Category — indepedents

With news that Romney is leaving the Republican Presidential race, John McCain’s the nominee.  However, Super Tuesday demonstrated what that nomination is doing to the party’s conservative base:

One measure of his task is that more than 14.6 million Democrats went to the polls on Tuesday and only 9 million Republicans — indicating a vast enthusiasm gap between the parties.

Faced with a choice between a Democrat and a Democrat, conservatives are dejected.  I voted for Romney on Tuesday in the slight hope that he’d show enough of a pulse to hang in there.  His exit means that you’re just pulling the McCain lever out of party loyalty.  However, as a conservative, I simply can’t pull the McCain lever with a clear conscience.  He’s flat wrong on too many issues to make him substantially better than Hillary or Obama.

Good luck with your independents, John.  You’re going to need them.

So what will John McCain say at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) tomorrow?  Some are of the mindset that he’ll make peace with the conservative wing of the party.  I doubt it.  Everything he’s accomplished so far has been on the backs of moderate Republicans and cross-over independents.  Why tack right at this point when the nomination is clearly within reach without conservative support?

And let’s pretend he promises Supreme Court nominees in the mold of Samuel Alito and tax cuts galore tomorrow.  You’d be a fool to believe him.  Examine McCain’s actions on taxes, judicial nominees, global warming, and illegal immigration.  If after that examination you’re placing any value on the CPAC speech, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you. 

A leopard doesn’t change its spots, folks.  A President McCain will pay homage to the groups he’s always loved—liberals and squishy independents.  Invoking President Reagan’s name won’t make room in John McCain’s Big Liberal Tent for conservatives.

So John McCain is the new face of the Republican Party. If true, count me out. I just spent 8 years watching President Bush sabotage the conservative movement on almost every major domestic policy issue. I’m not going to shot myself in the foot over and over again just to get a Republican elected.

It’s time for conservatives to reexamine their relationship with the Republican Party. The old platitudes about any Republican being better than a Democrat just aren’t true. I didn’t derive much consolation from the fact that George Bush was a Republican when he was partnering with Teddy Kennedy on illegal immigration and education.

It’s also well past time to look at the bigger picture and not blindly accept the notion that nothing matters besides the War on Terrorism. Conservatives need to resist the temptation to become single issue voters. That’s not to say that you’ll agree with everything a particular candidate does, but you do have to look at a much broader canvas.

And that’s why the Republican Party and John McCain have lost me. When you look at the broader core of what John McCain and the Party under a McCain presidency would represent (global warming, illegal immigration, socialized medicine, higher taxes, expansion of government scope and size, etc.), there’s very little reason to support it or him. The ever so prized independents and liberals are welcome to it.