Our vote is the first way we express our political will in this Republic. Our money and our time are so important as well, but without a vote, it is all for nothing.
Choosing a candidate to back in the 2008 Presidential election is therefore a big deal. And so, with full knowledge of how weighty this decision is, I present the case for Repbublican nominee John McCain to be the conservative choice for President this year.
I understand some of us do not intend to vote for John McCain as the Republican nominee* in November. I voted that way for a decade myself. “I have to make the party earn my vote,” I thought. In 2004 I did a few hours of research, examining the candidates from all the top parties, not just Bush and Kerry, before coming to the conclusion that I had to vote for President Bush on the issues. So I know how this thinking works.
In evaluating each party’s probable nominee, I will assume that the following issues matter in deciding how to vote: taxes, spending, government growth, winning the war (at home and abroad), border security, and the runaway judiciary.
Democrat: We know this will be Senator Barack Obama or Senator Hillary Clinton. Both wish to raise taxes by allowing them to go up “automatically,” increase spending and grow new government social programs, lose the war on terror at home and abroad, leave the borders unsecured, and contribute to judicial activism. Clearly the Democratic nominee can never be the conservative choice.
Green: Consider that two of the seven contenders for the Green nomination are former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, and longtime left-wing activist and former nominee Ralph Nader. Everything I said above about the Democrats goes double for the Greens, because the Greens have no national coalition to maintain with moderate to conservative members of the party demanding compromise. The Green party would take us in the direction of Western European socialism faster than any Democrat, and will surely be even worse for conservatives.
Constitution/American Independent/Independent American: Wikipedia cites two candidates for the Constitution party nomination: Bryan Malatesta and Diane Beall Templin. Their party’s process has surely been stunted by party members rallying to the Ron Paul banner, but they will surely pick a candidate for November. You want to see an excerpt of Malatesta’s thinking?
New World Order invites Texas Governor
News flash …. Gov. Rick Perry is flew to Istanbul, Turkey, to speak at the super-secret Bilderberg Conference. Robert Black, the governor’s press secretary, said the governor was invited to attend and speak about state-federal relations. Mr. Black dismissed the conspiracy theories.
Oh yes, and Malatesta is also in favor of “Abolishing the Federal Reserve and Restore [sic] Constitutional Money.” I think if conservatives wanted that, we could have voted for Ron Paul to begin with.
Templin is no better. According to the Metropolitan News-Enterprise, she believes the income tax is unconstitutional according to the 16th amendment. She had a website, but the domain has expired, so finding more is hard. And we’re to vote for her for President?
Either way, the Constitution/American Independent/Independent American party candidate is no choice for conservatives.
Libertarian: Like the Constitution party, the Libertarian party hopes to draft Ron Paul. However two candidates are standing out from the crowd for a home-grown nominee: Steve Kubby and Wayne Allyn Root. Libertarians seem to write about fewer conspiracy theories than the Constitution party people, but a conservative can reject them on the issues, too.
Kubby? He wants to end the War on Terror at home and abroad by repealing USA PATRIOT and restoring the wall of intelligence that helped 9/11 happen, and is also pro-surrender in Iraq (and presumably Afghanistan and everywhere else terrorists rise up, but he doesn’t say on his website). He also wants to turn the government into an energy experiment and “require government and military fleets to go non-petroleum,” essentially a massive subsidy for unready technology. Not a fan of amnesty? Kubby’s your man, too, because he’d rather end all immigration restrictions and make a true open border.
Root has his own problem. He supports isolationist foreign policy and a crippled USA PATRIOT. He is pro-Terri Schiavo starvation, pro-abortion, pro-marriage redefinition, and pro-embryonic stem-cell research. Root believes that “Global Warming is a danger to our planet earth,” but yet is against the Yucca Mountain facility for spent nuclear fuel, when nuclear power is the greatest non-carbon-dioxide-emitting energy source around. He calls our presence of troops in Iraq an unfortunate occupation, but yet wants us to impose our will on the elected Iraqi government by forcing referenda upon it.
No matter who wins the Libertarian Party nomination, conservatives lose.
There are other parties out there, but with names like Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, Communist Party, and more, need I go on?
The only choice for conservatives in November is Senator John McCain. Having been beaten twice in the Senate, he is on board with enforcement-first illegal immigration policy. He strongly opposes letting taxes go up when President Bush’s tax relief expires. He’s in favor of winning the War on Terror, even though he disagrees with some of us on specific issues like interrogation techniques. McCain is articulate, and is not afraid of speaking to the press about the war, unlike our current President. He’ll also attack corrupt earmarked spending, and is on record against ‘entitlement’ expansions, having voted against Medicare D.
We all have to vote for somebody, and voting for John McCain this fall is as extreme as we can get in the pursuit of liberty, and it is no moderation in the pursuit of justice. He’ll get my vote without regrets, and I hope other conservatives will join me.
* Yes, anything’s possible, but given his massive delegate lead, and the ending or suspension of all but one credible competitor’s campaign, I think John McCain is the presumptive nominee.