Conservatives for Obama

The worst thing that could happen for conservatives next Tuesday would be a McCain/Palin victory.

When I was a kid in the Eisenhower era, "Republican" meant being conservative--i.e. conserve-ative: prudent, responsible, devoted to leading the whole country, fierce in war but reluctant to get into foreign adventures, not given to government solving all problems...yet it was Eisenhower who built our interstate highway system.

And Republican congressmen would have dinner with their Democratic compatriots.

Then the Democrats decided it was time to try to actually win the Civil War, and the White South became available as a bloc vote.

The Republicans under Nixon ate the rat poison and got the Southern White vote in exchange for adopting that region's 18th century mindset.

It's gotten so bad that they now call actual traditional Republicans "RINOs"--Republicans In Name Only.

The best, most thoughtful summary of all this showed up in Colin Powell's recent interview on "60 Minutes" in which he endorsed Obama, despite his close friendship with McCain over many years. The reasons Powell gave were a repudiation of the Bush/Rove direction they've given the party, which I'd sum up as winning at all costs through finding the low road, and then tunnelling under that.

Of course if McCain/Palin lose, these low-lifes in expensive suits will assert that they just didn't go low enough--as if that were even possible at this point.

But actual conservatives will at least have a chance of reclaiming their party.

America needs responsible liberal, conservative, and centrist voices in its politics. Not ranting left-wing whirlie-eyes and their right-wing soulmates. These morons have done their best to wreck both parties. I just hope and pray saner voices can stand up to them.

So if you're conservative, pray for an Obama landslide. I wouldn't have said that before McCain picked Palin and demagoguery as his running mates. But he did and made the choice simple.

Pity Party for Conservatives

Kathleen Parker is the conservative Washington Post columnist who said Governor Palin isn't qualified to run the country. The comments to her latest column contained a lot of back and forth between angry conservatives and cheery liberals. Here's my contribution:

To the gloating democrats on this forum:

I think it's time to express a little sympathy for the conservatives. Think about it: we who didn't vote for Bush and his congressional co-conspirators have been tremendously harmed by these criminals. But we weren't betrayed. Because betrayel requires a violation of trust, and we never placed our trust in them.

Conservatives voters have been betrayed. They believe in limited government, limited taxes, prudent management of our country, avoiding foreign entanglements, and going after those who attack us remorselessly.

Their party has given them the biggest expansion of government in American history, a huge increase in taxes (albeit put off for a few years--but where do you think the payoff for that trillion-dollar debt's gonna come from?), management of our country by incompentent cronies and party hacks, foreign entanglements up the wazoo, and attacking the country that hadn't attacked us while making the most half-hearted of efforts to go after those who actually had attacked us.

So--you think we're angry? Imagine how they must feel.

The problem is that the party that betrayed them continues to betray them by working hard--and often successfully--to redirect their rage at the Democratic Party and its presidential nominee.

For example, here's the exact and complete text of the robocall that's going out to many thousands of GOP voters:

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"Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayres, whose organization bombed the U.S. capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans, and Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country.

"This call was paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee at 202-863-8500."

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Now the rest of us look at Obama--his demeanor, his advisors, his innately cautious actions and proposals--and see anything but an "extreme leftist." I knew quite a few extreme leftists in college, and Obama's nothing like them.

The Republicans' efforts to paint Obama and his party as crazed socialist revolutionaries is despicable. They are seeking to delegitimize half the country and divide America into two warring tribes while our real enemies proceed with their plans.

But it's not hard to see how folks like the right wing ranters on this blog come by their beliefs.

Their only alternative is to repudiate the party they've trusted with their hopes and dreams--to realize that it has really, truly, profoundly betrayed them. These are people who respect authority more than we do, and to them such a repudiation feels like mutiny. Unthinkable.

I honestly feel sorry for them.

The conservative choice for President

I've heard a lot of Republican commentators tie themselves in knots trying to describe Palin as ready to become the President of the United States if McCain were incapacitated.

She is not. The Couric interviews were a truer measure of her readiness than the Biden debate, since it precluded responding with memorized talking points.

I'm not saying this because I think Obama's a cynosure. He isn't either, but he obviously has the intellectual capacity and general knowledge required, as well as what I'd call the "presidential temperament."

This is really important. My Republican friends--including my spouse--should not vote for the McCain ticket even if McCain and Palin espouse the same values.

So would many bright 15 year old conservatives.

A values match matters IF and only if the person in question is qualified to do the job.

I may have the right attitude for a fighter pilot, but it doesn't matter because I'm old, myopic, and lack the God-given physical coordination required of a fighter pilot. So my attitude/character/values are irrelevant.

Let me stipulate that you may well think poorly of Obama's political positions; ditto Biden. But they obviously meet the basic standard of competency. Heck, the way Obama's run his race--from zero to hero--proves it in spades.

But even if you think Obama is a liberal who will appoint the wrong Supreme Court justices and sign every pork-laden spending bill his party's Congress sends him (like Bush did)--he can run the country. Palin can't. You know she can't. And whether McCain can or not, his age and medical history mean that if Palin can't you can't vote for McCain--even if his values match yours perfectly.

This is a bitter pill to swallow. I realize that. And I don't feel exactly happy about voting for Obama. After all, Obama believes that the ruling elite of Mexico should get to export Mexico's home-grown overpopulation crisis to America, at the expense of working-class American jobs and wages. And his defense of this stance is completely specious. He's simply pandering to Latino voters. Too bad McCain isn't much better.

But I can't vote for a ticket that could put someone as unready as Palin in the most important job not just in America but on Earth.

And our votes must communicate to both parties that we won't let political positions trump incompetence.

If you don't believe me about Palin's unreadiness, go back and look at her long interviews with legitimate journalists. She didn't just flub the answers--she didn't understand the questions. Her performance went beyond nervousness. She. Is. Not. Up. To. The. Task.

I was honestly tempted by McCain until he picked Palin. But besides Palin's falling so far short of the mark, it reveals McCain as someone who's willing to roll the dice. I want someone more cautious for my president this time around. And I'd bet dollars to donuts that the thing Obama is probably keeping under his hat is that he's actually more small-c conservative--that is, cautious and willing to listen to knowledgeable others--than his most rabid supporters think he is.

Vote--however reluctantly--for Obama/Biden. It's the conservative choice.