I consider myself a conservative pretty far to the right. I'll vote for Hillary Clinton for president before I'd vote for John McCain. This is the best description of him I've read.

Bang spot-on. Though I would vote for either of them over a Democrat, as a fellow 'center-righter' you picked up on that ineffable strange glint in McCain's eyes I've never quite been able to figure out. Curiously, the only other person who has also identified this strangeness comes from the center-left: Camile Paglia, in a column for Salon.com before the 2000 elections said almost the same thing as you.

Granted, what one sees on the outside is usually manufactured, whole or in part. But watching the actions of McCain as you cited, one does get the idea that he is first and foremost out for John McCain, only secondly an American, thirdly a Republican, and only fourthly-fifthly a conservative.

Could he still win the whole enchilada? Absolutely. But one wonders at the state of the nation if the two best candidates the parties could put up (McCain and Hillary) are so staggeringly interested in maintaining their own cults of personality.

I'm not wild about either. But Rudy over McCain. Frist over Rudy. Mitt over Frist. Allen over Mitt.

No Newt. I can't decide on Brownback or Huckabee. I never cottoned to Pataki for some reason.

And I always thought highly about Bill Owens or Mark Sanford.

I'd happily vote Condi.

Absolutelyl right about McCain. A worthless, self-absorbed do-nothing who would be a terrible president. I don't care for some of Rudy's stands, but he is a leader. A proven leader. And God knows those are in short supply in this country. If he gets the nomination, I'll vote for him.

You're right, as usual, McCain IS a loose cannon. People forget Rudy's disdain for the 2nd Amendment and love for gun control, which he's been smart enough to keep pretty quiet about. This will eventually cost him conservative support, but maybe not until after nomination.

Condi for VP!

True, he was only mayor of a city, not governor of a state; but that city has a larger population, 8.1 million, than forty of the fifty states -- including Arkansas, the state of our last governor-president before George W. Bush, and Virginia and Massachusetts, the states of the two governor-presidential candidates in the 2008 race for the Republican nomination, Allen and Romney

I may be a redneck libertarian from Kentucky but I do know NY is not just a City

New York City has an estimated gross city product of $457.3 billion(2006), larger than the GDP of Switzerland ($377 billion). If it were a country, the city's economy would be 17th largest in the world, and at $56,000 per person, New York would have the second highest per capita GDP in the world after Luxembourg. The New York metro region's economy is larger than the total Gross State Product of every state in the United States except California, and accounts for 65% of economic output in the state of New York and 75% of economic output in the state of New Jersey.[1]

out of all the sites I go to, I agree with your analysis more than any others. Your analysis is completely correct for me. While I would vote for McCain versus any democrat that is possibly nominated, I greatly prefer Rudy. I prefer Rudy to Allen or Romney for many reasons, but the most important one is that McCain would not go indy on Rudy, but he clearly would on Allen.... remember the last 2 times we lost the presidency it was in a 3 party race and Perot definitely took more from the Republicans...

You're absolutely right on this one, Dafydd; I'd vote for ANY Republican in a primary before I'd vote for McCain for the excellent reasons you've given above.

However, contra Mastermind2much or anyone with similar views, if McCain somehow gets the Republican nomination, I'd vote for him over ANY Democrat who could possibly be nominated.

Why? Mostly for the same reasons you've listed. McCain is untrustworty? He's more trustworthy than ANY possible Democrat nominee. And that same answer can be given to every single charge against McCain because as bad as he is the Democrats are all WORSE. In that way he resembles Richard Nixon. If knowing everything I know today, I could go back in a time machine, I'd do everything I could to prevent Nixon from being the Republican presidential nominee in 1972, but if I failed I'd still have to support him in the general election (and hope I'd changed history enough to keep him from being stupid enough to join the Watergate coverup) because a President George McGovern would have been so much worse, and the stakes today are even higher. We could afford to lose in Vietnam; we CANNOT afford to lose in Iraq or anywhere else in this war.

To add to your analysis(with which I concur) I have this creepy feeling of deja vu all over again. It's "The Return of the Hand grenade with a Bad Haircut". Maybe a full on remake, not a "...Part Deux". Maybe a "Revenge of..." or "Beneath the Planet of....". Nah prolly just a remake.

Having lived in New York while Rudy was US Attorney, and in his Spitzer-like heyday, and then through much of his terms as Mayor, I have a great dislike for many of Rudy's political beliefs and some of his personal qualities. He's a nasty-minded, calculating chameleon-like politician who succeeded hugely as Mayor of the City of New York-- maybe the world's toughest management job.

But I can't see how he'll ever get elected to anything on a national level. The moderates and the Democrats will just type-cast him as a Republican, and therefore his naturally liberal constituency won't vote for him, given the poisonous political environment we live in today. The voters around the much of the lately Republican parts of the country will rightly see him as a "very liberal" man of dubious morals, so they'll not vote for him either. Forget the south, and probably the midwest too.

Rudy's what everyone will call a "never had a prayer" choice after the election, when the Democrat nominee walks to an easy victory. But I think he was a great mayor-- even before 9/11 made him famous!

The Republicans have what looks like an interesting vacuum at the national level so far in the running for the '08 nomination. Senators never get elected and, besides, McCain is deeply distrusted by every conservative I know. He's toast already. Romney (who appeals to me as a relative pragmatist with a few easily defined and strongly-held views) will have the whole Mormon thing as his yoke. Allen creates an impression he's a bit of a goof when he's interviewed on TV, in my opinion. We have flawed candidates all around and, besides, none of them seem to have built much early support- a good indicator of future failure.

There's a candidate out there whom we haven't identified yet.

Spot on, Dafydd. If you ask people to distinguish between Reagan and Clinton, most will say, "I would never stop a bullet for Clinton".

Rudy's what everyone will call a "never had a prayer" choice after the election, when the Democrat nominee walks to an easy victory. But I think he was a great mayor-- even before 9/11 made him famous!

I think he's precisely the opposite; if he makes it through the primaries he'll be a dynamite candidate at the national level. People like Rudy, even in the South and the West! Rudy reminds me of Eisenhower in some ways.

Rudy's problem is getting through the interest groups which tend to dominate the primary season. But if there are enough attacks like the one thwarted yesterday in London - Rudy Guliani is goping to look very, very good.....

Part of the reason for the BCRA is for McCain to have his name in lights, the other is to bury his Keating Five past in the shadows. Why, he knows how corrupting money can be from personal experience. How very fortunate for him that he and he alone could withstand the corrupting pressures and come out on the other side wiser and stronger. Now let's never speak of it again.

Condi/Rummy '08!!

Good call, Dafydd. As for me, if either one is the Republican candidate, I will not vote for President. Both are only very slightly to the right of Sen. Lieberman, who is the only Democrat I know that has at least some honor. Yeah, I know, that word isn't even in the vocabulary of most politicians, but I'm old enough to remember when it meant something. Romney/Rice sounds acceptable to me.

You hit the nail precisely on the head. McCain has a mean streak a mile long. I don't want him anywhere near the Oval Office.

I disagree with much of Rudy's philosophy, but the man has at least governed, and governed well. McCain has never governed anything, including himself. I would have little trouble voting for him over just about every Democrat out there.

However, I think we can do better than Giulianni. Romney runs rings around Rudy when it comes to management competence. Hey, he runs rings around everyone else on either side of the aisle in that catagory. So he will make the best head of government. Will he make the best head of state? By that I mean he has proven he is a great leader, but will he leads us where we want to go?

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