Hugh:

Canned jokes and a laugh machine does not translate to votes.

Davod, those may have been canned jokes, but the laughter was as real for McCain as it was for Letterman. Contrast McCain self depracation with Obama yesterday fighting with a man who wanted a picture. Obama was afraid the "brother" who was "tiring" him out was going to photoshop something, so he didn't want to give him a picture. He's so worried about his image because he doesn't have the life story or character McCain does.

There certainly was real applause and laughter for McCain. I was laughing. Even though I was also cringing. McCain was EXTREMELY slow to take his cue and delivered the jokes with a total woodenness that made it obvious that they were memorized, and probably not his.

I don't mind voting for McCain, given no other choice (as in fact we have none), but this does not play out to his credit (or discredit); and I don't see how we can compare it to Obama's situation.

It was "mean" humor from both of them. Nothing like Huckabee's or even Hillary's self-deprecation on SNL. Letterman is a jerk and it should have been beneath McCain's dignity to appear on his show.

I too was a Romney supporter so perhaps my view is colored.

But what I see is a stiff and uncomfortable politician trying his hardest to remember cheesy lines and looking sorta silly as he tries, twice, to impersonate David Letterman.

I think Romney would have looked much more comfortable on that stage and delivered those lines much smoother.

McCain just reminds me of Bob Dole.

I didn't watch McCain as the trailer was enough (I, too, cringed) and I don't like Letterman, anyway. As for Romney...He DOES connect, at least in person. He came to our town, and we went to the local Dave and Busters to see him. He didn't like the arranged venue, so he came out and climbed up on a table--our table--to speak (billiard tables, covered with tablecloths). Before he did--he took off his shoes. I was impressed by that. The Republican governor did not. Shoes were good, but worn. He DID connect with my kids and all the kids who were there, as well as the adults. He took a LOT of time to pose for pics with kids, and adults, too. I was fairly impressed, as he had not been my first choice. He would have been good. I hope he gets a post where he can do some good.

I liked him.

--Doc

Baggi:

But what I see is a stiff and uncomfortable politician trying his hardest to remember cheesy lines and looking sorta silly as he tries, twice, to impersonate David Letterman.

Of course, but that's part of the fun! An audience doesn't want a polished comedian as president; they want a regular guy who isn't afraid to mix it up on stage with an irreverant guy like Letterman. They don't want someone who would huff that it's beneath his dignity to appear on David Letterman.

I think Romney would have looked much more comfortable on that stage and delivered those lines much smoother.

Yup. And they would have fallen totally flat, like Dustin Hoffman doing a Lenny Bruce routine.

Those jokes are intentionally cheesy; that's the meta-joke. Letterman doesn't deliver them straight, he delivers them ironically, with a smirk at the audience -- "I know these are stupid, but let's just play along, nudge nudge." That's why it works.

Johnny Carson's routine became an intentional parody of itself for the last ten or twelve years of the show... thus for the first time becoming truly funny. Prior to that, it was just a guy telling 1940s style jokes to a 1960s and '70s audience. His audience was old and aging. But suddenly it became hip to watch the Tonight Show -- ironically.

Carson was a savvy enough performer to pick up on that; and rather than get angry that he was being laughed at, he took to laughing at himself, constantly complaining about his lame monologue -- in the monologue. He became a cult favorite, like the Rocky Horror Picture Show during the audience-participation period.

We live in the age of irony and self-parody. McCain -- clearly an ordinary person good-humored enough and secure enough to ridicule himself as the 163 year old nominee for president (as, e.g., William Shatner has made a whole second career doing), McCain captivates the young. That's why he's always been more popular that one would expect; Ross Perot had that same attraction to the young.

But unlike Perot or Barack Obama, when you cut below the skin on John McCain, you find a real bedrock of substance. Like him, love him, or loathe him, not even angry conservatives can deny that John McCain stakes out positions on even the most controversial issues, and he by and large sticks to them... even if it puts him at odds with his own party.

People respond to that, too. Now many of those deviations set my teeth on edge: Campaign finance reform is the worst, but I'm not happy with his globaloney stance, either. But by contrast with Barack Obama, who has never taken a single position that differed from the überliberal norm of MoveOn.org (implying that he's nothing but a catspaw for George Soros), McCain is like a lighthouse in a heavy fog.

Doc-obiwan:

Virtually every politician connects in person. That's how they got their start. I think Michael Dukakis may the only recent major-party presidential nominee who didn't connect even in person.

But ever since Nixon's 1952 "Checkers" speech, the question has been who best connected with people via television. (From FDR until '52, elections turned on who connected with people over the radio.) Alas, none of Mitt Romney's good qualities ever really came through on the boob tube. I liked him, but I'm a Spockian.

In the general election, nearly everyone who heard or met Romney in person would have voted for him. That would have gotten him maybe 8% of the vote (counting close friends and relatives). In addition, about 35% of the people will vote for the Republican, no matter what. That would take him to 40%-45%.

Not enough. Unless there is a strong third-party candidate running, you have to do something to get above 50%. I believed, and I still think it was at least plausible, that Romney could have squeaked out an additional 7% from undecideds simply from moderates being appalled by either Hillary or Obama on positions and issues... but it would have been dicey. He didn't garner any support from the televised debates.

But with McCain, he gets that 8% vote from "I saw him in person and he was really cool;" he gets the 35%, of course; and he gets a strong 8%-10% from people who really connect with him on TV.

That means he starts with a base of 48%-55% even before we consider positions. At that point, we add the net positive he gets from running against (increasingly likely) Obama -- with Romney, that might have been a net negative because of the youth vote -- minus the net negative from angry conservatives who would prefer, like Samson, to pull down the entire temple that make any compromise at all, and that, plus the specific point within his range he hits on election day, will be his total.

It's hard to guess at those figures, but I strongly believe there are more nominally Democratic undecideds who will vote for McCain than there are bitter-end conservatives who think we need "eight years in the wilderness" to produce a "truly conservative" nominee -- like Barry Goldwater, I reckon; thus, I believe McCain gets a net positive over and above that base.

Romney at his best might have won with 51% of the vote; but he could have lost by 5%.

McCain at his worst would lose by 1%-2%... but the topside possibility is that he wins by 9%-10%. Because of his ability to connect on television, and because of his maverick tendencies (that grab away much of Obama's moderate constituency), McCain's odds are much better for winning, and winning big, than Romney's would have been.

But it's not just electability. On the most important issues facing America today -- spending, taxes, entitlement reform, immigration, and of course the long war -- McCain is in line with what I myself believe (Romney and I had an equally long list of agreement, without the BCRA baggage).

In fact, on each of those issues except immigration (and adding in abortion policy for this one, where he and I part company), McCain is in line with what anti-non-interventionist conservatives believe. (Non-interventionist conservatives like Bob Barr oppose the Iraq war, and some even oppose the Afghanistan war; I think there are very few of these.)

I sincerely believe that John McCain is going to be our next president, barring some unforseen tragedy (such as him falling ill or dying); and I have laid my bets accordingly.

Dafydd

Long response there Dafydd.

Since you're more involved in such things, i'll have to defer to your opinion on this one.

But if McCain becomes President in spite of some of us conservatives trying to stop him, and he is the wreck I expect him to be for our nation, can I say, "I told you so?"

Oh, and btw, if he does happen to pick a conservative for running mate, then i'll take it all back and support him. But if McCain is the man I think he is, he'll pick a liberal that the press will fawn over and call a "moderate".

Baggi,
You would stop McCain for who/what? Obama? Clinton? Please, time to move on and vote for the best available, most conservative available alternative. It's called compromise and is a great part of American politics.

phil g,

The answer is Clinton or Obama, but preferably Clinton as she is to the right of Obama (Who isn't?).

If I could find 75% agreement with McCain, perhaps I could vote for the man or hope that he wins the election, but I cannot.

He's horrible on the war on terror (Wants the United States to join the international courts thus putting our armed men and women at risk, wants to ban the use of "torture" which is really just clever forms of interogation and I believe he supports the closure of guantanamo), he's also horrible on immgration (Don't think I need to explain myself here?), global warming, taxes (Although he seems to be backtracking here but I don't believe him)...

In the end, John McCain is a great and honorable man who wasn't as great as folks like George Washington. Who knew that too many years with power corrupts even the best of us. John McCain has forgotten what it means to be a citizen, a regular average joe. His mind has been made into that of a politicians. He cares more about the process of being a politician and what the media says than he does about doing what he believes is right.

As a matter of fact, at this point in his career, John McCain has become the sort of Bill Clinton type of personality. Where the thing that is right is whatever can get done, the process. He holds no more core belief's and will sway with the wind.

I hope i'm wrong, really I do. I hope that you and folks like Dafydd can tell me a year or two from now, "I told you so."

But instead, I think that's going to be my job.

Baggi:

Well, you may as well admit that your MDS has led you to talk yourself into being a liberal. As bad as you believe McCain is on (evidently) everything in the world, Obama and Hillary are many times worse. But you've allowed them to persuade you that if you can't have it all, you'll demand that all the rest of us settle for nothing.

This is liberal thinking.

(I get the impression that your issue number two supplies 95% of your animus against McCain. Do you believe there should be a moratorium on legal immigration for a few years, to give us a chance to catch our breath?)

Dafydd

Actually issue #2 is the least of my worries. Havn't worked on the border for the past 12 years, i'm very familiar with the discussion, disagree with most politicians solutions and am happy that at least the wall is being built.

Dafydd, you wrote;

But you've allowed them to persuade you that if you can't have it all, you'll demand that all the rest of us settle for nothing.

I'm not asking for it all. Shoot, there isn't a single person in this world, not even my most loving wife, with whom I agree even 95% of the time.

But with McCain I find disagreement with him most of the time. Not all of the time, for sure, but most of the time, just as with Hillary and Obama.

And I certainly do not buy your argument that just because I will not vote for McCain means my political philosophy has somehow turned liberal. How silly! Is that supposed to scare me into voting for McCain?

I don't believe McCain and I don't trust him. Admittedly, I could be wrong. His pick for VP will seal the deal for me. If he picks a "moderate" like I suspect he will, then he'll be just the man I suspect he is. If he surprises me and picks a conservative then i'll admit my wrongheadedness and happily vote for McCain.

But I suppose at this point you're not open to not voting for McCain, Dafydd. Which really harms our society. He could come out for 90% of the things that Hillary stands for and according to your argument, as long as he remains the candidate who can beat the person to his left, we must vote for him.

That's harmful to our society in the long run. It creates this idea in the voting process that there's nothing we can do to change things, it's a horse race and the horses have been chosen for us, no one else is allowed to compete.

Oh, and back to legal immigration. My experience with legal immigrants has been very positive. Most of the folks I deal with daily are much more hard working and have a better sense of right and wrong than the average american I meet. They don't feel the same sense of entitlement that we americans feel. Young mexican boys (Who I meet mostley because of how many years ive worked on the mexican/american border) are usually polite, respectful and hard workers wanting to get their chance in the United States. This is a generalization and not true of all of them, but it is true of most of them. While young american boys of Mexican heritage are rude, contemptous, disrespectful and often times gang bangers feeling some sort of right to be bad. In my way of thinking there are two things holding together the fabric of our great society. The South (Meaning the way people are brought up down there) and new immigrants to the United States. Both seem to have a sense of what it means to have freedom and responsibility. Both groups have a greater love for the Lord than your average joe american and a greater respect for freedom.

My disagreements with John McCain and immigration are not easily laid out in the rest of the post but they boil down to this: Currently there is a new form of slavery in the United States and it is the illegal immigrant. We have three choices in this regard, ignore it and continue with the status quo (In my mind bad), encourage more of it through failed policies of the past (Yes, going back to the Reagan administration) or stop it to the best of our ability (This is generally referred to as enforcement first policies).

If you want further comments on this, feel free to respond here or Email me. I still work as an immigration officer and don't plan on retiring for another 18 years, so anytime you want to discuss it i'm willing and eager.

Sorry, that should have read, "Having worked on the border." not "havn't?

Baggi:

But I suppose at this point you're not open to not voting for McCain, Dafydd. Which really harms our society. He could come out for 90% of the things that Hillary stands for and according to your argument, as long as he remains the candidate who can beat the person to his left, we must vote for him.

Well there's yer problem right there!

You've mistaken my reason for intending to vote for McCain; you think it's just because he's the Republican. Ergo, you imagine that if Michael Bloomberg or Bob Barr were the nominee, I would just as happily vote for them.

I assure you, this is a mistake. I plan to vote for McCain because of his positions on the major issues, not in spite of them. If he had the same positions on those issues as Hillary and Obama, I would vote third party or even write in... I've done it before.

Your other problem is that you conflate too many issues into one caricature of McCain. For example, you wrote earlier that:

He's horrible on the war on terror (Wants the United States to join the international courts thus putting our armed men and women at risk, wants to ban the use of "torture" which is really just clever forms of interogation and I believe he supports the closure of guantanamo)

But this is oversimplified to the point of rewriting it:

• So far as I know, he has never called for America to be subject to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice; so I have no idea what you're talking about. I can't find anything via Google, and there is nothing about this on his campaign website.
• He calls for a ban on torture (not defined) -- but he voted against the bill that would have held the CIA to the same standard as the U.S. Army Field Manual... so evidently he is not saying that harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, can never be used.
• Here is his full statement on closing the U.S. military prison at the Guanatanamo Naval Base: "I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control." He is certainly not calling for them to be tried within the civilian criminal justice system. He thinks that Gitmo has gotten such a bad rap lately that it's causing a serious rift with our allies in the war against global caliphism.

On each of these issues, McCain is lightyears ahead of Obama and Clinton. So too on the issue of judges: McCain says he will appoint justices in the mold of Scalia, Alito, and Roberts. Perhaps you doubt his word... but do you doubt Obama's word that he will appoint justices in the mold of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer?

Surely the mere possibility that McCain might be lying is not as perilous as the utter certainty that on this point, Obama is not.

He has voted for many tax cuts; he just didn't vote for the Bush tax cuts, possibly because he was still carrying a grudge against the president. But on spending cuts, nobody denies that he is a hawk. The GOP applauds it and the Democrats deplore it; but they agree he loves to cut spending to the bone.

The only way to say that there is no difference between McCain and Obama -- or even that the difference is so slight that you may as well sit out this election -- is to completely ignore all the issues where there is a Grand Canyon-sized gulf between McCain and either Obama or Clinton.

That is why I will vote for McCain; and that is why you should (but won't): Not because he's the Republican, but because he supports conservatives on 90% of the most important issues facing America today... and because either of the two Democrats opposes conservative ideas and policies at least 90% of the time.

Dafydd

You've mistaken my reason for intending to vote for McCain; you think it's just because he's the Republican. Ergo, you imagine that if Michael Bloomberg or Bob Barr were the nominee, I would just as happily vote for them.

Perhaps. I think rather I was trying to point out that your caricature of my position (i'm a liberal) is extreme and was therefore taking the same tact. I'm not 10% the writer you are though so it probably didn't make much sense.

So far as I know, he has never called for America to be subject to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice

Ive read the quote from him before in this area but don't remember where. It was linked to through the Powerline Forums and it was many months ago. So my memory could be faulty in this area.

Also, this is just three areas where I disagree with McCain, it isn't exhaustive.

You seem to think that his rhetoric won't match his voting record, but I happen to think that he's serious when he says things about global warming, "torture", his praise of Hillary Clinton and others on the left, etc. During debates with Romney he made Romney out to be a bad guy because he is a successful businessman, throwing some firings back in his face. Using the rhetoric of Democrats. He talks about the oil companies as if they are evil, which really worries me. McCain-Feingold type legislation is frightening and McCain says things (not a direct quote, again from memory) that sound like, "If it's my legislation vs the Constitution, my legislation is right and the Constitution is wrong."

Again, not a direct quote by my impression of the types of things he has said. Which brings me to your next point:

So too on the issue of judges: McCain says he will appoint justices in the mold of Scalia, Alito, and Roberts. Perhaps you doubt his word... but do you doubt Obama's word that he will appoint justices in the mold of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer?

Judges are very important to conservatives like myself. It is one of the reasons why I love George W. Bush so much. Roberts and Alito were fantastic additions to the courts.

But here's where the Democrats have opened up Pandora's box. They taught the Republicans that judges can be successfully filibustered. I don't believe for a moment that someone like Obama would put up such intellects as Roberts and Alito. Instead, he'd put up political appointee's who wouldn't do nearly as well under the camera lights as Roberts and Alito did and the Republicans would easily defeat radical nominations through the filibuster process. On top of that, Independents would get an excellent view of the sort of people Democats want ruling over them from the bench.

But if McCain gets in this is what I fear would happen. McCain, who loves the press and loves his Democratic friends, would want to work together in a "bipartisan" fashion to "do the right thing" yadda yadda. If you recall, when President Bush had an opening on the court the Democrats submitted to him an "acceptable" list of candidates that he could put forward. The unmitigated gall of these folks! Fortunately for us, President Bush ignored them and picked who he wanted. No chance with McCain. And on top of that, because he'd pick from their list, they'd vote for the person as well as Republicans and we'd get more judges who "grow in office".

So no, I don't for a second trust McCain on judges and don't know why anyone would. The guy isn't exactly hiding what he's like and the way he behaves. He's pretty open about his contempt for Conservatives.

So Obama's liberal nominees would be opposed and probably stopped. McCain's nominees would sail through and it would be a disaster.

Not because he's the Republican, but because he supports conservatives on 90% of the most important issues facing America today... and because either of the two Democrats opposes conservative ideas and policies at least 90% of the time.

I don't know how anyone could say this with a straight face. His rhetoric is no where near 50% conservative let alone 90%.

Do me a favor, Dafydd, since I know you love to write and you have an excellent blog. Why not go over all the legislation McCain has put through and tell us why it's conservative. He co-sponsored the patients bill of rights, campaign finance reform, legislation with Kerry that raises vehicle standards to save the environment,he's one of six Republicans to vote against drilling in ANWR, he tried to close down the gun show loophole, all of this besides his opposition to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 (not just once, but twice) and his rhetoric of the time was the same as Democrats (Tax cuts for the rich). All the way up until 2005 he blocked the repeal of the estate tax.

I won't take every last dime of the surplus and spend it on tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy

That's the rhetoric of John McCain. If he won't cut taxes when there's a surplus, what makes you think he'd cut taxes now (Even though he says he will) when there's a deficit?

Let's be honest here. The argument for McCain is this. McCain is a left of center Republican who holds some conservative ideals and is to the right of Hillary and Obama. When your choice is Hillary, Obama or McCain, why, McCain is the obvious choice, right?

Let's not pretend like he's a conservative 90% of the time, or even 90% of the time on the "most important issues facing Americans today"

He disagrees with most Americans on how to handle terrorists,immigration, the economy, taxes and energy policy, where are these 90% of the issues he agrees with us on?

Baggi:

The guy isn't exactly hiding what he's like and the way he behaves. He's pretty open about his contempt for Conservatives.

Baggi, this is ridiculous. McCain says he's a conservative; he is proud of being one. His 2006 rating from the ACU is only 65%... but that's because three of the 23 "test" votes he was present for were immigration related, and the ACU took a position against McCain's bill in each case. Taking those out leaves McCain with a 75% ACU rating on the remaining test votes... quite respectable.

(Immigration absolutism is not a core conservative principle. Not rewarding people for lawlessness is a core conservative principle; but despite the tendentious shouts of "amnesty" by anti-leglization forces, the McCain immigration bill is in fact not an amnesty but a plea bargain -- a reduced punishment in exchange for admitting guilt and not contesting the charge. And plea bargains are widely accepted in other arenas, including murder, rape, and robbery criminal trials. A conservative can support the McCain immigration bill and remain a conservative.)

Those remaining were on the following issues, where he took the opposite view of the ACU:

• McCain supported requiring a 60-vote supermajority to cut taxes -- as he supports the same supermajority to raise them. I'm not very happy about this, but we did have a very large deficit at the time. I think (as McCain does) that the best way to lower the deficit is to reduce spending, not have high taxation; but in the environment where the Democrats refuse to allow spending to be cut, I can see a fiscal conservative wanting to make it a bit harder to cut or raise taxes.
• He was against a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. As am I; as a federalist, I think such decisions should be left up to the individual states. I am, however, unalterably opposed to same-sex marriage (and to polygamy, polyandry, lifting the ban on consanguineous marriage, and anything else that removes the specialness of heterosexual marriage).
• He opposed leveling sanctions on foreign governments that made greater than $20 million worth of investments in Iran's energy sector until the president certified Iran wasn't making a nuke. While I would support sanctions on Iran, I too am a bit leery of imposing sanctions on our own allies for not boycotting Iran.
• He supports federal funding of research on already extant embryonic stem cells that are slated for destruction anyway. I suspect McCain could be induced to make that support contingent on the research being conducted in a way that did not kill the embryos. He is anti-abortion, but this issue is controversial even within the conservative sphere.
• And he voted for cloture on the bill creating a Native Hawaiian government. We have no idea how he would have voted on the underlying bill; he only supported an end to the filibuster against it, which the ACU supported.

None of these goes against a bedrock conservative position like Capitalism, national defense, cutting spending, judicial conservativism, an individualist Second Amendment, racial preferences, federalism, or the reduction of the reach of the federal government. (The only vote that might go against a ban on same-sex marriage was in conflict with another bedrock principle: federalism.)

Baggi, as much as it may astonish you, John McCain is clearly a conservative. You may not like his position on immigration and embryonic stem-cell research, but the former is supported by other conservatives (such as Fred Barnes), while the latter is quite controversial within conservatism (as pro-life policy is not).

Barack Obama is on the opposite side from McCain on each of these issues: Obama opposes Capitalist approaches such as free trade, limited government intervention, reduced spending, and a hands-off policy from the fed; he opposes strengthening American national security and taking the fight to the caliphists; he wants another three Ginsburgs and Breyers on the Court and a hundred more on the circus courts; Obama supports "affirmative action" (racial preferences), gun control, centralization of government power into the national supergovernment, and extending government's reach into every sphere of the life of Man.

McCain is worlds apart from the Democrats and liberals running for president. There is simply no comparison.

Why not go over all the legislation McCain has put through and tell us why it's conservative. He co-sponsored the patients bill of rights, campaign finance reform, legislation with Kerry that raises vehicle standards to save the environment,he's one of six Republicans to vote against drilling in ANWR, he tried to close down the gun show loophole, all of this besides his opposition to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 (not just once, but twice) and his rhetoric of the time was the same as Democrats (Tax cuts for the rich). All the way up until 2005 he blocked the repeal of the estate tax.

All right...

Patient's bill of rights:

This is a defensive play; as I said before, liberal fascism has crept so deeply into the American psyche that it's impossible to survive as a United States senator while opposing every avatar of it.

McCain supported the Bush proposal for the same reason Bush proposed it in the first place: To pre-empt the Democrats, who wanted a much more fascistic version. And it worked... Congress has made no effort to enact anything more drastic.

(There's also the argument that by giving seniors low-cost drugs, the government may save money in the long-term on more expensive medical intervention later.)

Campaign contribution caps:

This is definitely anti-Capitalist and undemocratic. No defense of McCain here.

Vehicle emissions caps:

Pollution controls are neither conservative nor anti-conservative. On most such caps, McCain favors a cap-and-trade approach, which is considerably more Capitalist than a simple ban.

Drilling in ANWR:

Again, this is not a bedrock conservative issue... and there is no indication this reflects an objection by McCain to drilling in general, for example in the Gulf of Mexico or the Bakken Oil Formation in the Black Hills -- both of which likely dwarf the reserves in ANWR. (A general desire to starve us of domestic oil would be anti-American.)

Gun-show "loophole":

There shouldn't be any "loophole" for private sellers at gun shows; rather, we should generally repeal most gun-control laws. It makes no sense for a state to have rules about waiting periods and state residency and such... but then to allow private sellers at gun shows (but not dealers) to ignore them all; it's just silly.

Does McCain support shall-issue CCW permit laws? That's what I would like to know.

Here are his other positions on guns, all of which I support.

Bush tax cuts, estate tax:

I suspect the first was a personal vendetta against Bush, who McCain believed had abused him during the 2000 election. While that's not a pretty thing, it doesn't mean McCain opposes tax cuts in general; he has nearly always voted for them. And he makes clear here that he would push for major tax cuts across the board.

Having taken you up on your challenge, how about mine? Can you find a bedrock conservative principle on which McCain is closer to Barack Obama than he is to his colleague John Kyl?

If you cannot, then it's absurd to call McCain a liberal.

Dafydd

Dafydd,

You've convinced me of this much, i'm no longer clear on what it means to be a conservative or a liberal.

I'm clear on this much though. My philosophy of governance is much different than McCain's. It must be because we disagree on so many issues. It doesn't comfort me one bit when you write things like;

Drilling in ANWR:

Again, this is not a bedrock conservative issue... and there is no indication this reflects an objection by McCain to drilling in general, for example in the Gulf of Mexico or the Bakken Oil Formation in the Black Hills -- both of which likely dwarf the reserves in ANWR. (A general desire to starve us of domestic oil would be anti-American.)

Fine, but it is a bedrock baggi issue and I see that John McCain is positioned right there with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama when it comes to protecting frozen tundra over energy indepedence.

But this post is scrolling off of the front page and so i'll just let it go for now. Label my political philosophy as you will, liberal or conservative, but whatever it is it finds much disagreement with McCain and the way he speaks about running this country. To say that he agrees with me 75% is inaccurate. To say he agrees with the people I know and work with 75% of the time is also inaccurate, whatever our label.

And as an aside, via Instapundit today,

According to this site:

It is one third the size of Alaska's ANWR.

That is, the Bakken reserves.

And to answer your challenge, since i'm not into defining what a bedrock conservative principle is, i'll just say that where McCain agrees with Barack Obama I find more common than where he agrees with me.

Hmmm, the link didn't work in the last post...

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/04/usgs-bakken-oil-study-released-365.html

Baggi:

Dang, that's much smaller that I was led to believe. Still, oil is oil; we should start drilling in force.

Dafydd

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