republicans were elected to reduce the size of government, they ended up increasing it "in the false hope that we could bribe the public into keeping us in office."

Hmmm. Do you think maybe he's starting to get the point? Oh wait a minute, he mentioned hypocrisy didn't he. Its too bad the voters didn't punish the blatant hypocrisy of the Democrats too.

...

McCain is taking advantage of the postelection period to outline a vision for the party much like Ronald Reagan did after the Republican defeat in the 1976 presidential election.

John McCain is no Ronald Reagan. He's not even close. In the primaries for the 2000 election, the GOP basically had a choice between two moderates. John McCain was the furthest left of the two. That's why he lost the primaries in 2000. I don't think he's changed that much.

For the last six years I've gotten sick of hearing from the news on CNN and MSNBC and reading in the newspapers about the "Republican Maverick" John McCain. I'm sure Senator McCain is proud of being called a maverick. It's good publicity for him. All of those glowing fawning puff pieces in the media.

Hey Senator McCain! If you're listening, here's a tip for you. When the mainstream media praises you for being a "maverick Republican senator" they're really saying "here's a Republican that stands up for liberalism and Democratic values, a man we can work with."

You shouldn't let it go to your head as if it was praise. They're congratulating you for betraying your party's values. Why else was there so much talk in the spring of 2004 about running a John Kerry/John McCain democratic ticket? Why even Hillary Clinton said she'd support you as the Democratic candidate for Vice President if John Kerry tapped you.

...

Over the past year, McCain has repeatedly demurred on questions about his political future and said he was focused entirely on helping Republicans get elected across the country.

He wasn't that successful at it though was he? It was partly thanks to pseudo-conservatives like John McCain that the GOP lost so many seats in congress this year. He's just lucky he wasn't up for re-election himself.

John McCain is right (in a centrist sort of way). The GOP needs to return to conservative values. The GOP needs to develop a spine and stand behind it's principles. The "maverick" from Arizona is not the man to help them do it.

Trackback URI for this post: http://perrinelson.com/track.aspx?postid=132
Permalink URI for this post: http://perrinelson.com/2006/11/16/132.aspx