The enthusiasm gap

Stephen F. Hayes has written a Weekly Standard piece on the difference in support for the two presidential candidates. Here are some polling results:

There are risks to this strategy and the enthusiasm gap is chief among them. A Washington Post/ABC News poll last month found that nearly half of the liberals surveyed are enthusiastic about supporting Barack Obama, while only 13 percent of conservatives are enthusiastic about McCain. More generally, 91 percent of self-identified Obama supporters are "enthusiastic" about their candidate; 54 percent say they are "very enthusiastic." Seventy-three percent of such McCain supporters say they are "enthusiastic" about his candidacy, but only 17 percent say they are "very enthusiastic."

A USA Today/Gallup poll reported similar findings last week. That survey shows that while 67 percent of Barack Obama's supporters are "more excited than usual about voting" for their candidate, only 31 percent of John McCain's supporters can say the same thing. More troubling for the McCain campaign is that more than half of those who identified themselves as McCain backers--54 percent--say they are "less excited than usual" about their candidate.

Hayes then goes on to list some of the issues that McCain disagrees with conservatives. He doesn't really dig and get to the biggest one, though.

You know what's coming: immigration. It's not mentioned once. I presume that's because The Weekly Standard is basically for open borders. Hayes must have had to sift through a bunch of people to interview before be found a "typical voter" who didn't bring up the issue.

Yes, McCain believes in the global warming nonsense. He's also squishy on all kinds of other issues. That's annoying, but the reason I will not support him is his open-borders/amnesty stance. The thing is, Obama's no better on it, but for Obama it's just another issue. For McCain amnesty is more of a personal quest, and when he becomes president he will fight hard for it starting on day one. Obama will be more concerned with having the government take over our health care industy.

McCain's running mate

Here's an e-mail to KJL at The Corner on why McCain should pick Bill Bennett as the Republican VP nominee.

Lots of good reasons are given, and I think he'd make one the top few choices possible. (I think disaffected social conservatives would flock to McCain if Bennett was with him.) I'd like to see Mitt Romney picked, but then I have a bit of an irrational politi-crush on him. Voters just don't really like him very much, which is a hindrance. I do wonder if he would be a better VP candidate than presidential candidate, though, as he would be able to focus on his core strengths that McCain would want him for, such as economic experience.

On the other hand, Amnesty John isn't getting my vote anyway, and I'd hate to see Romney's political career destroyed by having to back McCain's immigration plans.

On a final note, I think Obama's VP pick is going to be a much more interesting decision, as he's kind of blank slate to many people beyond the "hope/change" stuff.

McCain still sucks

Reading more and more about the leftism of Barack Obama makes me creep closer and closer to wanting to support John McCain. Then he does something like this that sends me way back against him:

CHICAGO (AP) - Republican presidential John McCain assured Hispanic leaders he would push through Congress legislation to overhaul federal immigration laws if elected, several people who attended a private meeting with the candidate said Thursday.

Democrats questioned why the Arizona senator held the meeting late Wednesday night in Chicago. But supporters who were in the room denied that McCain held the closed-door session out of fear of offending conservatives, many of whom want him to take a harder line on immigration.

The money quote:

"He's one John McCain in front of white Republicans. And he's a different John McCain in front of Hispanics," complained Rosanna Pulido, a Hispanic and conservative Republican who attended the meeting.

Pulido, who heads the Illinois Minuteman Project, which advocates for restrictive immigration laws, said she thought McCain was "pandering to the crowd" by emphasizing immigration reform in his 15-minute speech.

And here I thought that being out until 2:30 last night would make me too drunk/hungover to post today. That's what McCain does to me! More details here.

Obama wants to give breathalyzers to kids with asthma

McCain's not the only one to have misspoken recently.

John McCain is a liar

John McCain saved his presidential ambitions last year by ditching his rhetoric about amnesty for illegal aliens. He started saying that he heard the American people, that they want border security first, and that he would work on that before he would push for amnesty as president.

I never actually believed this, but I was willing to at least believe him since despite his many flaws, he had a record of being a man of his word.

That's no longer true.

Here he is last night speaking to a business group:

He added: “I believe we have to secure our borders, and I think most Americans agree with that, because it’s a matter of national security. But we must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item if we don’t do it before, and we probably won’t, a little straight talk, as of January 2009.”

Mr. McCain asked others on the panels for suggestions about how to “better mobilize American public opinion” behind the notion of comprehensive immigration reform.

John Hawkins reaches the following conclusion:

Put very simply: John McCain is a liar. He's a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration. Quite frankly, this is little different from George Bush, Sr. breaking his "Read my lips, no new taxes pledge," except that Bush's father was at least smart enough to wait until he got elected before letting all of his supporters know that he was lying to them.

Under these circumstances, I simply cannot continue to support a man like John McCain for the presidency. Since that is the case, I have already written the campaign and asked them to take me off of their mailing list and to no longer send me invitations to their teleconferences. I see no point in asking questions to a man who has no compunction about lying through his teeth on one of the most crucial election issues and then changing his position the first time he believes he can get away with it.

I agree completely. McCain WILL NOT have my vote in November, regardless of what happens from now until then. If we have amnesty (and we likely will, since Obama is also in favor of open borders), I'd rather it not have the support of a Republican president. Let the Democrats be blamed for its disastrous results.

Oh yeah, about that post the other day? Now Obama isn't the only one I'll be going after.

UPDATE: Ace is with me, and of course does a better job of saying it:

What surprises me is that John McCain fetishizes his own integrity and honor and yet apparently doesn't think a promise made to conservatives "counts" -- perhaps he imagines we're children, or perhaps legally incompetent lunatics, who cannot enter binding contracts, and thus the contract he made with us can be voided without consequence?

I don't know. For a man to whom integrity and honor is supposedly so important one would imagine he'd be slightly less cavalier about lying and breaking a promise, even if he didn't like that promise.

...and...

This is the nasty edge of McCain's conception of himself as impeccably righteous -- he believes he's so above the rest of us in terms of honesty and integrity he can also decide what constitutes a lie and what constitutes bad behavior and what represents a broken promise. As in, his mind, his presidency is absolutely indispensible to America, tiny deceptions like this are not merely excusable, but downright imperative, and thus justified.

Praise McCain, get a cookie

OK, not a cookie, but points or something from the campaign website for leaving pro-McCain comments on certain blogs (not this one). Michelle Malkin has the details. She also has this following suggestion, snarkily:

In the spirit of open dialogue and outreach, I encourage the rest of you all to reciprocate and leave your thoughts about McCain–say, his decision to retain Juan Hernandez, speak at the the La Raza/The Race conference, embrace anti-assimilationist campaign finance co-chair Jerry Perenchio, and perpetuate global warming hysteria, for starters– on the McCain campaign blog.

I enjoy that she is treating this election much like I am, by disliking both candidates.

Obama's team on the general election

The Telegraph of London has an article about how Obama's senior advisors are (behind closed doors) predicting a November blowout of McCain.

There is a LOT in here that I'd like to comment on, but it would take a big chunk of time for me to do so. I want to read it another time or two before I do (if I ever do, as I know I have a history of promising follow-ups that never, um, follow up).

It's not that I think their premise is wrong, that Obama will win handily. I just think there are a lot of things working for and against both candidates, and we are still 5 and 1/2 months away. It's far too early to be making predictions like this, and Team Obama better not get too cocky too early. For an example of that, think about how 5 and 1/2 months ago the nominees were supposed to be Hillary and Giuliani. Hillary in particular never put together the ground game in the caucus states, and that basically lost her the nomination.

Like I say, I'll attempt to have more later.

Election coverage

As anyone who regularly reads this space knows, I am no fan of John McCain. He's not a conservative (no matter how much he fooled people in the primaries), and he would be destructive to the Republican brand if he won the presidency. His stands on illegal immigration and global warming show this clearly enough.

I also don't like Barack Obama, as you might guess. He's playing the usual game that the Democratic nominee has to every four years of pretending he's not as liberal as he really is. If he came out and said what he really thought about issues (and the media highlighted his past votes the way they scrutinize Republicans), he'd be lucky to get 40% of the vote in November. The liberal media is thus complicit in this deceit. Obama had the most liberal 2007 voting record in the Senate, which says a lot when you have the likes of Barbara Boxer and Ted Kennedy populating the chamber. New kind of politics and bringing people together? He couldn't even vote to confirm the superbly qualified John Roberts as Supreme Court Chief Justice. He's a left-winger who has come up through the twin pillars of corruption that are the black urban political system and the Chicago Democratic machine. On foreign policy he would be a disaster for our country on the scale of Jimmy Carter.

Given that, you might then conclude that I would hold my nose and vote for McCain. Not so, at least not at this point. Given McCain's history, he has to earn my vote. Being not-Obama isn't good enough.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that although I have basically stayed away from commenting on the Democratic candidates, that's now going to change. There will be tons of anti-Obama stuff coming, but for you Obama fans, don't despair! McCain will no doubt continue to annoy me to levels a Republican presidential candidate shouldn't, so while there may not be equal time, it won't be because I am trying to tear down Obama and prop up McCain. I want to tear them both down.

Besides, my vote won't matter anyway. Jesus Christ himself could be resurrected and run as the Republican nominee, and Obama would still win Illinois.

Great shirt

If you don't understand it, then you're not a politics nerd. Thanks to Michelle Malkin for pointing it out, and also for showing how cranky conservatives are with the national Republican party.

"Oh Boy"

That's the title of this blog post on The Corner by Kathryn Jean Lopez, where she reproduces an e-mail:

Subject: McCain's Speech(es)

Every time I hear one I wonder if there will be a Republican response, like after the State of the Union.

Good question!

John McCain pushes me closer to the edge

John McCain is making voting for him in November more and more difficult. Obviously (to anyone who reads this space with any regularity, that is), his open-borders and pro-amnesty stance for illegal aliens is the big one. He's lately been getting worse on this issue (after his mild flirtation with enforcement that brought back his campaign last year), which was bad enough.

The other day, though, he gave a big speech on global warming. Conservatives didn't like it:

It looks like Senator McCain is going to be his own worst enemy. He’s feisty and stubborn and those attributes are showing (and not in a good way) in his refusal to compromise with conservatives on issues like global warming and illegal immigration. The more I hear from McCain, the less likely I am to vote for him. I initially intended to vote for him because he’s the Republican candidate, but with a Democratic-controlled Congress and McCain’s inclination to “reach across the aisle,” what will I get for my vote?

Exactly my thoughts. Then there is this:

The latest sign of that is the recently introduced “eco-friendly” campaign merchandise the McCain campaign has showcased on its Web site. Included are his and hers “Go Green” McCain embroidered polo shirts, T-shirts, hats and visors with or without the recycle logo. Organic cotton onesies for the babies. You can also find “Go Green” McCain tote bags, notebooks and travel mugs (with up to 100 percent recycled material and an “enhanced biodegradability additive”).

It sounds like a joke, and I wish it was. This is nauseating to me. If hippies want to get into that stuff, fine, but for the conservative party's nominee to is too much for me. Here's Rush's take:

“The troubling thing here, Senator McCain, is I’m mapping out plans here to try to persuade Republicans to eventually cross over to vote for you and this is not making it any easier,” conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said on his May 12 show. “At some point Republicans are going to have to decide whether to cross the aisle and vote for McCain. Clearly, he’s rolling the dice in thinking that the ‘green’ community and the independents and the yutes out there will buy into this global warming business and think he’s different than the average conservative Republican and that will stand him in good stead.”

If the election was today, I'd leave the presidential spot blank.

Newsflash: Congress still trying to sneak amnesty for illegal aliens past us

It's hard to surprise me lately when it comes to Washington DC, but I should always keep in mind how much they all want to give amnesty to as many illegal aliens as possible, along with keeping the borders wide open.

To wit, in the past few years many states and municipalities have passed there own laws to combat illegal immigration since the federal government has no interest in doing so. They have been pretty darn successful. So what does Congress want to do? Invalidate them all!

As always when dealing with the political class growing ever more distant from the populace it rules, the NEVA devil is in the details. For all of its noble goals, hidden in the voluminous wording of this legislation is the true agenda of its sponsors, to wit, the section on preemption, Section 101(b)(2)(A), which reduced to simple language* would preempt and ban any and all state or local law for immigration-related issues enacted to impose employer fines or sanctions, or would forbid any laws requiring employers to verify work status or identity for work authorization. It would also prevent any unit of government from verifying status of renters, determining eligibility for receipt of benefits, enrollment in school, obtaining a business or other license, or conducting a background check.

This preemption, buried deep in the text of the bill, would kill all the laws recently enacted by long-suffering states and localities in response to the federal government’s unwillingness to enforce its own federal laws on immigration. Gone would be the recent highly effective and highly successful enforcement legislation of Arizona and Oklahoma, the local laws and ordinances of towns like Hazleton, PA, Costa Mesa, CA, Herndon and Prince William, Virginia, and over a hundred other localities, and of hundreds more in process of enactment.

For one example, the control of business licenses is now one of the few areas not preempted. It is one of the few tools still left to states and local governments to fight the presence and hiring of illegal workers, and the award of benefits and welfare. NEVA would take even those tools away. Having abdicated its own responsibilities on immigration enforcement, the Congress is apparently on a search-and-destroy mission for any lower elected body that might actually want to follow the rule of law and provide the protection for its citizens that the federal government seems incapable and unwilling to provide.

Who is responsible for this abomination? Here is where I'm surprised, since House Republicans were the only thing that stopped the last few attempts at amnesty:

Although labeled “bipartisan”, this bill submitted by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex.) is overwhelmingly Republican in its sponsorship (28 out of 31). It appears to be a counter to Democrat Heath Shuler’s SAVE Act legislation, a much better, if not perfect, alternative now blocked by fellow Democrat Speaker Pelosi’s pro-illegal obstinacy.

Apparently the Republican leadership in Congress, not having been slapped around enough by the voters in the disastrous 2006 elections for its disconnect with those voters, is hell-bent on continuing to fight the overwhelming majority of Americans who want the illegal immigration problem fixed, not facilitated. Rather than listen to the people, they seem to be more attuned to the special interests whose siren call on Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2006 led Republicans into the minority.

Gee, I can only imagine what John McCain thinks of this bill. Oh wait...since, despite all of his lies since the amnesty fight last year almost (and should have) ruined his presidential run, he still wants open borders and amnesty for all the illegals here now, I don't have to imagine.

It's Obama

Hills didn't get the job done last night in the motherland, and she got clobbered in NC. The result is that Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee for president.

Given that he's the most left-wing presidential nominee in the history of the country, I don't find this to be a positive development. I do think, though, that McCain will beat him in November if McCain can avoid bleeding too many conservative voters.

And that's the crux of the problem for McCain. Despite his slick talk in trying to fool the voters, he's still pro-amnesty for illegal aliens. He's also loved spending the last four years stabbing conservatives in the back. He made a big speech a couple of days ago on his supposed judicial philosophy, but he can't be trusted on that issue, either. If the general election was today, I really don't know if I'd vote for him or stay home.

Of course, I realize that it wouldn't matter since Illinois is in the bag for Obama regardless...

More on Obama the pansy

Jim Geraghty nails it. The Obama campaign sent an e-mail complaining that the debate questions last night were a diversion from the issues (Geraghty posts the whole e-mail in the link). Here's his response:

In the car earlier, I thought about the contrast with McCain. The guy does town hall meetings everywhere he goes. He has reporters on the bus with him all the time. He does conference calls with bloggers.

Does he ever grumble about some questions? Oh, once in a while we'll see McCain get a bit curt with a New York Times reporter on his plane. I remember him getting surprisingly defensive in response to a question about Israel on one of those blogger calls, and I'm sure we all remember the "thanks for the question, you little jerk. You're drafted!" (which everyone at the event understood as a joke, but was easy to take out of context). But all in all, McCain's off-key answers have been pretty small potatoes. When the New York Times did that inane front-page story insinuating, but never quite coming out and accusing him of having an affair with a lobbyist, he took every question until no one had any left.

Meanwhile, Obama gets a couple questions on unpleasant topics — do you understand why your San Francisco comment bothered some Pennsylvanians? Why did you ask Jeremiah Wright to not play a role in your campaign kickoff? Why don't you wear a flag pin? Can you explain your relationship with William Ayers? — and his supporters go apoplectic, some even screaming Obama should retaliate against ABC as President. And his campaign whines that it's "gotcha politics and distractions."

Hey, welcome to the big leagues, rookie. You're gonna get some questions you're not going to like. Not everybody gets to have their main opponent's bid implode when their divorce records are unsealed and compete against Alan Keyes in a general election.

Seriously, if Barack Obama can't handle questions like this from Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous, maybe the portrait of the cracking-under-pressure whiner depicted in the Saturday Night Live sketch isn't as wild an exaggeration as we thought.

He's never won a tough campaign (outside of this primary, in fairness), so I'm starting to think that McCain would have a pretty easy time beating him if he can't handle being pushed around a little on his leftist friends and statements.

McCain's earmark legilation defeated

It's not a surprise that a proposal to make earmarks in the Senate need a 2/3 vote to pass has failed, and easily. Bloomberg's Brian Faler misses the bigger point for McCain, though, when he writes the following:

The Senate's 71 to 29 vote to reject the earmark proposal was a setback for Arizona Senator McCain, who has made the fight against such spending an issue in his presidential campaign.

Yes, it failed, but it helps McCain's presidential campaign. It helps burnish his credentials as an outsider, and thus helps his appeal in another election cycle when the Republican brand is in tatters.

As an aside, this part of the article was actually pretty funny:

"This may be the last bastion in America where they don't get it, that Americans are sick and tired of the way we do business here in Washington,'' McCain said.

Um, unlike immigration, Senator?

A McCain speech on the dollar

Not a bad idea. Here is what the author thinks would happen if he gave it (and I agree):

If McCain does that, two things can happen: Either the president and the Fed can agree, in which case we'll all be lucky because the economy will be saved; or the president and Fed can ignore McCain, in which case there would be no way for the Democrats to blame the economy on McCain if things continue to get worse.

After all, McCain, could say, "I tried to warn them but they just wouldn't listen."

It's been so long...

...since I've had an anti-John McCain post around here. Let's change that.

There's a whole story embedded in John Hawkins' post that I am linking to. The point is this:

Furthermore, it's no secret to anyone who reads RWN that I was never a fan of Mitt Romney, but here's a question: Did John McCain ever show a fellow Republican, Mitt Romney, even half as much respect as he has shown to Hillary and Obama? The answer is of course, "No, he didn't." So what does that say about McCain? A lot, actually.

Incidents like this one are exactly why so many conservatives loathe John McCain: the man is reflexively hostile to conservatives who support him while he bends over backwards to cater to liberals who think he's two steps away from being Hitler merely because he's a Republican.

If you're a conservative, how do you ever trust a man who has made a career out of spitting in the face of his friends while prostrating himself before his political enemies when you know that making nice with people like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the New York Times will always be of a much higher priority to him than defending other Republicans or pursuing a conservative agenda?

You don't.

I couldn't agree more. I may end up voting for him, but I'll never trust him.