No Runny Eggs

The folks at Openleft.com  are getting giddy over general election polls IN FEBRUARY! They seem to think that Obama’s ability for group hypnosis will hold without change until November.

Funny how things can change in just a couple of days.
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Note the round up of Chuck Hagel’s interview this morning on FOX. I can’t do a better job of summarizing it than Mark Kilmer did at Redstate.com:

Third on LE, Chuck Hagel said that he’s out of the process but that he would not support anyone until some later date. (He used to follow John McCain around like a puppy dog but now has wrested the maverick mantle away from the GOP nominee.) He wants to negotiate and to trade with Cuba, calling it a “great country” and comparing it with Vietnam and the PRC. He wants to negotiate the future of Iraq with Iran, and he’s backed away from his QUAGMIRE, QUAGMIRE, VIETNAM rhetoric regarding Iraq, but he refused to say that the surge has worked.

In a previous post I looked at the disconnect between McCain’s lifetime conservative 82.3 and the sense that he isn’t a conservative. In that post I noted how McCain’s recent voting record was a far cry from his lifetime record and that in fact Chuck Hagel recently had a higher conservative score than McCain….Really makes me wonder if this political universe isn’t part of the Bizzaro World of the Superman comics!

The Weekly Standard writes a great article showing the impact that another orgasmic political figure, Pierre Trudeau, had on his country.

Like Barack Obama, Trudeau campaigned on flowery platitudes and nationalistic fervor. Not until he was elected did policies become specific. When they were, it became obvious that Trudeau was probably the first Socialist leading a nation on the North American continent (that is if you can get past FDR).

While a bit before my political awakening, I do have a number of Canadian friends who lived through this era. As we talk about Canadian/American relations, they will point to the Trudeau era as Canada’s tipping point from viewing the US as a staunch ally to a tolerated neighbor. Additionally, it was during Trudeau’s tenure that Canada lost it’s national cohesiveness as Quebec successfully separated themselves socially from the rest of Canada even though they couldn’t get themselves separated physically i.e. a separate national government.

I remain hopeful (no, not H.O.P.E. ful) that Americans will expect some level of  specificity from Barack Obama and in doing so will awaken and ultimately save us from going through the “Socialist experiment” that our northern allies, Canada are still impacted by.

Yes, I’ve stated I’ll vote for McCain but that doesn’t mean I won’t still poke fun at him!

John McCain seems to be getting hooked by some of the nasty FEC regulations. After using the law to his advantage by gaining access to primaries without having to get signatures in each state, he now doesn’t like the imposition of the spending limits that come along with it.

The part of this that I find most ironic is that McCain’s attorney is claiming a constitutional right for McCain to back out of the FEC program.

Shouldn’t John McCain have worried about the the power that the FEC has and the consitutionality aspect before he muddled it further with McCain Feingold?

While participating in the live blogging of last night’s  Democrat debate, I kept thinking (in between the need to swallow the puke that kept filling my mouth following either candidate’s answer) that the differences between Hillary and Barack could be printed on the head of a pin in a 12 point font and still have room to print the New Testament alongside it.  

The only  difference  that the cadidates could gin up any kind of a debate about, was their particular brand of socialist healthcare.   They debated this issue with intensity as if they had 10 seconds left to decide whether the green or red wire needed to be cut to keep a nuclear explosion from destroying Austin!   All I could hear from it was that one wanted to use guns to force you to buy their socialist insurance and the other wanted to use BIG guns.

In general, the debate went on with the two candidates smiling, agreeing and giving each other platitudes.   Without knowing it at the time, Hillary summed up the evening and solidified her position as LOSER with the following quote:

“change you can Xerox.”

The only chance Hillary had of beating Barack was to create some actual difference between them. Without any difference, Barack wins hands down because he is imminently more likeable and has all the momentum. She didn’t create any difference, Barack and Hillary look to be “Change you can Xerox!”

Surprisingly, I’m not talking about Barack Obama, I’m talking about Mike Huckabee. In an interview this morning, Huckabee claims that he will stay in the race, suprise McCain in Texas and Ohio, and force a deadlocked convention.

According to Real Clear Politics MCcain currently has 975 delegates. 1,191 delegates are required for the nomination. Romney has said that he wants his delegates to vote for McCain. Romney has 272 delegates. Doesn’t that put him over the top?

OK, so let’s say that Romney’s folks don’t follow the leader. McCain is leading polls by double digits in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. A total of 302 delegates are available in these states. Is any clear thinking person believing that McCain doesn’t have this thing wrapped up? A total of 875 delegates are yet to be settled, does anyone think McCain won’t get at least 25% of those?

I’ve said it before, Huckabee is staying in this thing for his ego. He changes his reasoning following each primary to fit some new delusional view of how the world might be. If Mike is able to craft personal delusions for a losing cause as a nominee, what kinds of delusions do you think he could live in if he was faced with a serious security threat to the US? Is this the type of thinking we would want for the man that has his finger on “the button?”

CNN has it, and I have the beer. Let’s drunk-blog. As usual, I’ll be paraphrasing a lot (I’m not that fast a typist), the questions will be in italics, the answers in plain-text, and my comments in-line with a question or answer will be in parentheses. Also, the courtesy lamp is out, so expect a lot of bombs.

Somewhere below, I asked what Mike Huckabee was still doing in the race. The answer I came up with was that he was pushing to pass Mitt Romney’s vote total to become the “next in line” for the 2012 campaign. According to CNN, after the “Potomac primaries”, he trailed Romney 4.17 million to 2.74 million in the primary votes (or by 1.43 million votes). Since we had a pair of primaries with only John McCain and Huckabee actively campaigning since then, I can do some very sketchy back-of-the-envelope math. Washington State hasn’t finished counting yet according to CNN, so I’ll have to start assuming early. Huckabee was ahead of Romney approximately 82,000 to 76,000 with 57% reporting, and AP still had no results from 4 of Washington’s 9 Congressional districts. I’ll assume that the remaining vote actually breaks a bit more in Huckabee’s favor and give him 150,000 to Romney’s 100,000. Coming out of those states, the spread should be about 1.24 million.

Do bear in mind that I’m doing some serious assumptions here, from what the vote total in Washington State will look like when they’re done counting to not taking any regional or political party bias into account. I’ll also assume for the ease of math that Romney picks up nothing; .

Over the course of the campaign so far, the states that have held primaries have had approximately 44,200 votes cast per electoral vote. There are 16 states with primaries left, with 2 of them nothing more than beauty contests: Ohio (20), Rhode Island (4), Texas (34), Vermont (3), Mississippi (6), Pennsylvania (21), Indiana (11), North Carolina (15), Nebraska (5; meaningless primary), West Virginia (5), Oregon (7), Kentucky (8), Idaho (4), South Dakota (3), Montana (3; meaningless primary), and New Mexico (5). Those states have 154 electoral votes between them, and if the math holds, there’s approximately 6.81 million votes left to be picked up if the fight goes all the way to New Mexico. If that holds true, Huckabee would need just over 18.2% of the remaining vote (plus a number equal to whatever Romney gets) to pass Romney.

That’s easily doable. The trickier question is, when will that happen? Ignoring any votes that Romney may get in future primaries, if that is to happen on March 4, when Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont vote, Huckabee would need to get just under 46% of the total vote in those states. To avoid this dragging on to Pennsylvania and April 22, he’d have to get just under 42% of the total vote from those 4 states and Mississippi. If one adds in the sole April primary of Pennsylvania to keep the quest out of May, Huckabee would have to get just under 32% of the total vote from those 6 states.

The follow-up question is whether that’s going to happen before John McCain hits 1,191 delegates. Depending on how one slices and dices the delegate count, McCain is anywhere between roughly 160 and 280 short right now (less any ex-Romney or “uncommitted Party” delegates that have announced support for McCain that I don’t know about). By the time the March 4 primaries finish up, 288 delegates will be selected (including 20 from Puerto Rico, 6 from the Northern Marianas and 6 from American Samoa), with another 36 from Mississippi and 6 from Guam, as well as the final selection of 26 from Alaska at their state convention, in March. My best guess is that both will happen on April 22.

In short, we’re in for another 2 months of the remains of the Huck-a-boom being a leech on John McCain’s not-exactly-full bank account. Just wonderful </sarcasm>.

John McCain has now been quoted saying that Pres. Bush should veto the bill that restricts interrogation techniques. McCain is not saying that he has changed his position on waterboarding (a techinque that I can’t find a reason to call “torture”.) He does say that Bush should not allow Congress to restrict methods to those outlined in the army field manual.

Perhaps the most noteworthy piece of this article is:

“If a president disagrees with legislation, he should veto it, McCain said. He said he disapproves that Bush sometimes signs legislation he dislikes, then issues critical “signing statements” outlining his objections.”

If you take this at face value, McCain will actual fight the fight and make it obvious for the American People. Today, Pres. Bush signs many bills and than adds “signing statements” which will attempt to withhold legal authority on some items. This falls short in that it doesn’t always “hold water” as a rule of law. Plus, it doesn’t raise the issue so that the American people can weigh in by hitting up their Representatives and Senators.

This is one instance where John McCain’s straight forward approach may benefit conservative voters by giving them an opportunity to call their representatives to accountability.

While I haven’t had the privilege of blogging here for very long, it’s probably apparent that I have been no supporter of John McCain. I’ve been like a lot of you during this nomination process. I went from not seeing anyone I would vote for to supporting Fred Thompson because he was/is the only person I considered a conservative in the mix. When Thompson dropped out I made my one “deal with the devil” and switched to Romney. He’s not a true-blue conservative but I could find myself dreaming enough conservatism in him to pass muster. Well, Romney is out and the last man standing is McCain…what to do?

Like most of you, McCain really hacks me off! Every time he refers to us as “my friends” I feel the need to shower. On too many occassions I feel like he has gone deliberately out of his way to poke his thumb in my eye and follow it up with some sanctimonious blathering about his principles and looking out for the American people.

OK, deep breath…count to ten…one, two, ten!

Unless your name is Mike Huckabee or Hillary Clinton, it’s obvious that McCain is the Republican nominee and that his likely opponent will be Barack Obama. Are any of us really serious when we say “We want to teach the Republicans a lesson” and by extension that we’re OK risking having Obama as President rather than McCain? Really? You’re OK with that? If you are, I have to question what kind of a conservative you are. In fact, if you’re really serious about that than are you any different than McCain pouting after being shot down on immigration?   Now that I’ve riled you (If I haven’t you don’t need to read the rest of this), let’s look at why we should support McCain.

1. Supreme Court Justices – It is possible that during the next Presidential term 2 – 3 Supreme Court Justices could retire.   Do you really want Barack Obama picking up to 3 Justices?   McCain may not be fond of Alito but he is of Roberts.   Do you have a problem with 3 additional Justices with the ideology and thinking of Roberts being appointed?
2. War on Terror – Barack Obama has vowed to remove troops from Iraq by ’09.   He has stated on numerous occassions that his approach to International issues including the War on Terror is to talk to people.   Talk to people????   Isn’t that pretty much what got us into the situation we’re in today by Bill Clinton talking to people?   Do you really want another Jimmy Carter in the Whitehouse?   I’m not suggesting that we go and blow nations off the map but without a credible threat of force, talk will only result in additional talk.   Do you have any question of McCain’s resolve to keep America safe?
3. Fiscal – OK, McCain didn’t vote for the tax cuts.   I’ll even give you that I don’t believe his tap dance about not voting for them because he wanted spending cuts to go with them.   However, he has stated on numerous occasions lately that he will make the tax cuts permanent.   Also, he has been a hawk on earmark reform and budget accountability.   On the other hand, have you taken a look at Obama’s economic policies?   I believe Obama’s policies can be summed up  as “Everyone’s a victim of something.   I’m going to give you all money so you feel less like a victim and become more beholden to the Democrats.”   Is that something that you would be OK with?
4. House and Senate – If the conservatives sit out Obama will likely win in a landslide fashion.   If he does, his coattails are likely to be very long.   Conservative government begins in the House.   Remember Newt Gingrich?   Remember what that congress was able to accomplish?   Remember who was President?   Do you think McCain is more liberal than Clinton’s natural tendencies?   If Obama wins, I fear that not only will we be House minorities but with 24 Republicans retiring, we might run the risk of deteriorating to a veto proof minority.   Would you be OK with that?

I don’t know if McCain can win even if he gets the conservative support.   I know damn sure he can’t win without it.   If McCain loses we may get a momentary emotional satisfaction but we will have a long term physical reality of the negative consequences.  

It’s time for those that claim conservative  ideology to quit whining and move forward.   With McCain we  may not have a perfect situation but it gives us a chance to improve on it.   Without McCain we will be voices in  a wilderness  for a period that could make the forty years of the Hebrews a mere blink of an eye.  And yes, I include myself in that group.