John McCain on Super Tuesday

Had a few thoughts about John McCain we wanted to get down before the start of Super Tuesday. In no specific order....

- We disagree with those who say that John McCain is too old to be President. We value the wisdom and experience that comes with age. Also, McCain seems to be in good health, so dying in office does not seem to be a legitimate threat. We're much more worried by the youth and inexperience of Barack Obama than the age, wisdom and experience of John McCain. Don't vote for Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul because John McCain is too old; vote for someone else because you disagree with his politics.

- Speaking of his politics, the thing that bothers us most about John McCain is his reputation for compromise. When Republicans were in power, he "crossed the aisle" to co-author McCain-Feingold--one of the worst, 1st Amendment limiting pieces of legislation in history. He voted against tax cuts. He voted against drilling in ANWR. He did all of these things when its conceivable his leadership could have taken the country in a more conservative direction.

What will he do with his party in the minority? If John McCain, "maverick" (Top Gun?) was willing to "compromise" with his party in the majority, what will he do as President when Democrats are running Congress? We think it will start with comprehensive immigration reform, but where will it end? Universal health care?

If Dems control Congress, we need a President who is poised to use his veto pen and hold the Conservative line. We don't need John McCain crossing the the aisle, again.

- On the war, John McCain is solid and has proven his principled leadership--even when it was very unpopular--and we've given him credit for his stand. We were especially impressed with a speech he gave on 11 April 2007 to the graduating class at VMI. Click here to read the text and here to view a short video clip. We admire John McCain for this. But this is only one of our oft-stated, highest order priorities (War on Terror, Courts, Taxes).

- Until recently, we were confident McCain would nominate a good, conservative Justice to the Supreme Court. But then, there was this column from the Wall Street Journal's John Fund: Winging It. In it, McCain expresses misgivings about Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito whom we have named, along with John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas as being a model Supreme Court Justice. Would McCain compromise with Dems on a Supreme Court nominee? For us, this would be completely unacceptable.

- On taxes, John McCain is not solid. Not solid? He's not even mushy. He opposed the Bush tax cuts and opposed eliminating the death tax. Attempting to re-write history, McCain said his opposition was based on fiscal responsibility--he wanted to cut spending, not taxes. Or at least, he wanted to cut spending equal to the cut in taxes. But we're not so new to the game that we don't remember McCain's rhetoric of the day: he employed the same class-warfare rhetoric the Democrats trot out, not only against the Bush tax cuts, but ad nauseam.

Hey, John, if you really wanted to cut government spending, wouldn't it be best to cut government funding? Just a thought.

- Props to McCain for his free-trading ways.

We had to end with something positive, right?


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