Powerline Blog Gets It Wrong: John McCain as a Candidate

I heard the authors of the Powerline Blog on radio last week (I wake up to Bill Bennett's "Morning in American", although I rarelylisten to more than a few minutes after the alarm goes off). I was NOT impressed. It sort of confirmed my lack of interest int eh Powerline blog, although the times I have looked at it I though it performed a useful service. However, I was not impressed enough to regularly visit the site, and the radio "guest" appearance again illustrated why.


What raised my "ire" was the indefensible statement that John McCain did better than any other Republican could have done against Barack Obama. No one who says something like that-in answer to a phone call accurately stating that McCain was a hopeless nominee--is not really a very good political analyst.


First, there is NO reason to believe that Mitt Romney would have done worse than McCain. Romney, at least, had some credibility on economic. McCain had none. The Powerline person accccurately said McCain had no chance once the economy collapsed, but failed utterly to cnsider the corollary thhat McCAIN was doomed BECAUSE HE WAS McCAIN, and not because he was a Republican. The Powerline guy accurately noted that McCain was even util President Bush panicked on the economy, and Paulston came to Congress with the bailout bill However, the Powerline guy again failed to see the obvious corollary that McCain MAY have been the Republican's "best chance" to "win" so long as the economy was not the overriding focus, but that ONLY a "conservative" had a chance to win once President Bush panicked on the economy--lurching into socialism, and "stimulus" spending before that.


Of course, this is all TOTAL SPECULATION (which the Powerline guy also failed to say). We don't know if Mitt Romney would have reacted better than McCain to the econommic "crisis". We do know that McCain had NO CHANCE, and reacted as badly as any candidate could have reacted. Sure, Romney MIGHT have done worse than McCain, but he had a CHANCE. McCain had NO CHANCE. And the reaction to "bailouts" since then makes clear that it is absolutely not true that any Republican was doomed to lose. McCain offered no contrast at all with Obama on the economy, and that made it impossible for him to win. How would a Republican have fared who OPPOSED bailouts, tied illegal immigration to jobs, and correctly stated that Obama was lproposing to crucigy jobs and the economy on a cross of "global warming" ("cap and trade" representing more of an effective tax INCREASE o working Americans than any tax "cut" proposed by Obama)?


That is the real reason I was "not impressed" with the Powerline analysis. As I said, it is total slpeculation whether any Republican would have "done better" than McCain. Howevcer, it is NOT "speculation" to say that almolst ANY other Republican would have set the Republican Party up better to continue the fight against Obmaa.


Bailouts? Sure, Obama ran for Bush's third term on bailouts, but so did McCain. Health care? No one understood McCain's health care "plan", inclduing McCain, and McCain let Obama LIE about the plan--almost without a whimper. McCain hardly set up the Republican Party for the health care "debate". SSure, McCain was pretty good on EARMARKS, but had NO credibility on spending in general (as the whole Republican Party did not). The Republican candidate, to set up the resurgence of the REPUBLICAN CASE, desperately needed to be DIFFERENT from President Bush on both spending and bailouts--on Big Government in general. McCain could not distingyish himself from either Bush or Obama. Other than McCain obviously hardly had a clue on the economy. McCain was FOR "cap and trade", "global warming" type legislation (bill CALLED "McCain Lieberman" in Senate). McCain could hardly se up Repubilcans as PROTECTORS of the economy against the "dlogal warming" fanatics (which is why McCain has not even made a ripple with his opposition to Obama' "cap and trade" insanity, other than to rrepresent "cover' for "liberal" Republicans holding firm in the Senate). How could McCain link aggressive action against illegal immigration with jobs and national security, when McCain let the fight FOR "amnesty"?


It is said--correctly--that Republicans have been floundering around for a "message--partly because Republicans lost their way then they were in power. But Powerline (or at least the main people behind Powerline) failed to state the equally obvious: MCCAIN bears a lot of responsibility for the failure of Republicans to have a recognized "message" going into the first 100 days of Obama. McCain had made NO CASE against the policies Obama proposed in that first 100 days .


Even if a conservative had lost by 3 additioinal percentage points, in a true landslile, it would not have been as bad as McCain. That is because such a conserative would have set tup the case against Obama. McCain did NOT. That makes the present Republican opposition to Obama llok like political opportunism, rather than principle.


Nope. I was NOT IMPRESSED by Powerline.


P.S.: McCain was not even able to set up the case AGAINST terrorists, and FOR people in the CIA (and elsewhere) who--in good faith--were trying to fight terrorists and protect us. Nope. It was NOT necessary for McCain to "support" waterborading, or ""torture". All he had to do was say--as he essentially has said since the lection--that there is no reason to treat terrorists as our friends and the CIA as our ENEMIES (not to mention the Bush Administration). Instead, McCain went out of his way to throw away this WINNING issue. You don't think it was a "winning" issue? Look again at the trouble Nancy Pelosi is now in, and at the "flip-flop" of Obama on the question of release of "abuse" photos for no other purpose than to be used as anti-American propaganda. McCain was a DISASTER as a candidate, whether he won or lost (as this blog has said, in foresight). Like President Bush, he undermined almost every Republican argument (except earmarks and foreign policy--distinguished from attacking conservatives, or good faith Americans acting for this country, as more the enemy than the terrorists). A good nominee would have prepared the country for the Republican fight against the extreme leftist, "apololgy for America", policies of Obama. McCain did not do that, which made him the WORST possible candidate.