Listening to the irrational and hysterical response of conservatives to the presidential candidacy of Sen. John McCain would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious. […]
Let’s be clear — conservatives don’t like McCain. But with conservatives one seat away from having a majority on the Supreme Court and the next president having the power to name up to three justices, do you actually think the folks who’ve fought two generations to re-take the Court actually want to see three Clinton jurists?
This, folks, is bordering on the irrational.
It all revolves around this desperate desire to find the new Ronald Reagan. He is the conservative icon. However as conservative Bill Bennett told me Tuesday night during one of our breaks in Super Tuesday coverage, Ronald Reagan wasn’t always Ronald Reagan. His positions on taxes and gays evolved.
But don’t tell that to conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, who have vowed to destroy McCain because he doesn’t carry their water on every issue. Most issues? Yes. But they require their politicians to assume a fetal position, not to have a backbone and stand up to them when needed.
Right now, the whackosphere is behaving like you did when you wanted ice cream when your mommy or daddy told you that you were getting a cookie. You jumped up and down on the floor. You screamed. You held your breath till you were almost blue in the face. Eventually though, you took the cookie.
Rush Limbaugh will vote for John McCain.
Sean Hannity will vote for John McCain.
Laura Ingraham will vote for John McCain.
James Dobson will vote for John McCain.
Conservatives won’t sit out the election in 2008. They will vote for John McCain. Sean Hannity will eventualy have McCain on his radio show telling him he’s a “Great American and patriot.” Right now, they’re just having a little temper tantrum. In time, you they’ll be talking about John McCain as though they were with him all along. You know it. I know it. I don’t listen to any of these shows, but I am sure it’s gonna make for great radio over the next few months.
Jamey
Righties will vote Republican.
Wow, thanks for the “sky is blue” update, Mike. That’s some mighty fine opining there.
MNPundit
The only time it failed was when they voted for Lieberman over Schlesinger–but that’s only because Lieberman was more in love with Bush.
Splitting Image
I’m not so sure.
McCain might do better to throw Limbaugh, Hannity, et al overboard and reconfigure the word “conservative” to mean something that doesn’t include them. McCain owes that bunch nothing, and can freely attack them once he’s got his delegates locked up.
Separating the dittoheads from their figureheads won’t be easy, but it’s the best way for McCain to keep his “moderate” base while picking up more traditional Republicans.
I started thinking about this when people started talking about Huckabee for VP. Huckabee is not a viable VP candidate as long as he is seen to have released a convicted rapist so he could rape and murder someone else. The only way to make him viable is to portray him as a good guy surrounded by bad advisors. (Republicans seem to go for that sort of person). That means throwing the bobbleheads who were lobbying for Wayne Dumont’s release under the bus.
It’s a long shot, but it could work. It perhaps has a better shot if Obama wins the Democratic nomination, since the plan means taking out the most reliable Clinton-bashers, which might benefit HRC if she’s still in the game.
Stooleo
Damn, I thought it was going to be this Roland Martin.
Punchy
You really should. Especially your hometown boy, Boortz. I almost called him a ambulance 2 nites ago when I was convinced he suffered a stroke, ranting so vociferously about just how evil and bad HillClint is and ending up just spewing gibberish.
catnapping
damn you. damn you.
now you’ve given them a reason to vote. don’t you realize? half of those idiots don’t think about stuff like that.
and here i was – really hopin’ the limbic limpdicks would just stay home.
ThymeZone
Yes, and no. I agree that the activists will hold their nose and vote for McCain.
McCain will have a problem though. One, the big coalition is not likely to be motivated and turn out for him on election day. Two, independents won’t break for him on election day, he’s the candidate of the past, even against Hillary. He’s the candidate of the war. He’s the candidate of the Vietnam war, for crissakes. He can’t move those middle of the roaders to get out and vote for him.
And three, he’s the Republican, and this takes points right off his total when the polls open this year. That party has squandered its goodwill with the people to a degree that will translate into votes, while Democrats, as evidenced in the primaries so far, will be energized, get out the vote, and swarm to the polls to crush the McCain-Whoever ticket like they did the Goldwater-Miller ticket.
DrDave
I have a friend who is a retired USAF Lt. Colonel. 30 years in the service, two sons who served (one an active duty Major in the Marines, the other a recently retired Lt. Col in the Air Force just like his father). He hates McCain. Calls him a RINO, can’t see past the two or three moderate stances McCain has taken to appreciate how conservative he really is. And in an email to a group of us today, this retired pilot said, “With the nomination of John McCain, I will not cast a vote for a presidential candidate for the first time since I was old enough to vote.”
Rush may roll, and Coulter may roll. But my friend (and many of his military vet friends who feel just the same way he does) will not roll. If they vote, they will write in another candidate. Or they will abstain.
What I can’t believe is that these guys would Swift Boat a member of their own party. I believed it when they did it to Kerry but I can’t believe they would do it to a guy who is really one of their own.
So they deserve to lose in 2008 and lose they will.
Laertes
I’m real interested to see how long Limbaugh and Coulter can hold out. These people aren’t, after all, journalists or analysts. Their livelihoods depend not on being right but on being popular.
They’re right-wing performance artists.
Like any artist, they can lead their audience through new material. But there are always limits to how far the audience will go and how fast they’ll move. Unveil an act that’s too hip for the room and you can lose your audience entirely.
And a performance artist with no audience is just a crazy naked lady smeared with chocolate.
The incentive to stay anti-McCain is clear: He’s doomed. If you spend the next nine months complaining that McCain is going to lose because he thinks the Earth is round, come election day the Earth is going to look good and flat.
There are risks, however. When President Obama starts naming guys like John Edwards and Erwin Chemerinsky to the Supreme Court, the troglodytes are going to be looking for Someone To Blame, and while you’ll look real smart being the guy who predicted McCain’s defeat, you don’t want to look like the guy who caused it.
Limbaugh and his ilk will come around, and fast. Republicans Obey. It is their nature. They crave order, they worship authority, they crave order and hierarchy and derive self-worth from obedience. The right-wing bloviators will either fall in line or lose their audiences, and these people cannot afford to lose their audiences.
Dennis - SGMM
McCain. All we have to do is start an add with him singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” and then segue to this.
maxbaer (not the original)
I’ve listened to a little of the post-Super Tuesday Hannity. Today he had two callers in a row mention the possibility of the Republicans retaking Congress. WTF are they telling these people?
I’m sure the right-wing mouthpieces will come around to McQueeg. But, most of us on the left will crawl over broken glass to vote in November. That’s going to be the difference.
Wilfred
Eventually though, I took my father’s knuckles upside my head. Which is what I hope McCain gives these whiny sacks of shit. I think he’s in a good position to tell them to fuck off since a) If he wins without their help, he owes them nothing, and b) If he loses because they don’t help him then they’re fucked even more.
They’re screaming because they know it and he knows it.
The Other Steve
They’re clearly delusional.
Bubblegum Tate
This is true, but it is also unlikely, I think. These people bitching and moaning will eventually come around and vote for him, and I think he knows that, but he can’t exactly just come right out and say, “Oh, stop your crying–you know you’re gonna vote for me in the end.”
Dennis - SGMM
They’re confident that the Super Delegates will throw the nomination to Hillary.
Wilfred
I agree, but I suspect McCain is being given an opening by these lamebrains in that he’ll have to look elsewhere for votes – they’re making him think outside of the box. Only place left is Hispanics. If he chooses, say, Mel Martinez, as his running mate he opens up space where there wasn’t any available. At the end of the day enough of the wingnut crowd will turn out for him and that might be enough to beat Clinton, who’s carrying her own substantial baggage.
Obama, OTOH, plants the Republicans 6 feet under for the next 8+ years.
The Grand Panjandrum
Fixed.
Laertes
“How can the Democrats have retaken congress? I don’t know anyone who voted for them!”
Rick Massimo
Of course they’ll all vote for McCain. Limbaugh and Coulter included. All they have going for them is the mystique of omnipotence and inevitability. Once a Democrat wins and the economy improves and the government actually works again, their entire game is up. It’s been eight years of terrorizing (I chose that word carefully) people into thinking there can be no other choice.
Xenos
Of course. They always assume that everybody is as selfish, greedy, and dishonest as they (the ‘conservatives’) are, and they would cook the results of a nomination in a heartbeat. The cynicism makes their own crimes seem necessary.
Now, if Clinton ends up as crooked as they are…
KG
Wilfred – Mel Martinez can’t be vice-president, he’s a naturalized citizen, not natural born.
Pelikan
That’s my big fear, that Hillary will win, but in a way that looks less than straight. Her supporters would show up and crow, but the rest of us would be stuck with a bad taste in our mouths.
Then come November, the Village elders would be portraying her as Nixon in a pantsuit and McCain as the white hat. Bam! That’s how democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again.
That’s why I’m on the pony, you all know that the above is an all-too-likely scenario.
jcricket
Pelikan – The wingers have been crying foul whenever they lose for years. Suits their victim mentality/narrative. They’ll claim Obama only won because kids hacked the vote, or illegal darkies voted twice, or whatever. Or they’ll oppose him because he’s too “green” to be “taken seriously”.
I’m not anti-Obama, but the naivete of his supporters can be infuriating sometimes. Just because he hasn’t yet felt the wrath of the GOP wingnut brigades doesn’t mean he won’t.
jcricket
Must be the same people who insisted Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson were just minutes away from being indicted the whole time Fitzgerald was investigating.
Brain hurts. Need sleep.
Bob In Pacifica
Our definitions of “great radio” differ.
kmeyer
I drive a truck, and can and do listen to am radio all day on occasion. Rush is broadcast on a 2-hour delay, so I heard about Mitt dropping out on Ed Schultz and knew exactly when to tune in to God’s favorite sex-tourist. His “explanation” was basically this:
“John McCain is to blame for John McCain winning the Republican Primary. Oh, and P.S., eveyone is jealous of me.”
Yeah, sure, Limbaugh is unbelievably consistent in his incoherency, but it still cracked me up.
El Cid
Thank you for this grand corrective to this discussion about how principled are all these conservatives and they’ll never blah blah blah blah.
It should be added that the movementarian idiots also possess no historical memory nor sense of consistency.
“We have always supported John McCain,” they will say soon enough in a completely coordinated stereo chorus.
SkepticScott
John McCain need have no fear. For all the blathering and the hyperventilating going on now, when September and October roll around, and the hardliners on the right find themselves staring into the (for them) foreboding abyss of 8 years of a Clinton or Obama presidency, he’ll start to look mighty damn good.