oyuki

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Loose Not Hope

With McCain winning Florida, Romney coming in second, and Guiliani backing out; many on the right side are pretty glum and down in the mouth right now.

Some are even muttering under their breath about not voting in November if McCain is the Republican candidate, um hello how did the boycott help the cause in 06? Sure it made Pelosi and Reid into laughing stocks, but they did not need to be elevated to their present positions for that since they are innately and totally inept when it comes to such things as principals and leadership. So why repeat the 06 mistake? If republicans do boycott the vote in 08, then the party has truly become a 'learn nothing party' competing with the Democrats for the bottom.

Lets not dig ourselves deeper into a hole by being one or two issue voters. Once Super Tuesday is done and we see clearly who looks to be the candidate of choice, then that candidate needs to seriously reach out to people who voted for the other candidates just as the people who supported the losing candidates need to examine the winner to see if they can vote for that person. If we blindly cling to the thinking of 'since candidate A does not support position x, then he will never have my vote' we are no better than robots and the party is doomed.

But if the candidate can not modify his stance on things in an attempt to build a bridge and the voters refuse to slightly alter/modify their views also then there will be no bridge of understanding. And Reagan's vision of a big tent party will be instead a ratty collection of small tents in which various partisans seek to destroy other partisans. All the while sacrificing a unity of vision in things like a strong and robust America that is truly a beacon of liberty for the rest of the world for the sake of scoring minor points.

As the old knight to Indiana Jones says in The Last Crusade, "Choose wisely."

3 comments:

Myrtus said...

Well said Anna!
As I'm not an American citizen, I'm not allowed to vote, so I usually keep out of US politics and merely observe and shake my head or let myself be entertained by the political circus between left and right.
I get the impression that the only reason Hillary and Obama are coming out so strong is because the conservative leaning media outlets along with the righty blogosphere have been so consumed with digging up scandal after scandal on these two candidates that they didn't have much time left to invest in promoting their preferred candidates. By giving Obama and Hillary so much air time, regardless if it was mostly negative, they pretty much provided fertilizer to what they consider weeds and made them come back and grow stronger.
From what I've seen so far, McCain was able to dodge the bullets and hold his own without even having to try that hard. He was just trucking along, because no one considered him a threat or really took him serious. Now he just may come out on top as the only ace left in the hole for the conservative side.

Timothy said...

I think Mike at Mike's America had an excellent point. The moderates are bringing us McCain. Are they going to carry the day when it's time to get him elected? I don't think so. They will rely on the conservatives and Christians to carry the banner like always. The problem is that McCain has been so busy courting the left, he has made a point of spitting in our faces.

It's hard to carry the banner for such a man as this.

Anna said...

Myrtus, get your green card and vote. Heck run for office and clean up Chicago! :) But yeah it is a circus in which the prize is a killer job called President; a job that comes with a red target on your back and everyone it seems is gunning for it, even fellow countrymen.

Timohty, we will know tommorow if McCain can carry. Or if people have woken up to how wishy he is on domestic stuff.. McCain makes Bush look authoritarian in comparison when it comes to domestic issues. Maybe this will be the broccoli issue that scuttles McCain, being too squishy with socialists like the ones that tortured him. But if he does become the candiate, he better reach out to all those whom he has alienated to see if reproachment can be done since running for President is fraught with diplomacy and compromise, of which all candidates hope they do not screw up.