This one popped up in the comment section yesterday – but I figured it was worth asking here (although I know nobody will answer it).
For years, John McCain was the one Republican who could reach across the aisle. From Democrats across the spectrum – from relative moderates, like my Dad (who once said he could have brought himself to vote for Mac) to moderately-sane liberals – said that McCain was someone they could get behind. His American Conservative Union lifetime rating of just below seventy confirmed this: Mac’s correct stances on the budget and defense notwithstanding, he was no doctrinaire conservative.
And then, the moment he got nominated, he became “a radical conservative”.
Now, I understand that during the campaign the Tics will say whatever it takes; if the GOP had nominated Mother Teresa or Dennis Kucinich, they’d have called either of them “radical conservatives”, too.
But now that the campaign is over, you still see some of the left’s talkingpointbots repeating “McCain ran to the right! He became too conservative!” in an endless loop, like a piece of computer code with no exception handling.
So Democrats – how, exactly, did McCain “become to conservative”? And I’m talking policy statements, here – none of this “he picked Sarah Palin” BS, because he picked Palin to bolster his conservative support. Because he was lagging. Because he had not run to the right.
So anyway. ‘spain away.
This I gotta hear.
It’s a structural issue within the national Republican Party, Mitch. You can’t just wish away the problem contained in the following: “he picked Palin to bolster his conservative support. Because he was lagging.” The route to the Republican nomination runs through the far right. McCain was moving right long before picking Palin – it was simply a continuation of a long process. He reversed himself on immigration and campaign finance, cozyed up to Bush and the party’s God-botherers, took a principled but wildly unpopular stand on the war in Iraq. And still he barely got the nomination and was forced further right to shore up his unenthusiastic base.
Also, it just wasn’t a Republican year. Your guys screwed the pooch, repeatedly and without apology, for the past eight years. Democrats aren’t perfect, but they’re the sole realistic alternative in a two-party system.
The route to the Republican nomination runs through the far right.
Because the party is, well, conservative. Over 40% of Americans now identify as conservative, far more than those who identify as liberal.
The route to the Democrat nomination runs through the far left.
12 more months of the Obama economy should push the 40% up close to 50%.
I’m sure it looks that way to you, Kerm. Not to the plurality of presidential voters, alas. I’m sure you guys are right, though. McCain would have won if he were just *more conservative.*
I asked a pretty simple question.
In response, I get…er…
It’s a structural issue…the problem contained in “[pcking] Palin to bolster his conservative support”…The route to the Republican nomination runs through the far right. McCain was moving right long before picking Palin…
Er, OK, so in other words he acted like the people who vote Republican want a Republican to act. Kind of like how Democrat candidates practice sounding concerned about genocide and talk about womenandtheirchildren; it’s the lingua franca of the party.
I asked “how, specifically, did McCain move to ‘the right'”.
OK, you made an attempt…:
He reversed himself on immigration
Which had bipartisan support; Democrats don’t all support open borders.
and campaign finance,
Which any supporter of free speech should agree is good.
cozyed up to Bush and the party’s God-botherers,
Derogatory and vague, and explains nothing.
took a principled but wildly unpopular stand on the war in Iraq.
Which wasn’t a “move” at all; he was consistent on his stance on the war from 2001 all the way to election night. Any Democrat who “supported” Mac in 2003 should have found nothing in his stance in 2008 that was a surprise.
And still he barely got the nomination
He locked it up on Super Tuesday.
and was forced further right to shore up his unenthusiastic base.
Right. We established that. But as we established above, none of what you’ve mentioned above that isn’t too vague to place (which, to be fair, is more than any other lefty has been able to specify) is especially radical.
Also, it just wasn’t a Republican year. Your guys screwed the pooch, repeatedly and without apology, for the past eight years. Democrats aren’t perfect, but they’re the sole realistic alternative in a two-party system.
Well, you’re finally onto something – it wasn’t our year. Just like ’94 and ’96 weren’t your years.
The GOP in Congress certainly boffed Fido. No argument. Been saying it myself for years (if you google Mitch Berg, the highest-ranked reference to me should testify amply to this).
But what you gave us, Clown, was a bunch of fairly incremental steps shared not only by many, many moderate GOPers, but in many cases plenty of Democrats.
I’m asking specifically – what made Mac a “Radical Conservative”?
‘Cuz I still got nothing.
Your guys screwed the pooch, repeatedly and without apology, for the past eight years.
When the Democrats took over the house & senate in January 2007, the DJIA was at 12,600 and the unemployment rate was 4.6%.
Angry Clown does deliver on the comedy once in a while.
Derogatory and vague, and explains nothing.
In other words, a typical attempt by the clown to make a serious point.
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1710722,00.html
“”The thing is, McCain is also trying to run as a true conservative. He opposed President George W. Bush’s tax cuts, but now he vows to make them permanent. He fought to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, but now he says his top priority is securing the border. “”
He was a common sense fiscal conservative and then abandoned his principle with the flip flop on President GW Bush Tax cuts to the Rich to appease the base. That is where he lost me.
Flash
Ramstad for Governor!
“When the Democrats took over the house & senate in January 2007, the DJIA was at 12,600 and the unemployment rate was 4.6%”
Help me understand why everything that went bad in Bush’s first term was inherited from the Dems, the the Dems were suppose to wave a magic wand and fix all GW mistakes overnight.
There is, at minimum, a 2 year lag on these things, if you want to give Pres. GWBush a pass on the tech bubble burst and recession during his first years then you could at least give the current office holder the same slack. Well, if you wanted to be fair and reasonable anyway.
Flash,
The so-called “tax cuts to the Rich” is the standard left-leaning language folks left of center (all the way to far left leaners) use to describe any conservative.
Mitch asked what made you guys call McCain a “radical conservative”?
Of course you got nothing. You’ve trained yourself to think you’re the mainstream. You’re not. Angryclown is unable to give you the answer you want because you don’t want to believe it. But the answer is, McCain had to move right to get the nomination, losing in the process whatever “maverick” cred he once had, in the process alienating moderate voters in a year where there was near-universal agreement that Republicans had completely fscked things up. Angryclown doesn’t care that much whether you agree – in fact the more time you spend running away from reality, the longer it will take you to address the problem. Angryclown would prefer to see Republicans nominate candidates that are palatable to normal people, just in case they get themselves elected. But if you want to spend another cycle or two dragging your party away from voters, that’s your privilege.
Badda, read the last paragraph of the screed:
“So Democrats – how, exactly, did McCain “become to conservative”? And I’m talking policy statements, here – none of this “he picked Sarah Palin” BS, because he picked Palin to bolster his conservative support. Because he was lagging. Because he had not run to the right.”
I;ve never heard anyone claime McCain was a radical Conservative. The actual question was what made him too conservative, I answered it.
The clincher for me was the flip flop on the tax cuts to the Rich. It was the primary issue that made him his own man but instead he sold out to the base to claim the nomination. In the end, Conservatives didn’t trust him and he turned off those of us moderates that used to.
But ‘mitch’ isn’t really looking for reason here, he is just looking for an argument.
“”in fact the more time you spend running away from reality, the longer it will take you to address the problem.””
Shhhhhhhh, don’t let them in on the secret, they might actually start listening.
Flash
There is, at minimum, a 2 year lag on these things, if you want to give Pres. GWBush a pass on the tech bubble burst and recession during his first years then you could at least give the current office holder the same slack.
Not a single rational thought went into the making of that sentence.
“Two years” is a very convenient time frame for you lefties, isn’t it? That was rigorously arrived at, no doubt. But you’ve still got the “at least” to give yourself some wiggle room.
Bush got in office after the tech bubble burst. Causes precede effects in this reality.
Not a single rational thought into the making of that sentence.
Flash-
There is a big difference between opposing tax cuts at one time and then deciding that allowing them to expire, which in essence would be a tax increase, would be harmful to the economy years later. I thought you guys were all about nuance.
By the way, I doubt if many would have cited McCain’s opposition to Bush’s tax cuts as the “primary issue” that separated him from more conservative Republicans. Immigration, campaign finance reform, the “gang of 14”, and even his stance on global warming would rank higher.
I would also add that “tax cuts for the rich” is a classic diversion. The tax cuts were across the board, and included an increase in the child tax credit from $500 to $1000. For everyone who actually pays taxes.
It was tax cuts for everyone.
Sorry, Flash… I thought Mitch said, I’m asking specifically – what made Mac a “Radical Conservative”?.
I thought it was at least in his 10:00 am comment from today… but I’m perfectly willing to discover I was mistaken. I also was under the impression Mitch mentioned folks painting McCain as a radical conservative in his post.
Wait… he did. You did read the post, didn’t you?
C’mon, man… work with us here.
I would also add that “tax cuts for the rich” is a classic diversion.
You’d think that someone as obsessed with this topic as Flash is would get his facts right. He doesn’t.
I will be more than happy to take Flash’s ‘tax cut for the rich’. If he won’t give it to me, maybe he will set a good example & send it back to the government. After all, if he got any money out of Bush’s tax cut he must be rich, right?
Sometime before he started throwing around this ‘tax cuts for the rich’ crap, wasn’t Flash accusing Mitch of repeating GOP talking points? Being a liberal is not about consistency — except when it comes to the insatiable desire to spend the money other people have earned.
Let’s consider Flash’s comment… he has never heard or read anyone say that McCain was a radical conservative and that he doesn’t know anyone who had said such a thing.
Just for the record, who has said it? Other than AC and Peev… they don’t count, considering they are both ficticious creations of someone pretending to be the cliched left-leaner.
The only question in the post, was:
“So Democrats – how, exactly, did McCain “become to conservative”?”
When AC made mince meat out of him, he then changed the question. You call it nuance, I call it admitting he was had and moving the goal posts. Buy stock in WD-40, ‘mitch’ has cornered the market.
= = =
“I would also add that “tax cuts for the rich” is a classic diversion. The tax cuts were across the board, and included an increase in the child tax credit from $500 to $1000. For everyone who actually pays taxes.
It was tax cuts for everyone.”
Kerm, you are trying to created a straw man here. Most everyone I have talked to have no problem with making the true middle class tax cuts permanent, it is only the majority of the cuts that went to the wealthiest among us that has ever been talked about. So when I say tax cuts to the Rich, it is not a diversion, I speak of them specifically for a reason.
But you know that, right . . . .
Why do you call them ‘tax cuts for the rich’ and then admit that a significant portion went to the ‘middle class’?
Something tells me, Flash, that you have no idea how much tax of the $150/billion/year went to the ‘middle class’ and how much went to the rich.
And I’ve already demonstrated that Fed tax receipts went up dramatically after the “Bush tax cuts for the rich”.
This is quite a hobby horse you are riding. Most dems are happy just repeating talking points; you seem to actually believe them.
Terry, you would first have to actually read what I write rather then the ‘mitch’ school of copy/paste regardless of what is said.
Ah! I see… you’re lawyer-reading the post instead of getting in to the spirit of things.
And you can HIM “mitch” of “shot in the Onion”??? Really?!?!?!
C’mon, man… join in or don’t bother.
Terry, you can play with numbers all your want, but even ScaifeNet recognizes that tax receipts are plumeting as a percentage to GDP
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/current-tax-receipts-below-historical-average.aspx
“”Since World War II, tax receipts, Money collected by the government in the form of taxes. have averaged around 18 percent of the economy, or gross domestic product (GDPGross domestic product is the total value of goods and services produced in the United States.). Tax receipts Money collected by the government in the form of taxes. were 17.7 percent of GDPGross domestic product is the total value of goods and services produced in the United States. in 2008, slightly below the 60-year average, and are projected to fall to 15.4 percent in 2009 due mostly to the struggling economy””
Talk about playing with numbers!
Why do you think that government taxes should increase at the same rate as the GDP?
Flash, why don’t you check out this Heritage graph, since you put so much stock in them: http://www.heritage.org/research/features/budgetchartbook/Income-Tax-Receipts-Stay-Constant-Even-As-Tax-Rates-Decline.aspx
Scaife is your mentor, not mine! I’m a Soros guy, remember, Tom Swift told me so and he so never wrong!
Flash, just be honest and call them “tax cuts” period. Everyone got them. You are playing bullshit class envy games when you parrot the “tax cuts for the rich” meme.
Admit it, you want to discriminate. I get it. Liberals love to discriminate.
Wait a minute.
Flush gets his ass handed to him on his own turf and pulls the covers over his head, ‘natch; SOP for a stinking mongrel lefty.
So what makes you think you look less the assnozzle over here, Flush?
Here’s a tip you can take back to the feverswamp with you; “We’re not laughing ,i>with you, we’re laughing at you.
Because, Kerm, I am only talking about the cuts to the Rich, not the entire tax cut package. You can handle the difference, right?!?
Tom, you can’t go bouncing around blog to blog making an ass out of yourself and then claimg victory when people want to clean the stench of themselves. That is not a victory.
Try just once making a coherent statement without the use of demeaning and vulgar terms, you can do it *patting you on the head* that’s a good boy!
Don’t worry, I’ll let you back in soon enough, you do more electing Democratic candidates then anything the Left could do. Thanks for your help!
And you insist on being selective. It was one bill, not two separate ones. You do understand that, right?
Now admit that you like to discriminate. Liberals are not about fairness.
It’s as though these liberal guys (like flash) get locked into some Soros talking point and can’t give it up no matter how clearly it is demonstrated to be false, misleading, or just plain bizarre — like Angry Clown the other day putting down Bush’s ANG experience, when whatever Bush’s experience in the TX ANG, NEITHER OBAMA NOR BIDEN HAVE ANY MILITARY EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER! BUSH IS FREAKIN IKE EISENHOWER COMPARED TO THESE GUYS.
Hell, even Nobel-prize winner Krugman manages in a single column to both a) admit that Obama’s stimulus isn’t working, and b) condemn the Republicans in congress for not supporting Obama’s stimulus.
Flash is no Krugman, but he’s working on it. It came as a surprise to Flash that when you lower tax rates to stimulate GDP growth GDP GROWS AT HIGHER RATE THAN TAX RECEIPTS.
Sheesh.
“It was one bill”
Which bill, the Bush tax cut bill or the attempts to make them permanent. If you research a little, and not rely a RMS for your information, you will know that both the Dems and the GOP BOTH want to leave the tax cuts for the lower brackets alone including the child tax credit, in the bill to extend the cuts
I do not believe the bill went far enough, as the middle bracket, effecting middle calls families (single 31,000/couple 60,000ish) should have been included in the extension of the tax cuts. Clearly NOT rich. But since neither side could agree, the entire package is at risk of expiring. I do not support that.
But when I (as in me) talk about allowing the tax cuts for the Rich to expire, I am, in fact, talking about the tax cuts to the Rich, the upper tier where the majority of the cuts fell for a strictly finacnial stand point. I do not deny that the majority of individuals effected by the cuts were lower and middle income families and it is those cuts I believe that should be extended.
Thanks, Flush but when I tear the pelt off a moonbat, or a mongrel, it stays off *handing you back your arm*.
Say Terry? Why you goin’ keep tease da kine lolo haole mongrel?
Pau hana, bra.
Oh Tommy, you have never come close.
I bet Flash actually believed that “only raise taxes on the top 2%, the ones that make $250,000 and more” lie too.
Some people are so gullible.
Kermy is getting the RMS memos again, well played!
Exactly right Tom, when you know you’ve been had, best to give it up! I like how you continue with the racial eptiaphs, nice!! Way to represent your ilk.
You see? That’s why your “centrist” conceit is such bullshit, Flash. Instead of answering a direct challenge like “Now admit that you like to discriminate”, you fall back on really dopey shots like that.
Liberals don’t debate, they lecture.
BTW Flash, it would be a racial epithet, not epitaph. Unless you are burying someone *grins*.
McCain’s opposition to the initial Bush tax cuts was that it wasn’t accompanied with sufficient spending cuts. It had nothing to do with the tax cuts.
“Exactly right Tom, when you know you’ve been had, best to give it up!”
Just like I said, Flush; SOP for moonbats and mongrels. “Save me from teh meany conservative, daddy!”
“Banned by Webmaster. Your comments will not be added.”
Run away, rabbit..run!
HAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!1!
Epitaphs go on cenotaphs.
Somehow I doubt that Flash knows how much income tax is paid by a $30k single filer/$60k joint filer. It ain’t much.
People that know anything about the economics of taxation in this country know that income tax receipts correlate with GDP, not tax rates. If Flash would have spent any time on the Heritage site he linked to he would have learned that.
Perhaps next year Krugman will have to share his Nobel with Flash.
Hey, Swiftee, Pau Hana tomorrow at my place in Volcano! Bring a six pack and an umbrella!
So Flash, are you saying that having the top 1% of wage earners paying almost 40% of total income taxes is not enough? Why?
Tee-hee.
He said “bra”.
Pau hana? You got spam pupu or Huli-Huli chicken?
“BTW Flash, it would be a racial epithet, not epitaph. Unless you are burying someone *grins*. ”
I did, Tommy boy *patting his head sticking out of the ground*
Only in your own mind.
Getting lonely over there in your little asshat echo chamber, Flush?
Pfffft. You better get busy; those piggy banks aren’t going to empty themselves, and Greyhound charges extra to transport curs.