Comments are hereby solicited...
"John McCain is the Republican nominee. Nothing we can do will change that.
McCain likes to pose as a maverick, but he is a third generation Country Club Republican who grew up in Washington political society. He is solidly aligned with the Country Club Liberal wing of the party, which has never been much good for conservatives; and his personal history shows he will do much to remain in office, and one supposes that means he will do much to get it. He was a spoiled brat in his youth, but he did go to Annapolis, and he did not shirk combat duty. The Legions see him as one of themselves. If this sounds a bit like Mark Anthony, so be it; but he hasn't Anthony's brains or ruthlessness, which is just as well.
McCain cannot win without the support of the Conservatives. Indeed he cannot win without the enthusiastic support of the conservatives. He will also need the votes of the Republican party, the independent conservatives who will generally vote Republican, and some Democrats. In a word he?s going to need much of the old Reagan coalition; but like all the Country Club Republicans, he hasn?t any real troops. The liberal wing of the Republican Party is good at raising money and using hired campaign workers, but it hasn?t any real party building strength. It doesn?t inspire enthusiasm or zeal.
McCain will gather a number of centrist and conservative Democrats, and he will do that without any need for movement Conservatives to be involved; but without us he won?t be able to stir the base and get out the vote. Many will sit on their hands unless motivated by the conservatives.
He needs us. Now: what do we want?
We are not going to get a movement Conservative. McCain is no Goldwater and never will be. He is a Washington politician with deep ties to the liberal establishment and the country club Republicans. He is not merely soft but squishy on immigration, he is committed to an insane campaign reform effort, and he is not unfriendly to the self-contradictory notion of "Big Government Conservatism" and "Compassionate Conservatism" on a Federal level.
Note that I am not denouncing the idea of compassion. For a man to love his country, his country ought to be lovely, and no country is lovely when there are people in misery in its streets. Moreover, there are things government can do to make the country more lovely. However, these are seldom things that the National Government can do, and in fact it's not often the state governments can do much. These are matters for local government, and even more so for what Tocqueville called "the associations": non-government organizations in Tocqueville's America and long afterward up into my lifetime doing much of the relief work, civic improvement, hospitals and food services, clinics, shelters, missions: the YMCA and YWCA when they were real. The Boy Scouts, Lions, Eagles, Moose, Masons, Knights of Columbus, Rotary, Optimists -- you get the idea. To the extent that the Federal government acts with these it is to suppress them, and to replace them, and this is a disastrous trend for freedom. Having said that, I doubt that McCain will understand, agree, or even care. His view of Big Government Conservatism is not likely to be much different from that of Bush II.
However: he has made a bid for Conservative support. Part of that bid is a promise to appoint strict constructionist judges to the Supreme Court. If he will do that, much can be done to dismantle the bureaucratic suppression of the associations.
One great threat to local institutions is illegal aliens. Hospitals, privately funded by charities, are required to take all comers to emergency rooms: and soon they must close because they can't afford to be free clinics. Illegal immigrants swamp city services. San Diego is bankrupt because of illegals. Los Angeles is forced to raise taxes. Allies of the illegals take key positions in the California legislature and hold the people hostage. "We want more money," they say; and they will never give up.
McCain has horrible positions on border control and will never use ICE to deport illegals here. He wants and amnesty which would be a disaster. However: he has promised to secure the border first. I have no reason to believe that this former Legion officer is not a man of his word. He has pledged his word. We need him to confirm that offer: and if he does, we can consider the matter closed. He will not secure that border in 4 years; he cannot go for his amnesty until he has done that; and this is an end to the matter. This is the best the movement conservatives will get, and it is better than we have now with Bush II; what more do we want? A Democrat who will demand amnesty without securing the borders?
We will have to live with "campaign reform". We will have to live with fiscal irresponsibility and lack of enthusiasm for tax cuts. We will have to live with the notion of federal intervention by ham handed bureaucrats in our local affairs. Even there, though, McCain has said he is changing his position on spending and taxes.
What we need is a good negotiator to get a pact with McCain: what he will promise the conservative movement in exchange for our enthusiastic -- and I mean enthusiastic even if we must fake some of the enthusiasm -- support.
In particular we want a reiteration of promises already made: strict constructionist judges both on Supreme and lower courts; secure borders before any comprehensive immigration reform; and a bit more enthusiasm for tax cuts.
We can get all that, and it is far better than we will get from any Democrat. We should take it, and get to work.
PS: If we can get Fred Thompson for VP, it will certainly make it easier to generate some zeal."
--Jerry Pournelle
