It’s finally over. Hillary tried the Hail Mary pass with the bimbo eruption to garner sympathy, but it was too little too late.
So, now it’s down to Obama and McCain. You would think McCain would be reaching out to the conservative base since he’ll have to have them to win. Quite the contrary. He’s speaking to La Raza’s national convention in July. In case you’re not familiar with La Raza, it’s a racist organization (it means “The Race”) at the forefront of promoting amnesty for illegal immigrants.
McCain has also dissed the Rev. Billy Graham. Graham, who is in failing health, requested a one-on-one meeting with McCain. McCain turned him down. If that doesn’t send a clear message to the conservative Christians in the Republican Party, I don’t know what does.
You see, McCain’s strategy has been to blur the distinction between conservatism and liberalism in hopes of bringing Democrats into his camp. He has repeatedly pandered to the illegal alien supporters by pushing an amnesty bill in the Senate. He has kissed the ring of the Branch Algorians who believe CO2 is actually a pollutant. In fact, he’s been one of the major proponents of the cap-and-trade scheme that just died in the Senate and would’ve cost around $7 trillion. The cap-and-trade scheme is the business equivalent to carbon offsets. Companies would get to pollute all they want to as long as they pay the government to do it. It would create a whole new bureaucracy in Washington and drive gas prices up by as much as a dollar a gallon, at a time when citizens are already getting squeezed at the pump.
People ask me all the time, “What about Bob Barr?” Barr is a former Republican congressman from Georgia who was part of Newt Gingrich’s Republican Revolution in 1994. He did some great work while in Congress, but has now won the nomination of the Libertarian Party. While Barr is still conservative on many issues, he’s taken the Ron Paul approach to Iraq. He wants to cut and run. Regardless of your support for going into Iraq in the first place, one thing is certain: we don’t want to lose. We’ve made great strides there, especially in the last year. May saw our lowest casualty numbers since the war began. The country is getting back to normal. The CIA tells us al Qaeda has been neutralized to a great degree and the violence in Iraq is subsiding. To cut and run now would undo the work we’ve done over the last five years and create a power vacuum in the Middle East. It would be total chaos if we rapidly withdrew and God only knows who or what would rise to power. New polls show that the Iraqi people want us to stay until their security forces are completely up to speed.
Ironically, this is the issue that may elect John McCain. Conservatives know he’s our only hope of not making an utter mess of Iraq. That, coupled with the potential to replace a Supreme Court justice or two as well as other federally appointed judgeships, may cause many conservatives to hold their noses and pull the lever for McCain. And McCain knows this. He’s ignoring the conservative base because, at this point, they have nowhere else to go.
What he’s miscalculating is the potential for these voters to sit out this election.
It’s a political game of chicken. We’ll have to wait until November to see who blinks first.
Phil Valentine is an author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host with Westwood One. For more of his commentary and articles, visit philvalentine.com.
