No Runny Eggs

Stephen Green describing Congress to somebody north of the longest undefended border in the world (no, not the Mexican-American border, at least not yet):

The Senate is kind of like the House of Lords, only we’ve been stupid enough to let them hold on to real power.

The House is 435 people so offensive that their neighbors think it’s worth spending a couple hundred thousand dollars a year just to ship them away to Washington. These same bozos determine our taxes.

To which I add, the Speaker of the House tends to think that he or she is Prime Minister, when it is the executive that presides over the Senate.

While I tend to feel strongly about positions I take, I try to ensure that emotion doesn’t come into play until I’ve made a sound decision.   This is why I’ve been puzzled by why I have such a strong aversion to John McCain as the potential Republican nominee when I hear that the American Conservative Union (ACU) has given him a lifetime rating of 82.3.   Is it possible that I’ve gotten myself wrapped up in the McCain derangement rather than doing a thoughtful analysis?   After looking at the ACU it turns out that like most things McCain has said lately, while the fact snippet is true, there is much more to the story.

McCain does indeed have a lifetime rating of 82.3 from the ACU.   However, his recent ratings tell a different story.   In 2005 McCain’s rating was 80, still not bad.   In 2006 McCain’s rating dropped to 65.   Why has McCain dropped?

One might say that McCain’s drop is somehow related to issues that are peculiar to his representation of the people of Arizona.   One might say that, but if they do they would have to ask McCain’s Arizona counterpart, Senator Kyle why he has a lifetime rating of 96.9, a 2005 rating of perfect 100 and a 2006 rating of 80.   Obviously the issue isn’t representation of Arizona residents.   No, Senator McCain’s issue is that in 2006 he decided to vote against positions that are solidly conservative.

Everyone is aware that McCain went AWOL regarding the amnesty issue but does anyone remember that in July of last year McCain voted against the building of the border fence?   Oh yeah, I forgot, he’s learned his lesson now!

How about taxes?   I can’t figure out whether McCain is for or against Bush’s tax cuts.   He seems to dance around the issue each time it is asked.   Does anyone remember when McCain voted for a Senate bill that would have increased the number of votes required to LOWER TAXES from a simple majority to 60 votes?   Does this really sound like someone who thinks tax cuts are important?

How about prolife?   McCain’s record is consistently conservative when it comes to abortion.   However, in my book, prolife issues also extend to embryonic research.   I find it hard to reconcile being prolife but accepting the use of embryonic stem cells.   At the very least, embryonic stem cell research should not be funded by the federal government.   Yup, that would be the consistent prolife position but it’s not McCain’s.   McCain voted FOR the bill that allowed the use of federal funds for embryonic research.   I could go on with other examples of McCain’s recent lack of conservatism but I won’t.   The nauseating details can be found here:   http://www.acuratings.org/2006senate.htm

So why do I think I’m schizophrenic when thinking of McCain’s lifetime ACU ratings and his non-conservative rap?   The answer is I’m not, he is!   While having a lifetime rating that is not perfect but is acceptable, during the most recent 18 months his liberal leanings have become more apparent.   When the likes of Chuck Hagel and Norm Coleman have better ACU ratings than you do I think it’s safe to say that you’ve left the conservative wing of the party!  

Revisions/extensions (5:11 pm 2/4/2008; steveegg) – Fixed some formatting issues.

Revisions/extensions (1:30 pm 2/6/2008) – McCain is now inevitable. “Thank” you RNC, rank-and-file, and “conservatives” who refused to back and ultimately coalesce around a conservative candidate.

Flip has been doing a bang-up job on keeping track of the delegate counts. Indeed, I’m going to, er, borrow his GOP Primary Scoreboard – Maine Edition…
Sorry, I blew up my pics folder
Flip also ran the math on what Mitt Romney would need post-Super-Duper Tuesday to get the nomination based on what he gets on SDT. He figures that, for any candidate to remain viable after SDT, the candidate would have to need no more than 2/3rds of the delegates unspoken for by SDT. In Romney’s case, that would mean he would need to get at least 34% of the delegates in SDT.

Because I’m not satisfied by looking at just the latest candidate the LeftStreamMedia is trying to dump out of the race, I decided to resynthesize the viability factors for the remainder of the candidates, taking each through the full gamut of 0% of the SDT delegates (or the percentage a particular candidate would need just to remain mathematically in it without taking from one of the other 4) to 100%. Of particular note, I also ran a set for John McCain that assumed he would get all of Mike Huckabee’s delegates after SDT, and that Huckabee would have 165 delegates coming out of tomorrow (in short, his percentage of delegates now). First, the chart for McCain and Romney:

Note that, if McCain does not get Huckabee’s delegates, he will need to get 34% of the SDT delegates to remain “effectively viable”, that is, he needs to get no more than 2/3rds of the remaining delegates. That is the same (give or take rounding) as what Romney needs. Similarily, for McCain to become “effectively inevitable”, that is, he would need no more than 1/3rd of the remaining delegates, he would have to get 69% of the SDT delegates, compared to Romney’s 70%.

Where it gets interesting is when one adds Huckabee’s delegates to McCain’s. I’ll ignore the “effectively viable” number I originally calculated, as an 18% showing would make McCain anything but viable. However, if McCain and Huckabee got a combined 66% of the SDT delegates (the example in my chart has McCain getting 53% and Huckabee 13%), and all of Huckabee’s delegates went to McCain (or vice versa if you’re a Huckster), he would become effectively inevitable. Also, even if McCain and Huckabee took every delegate on Tuesday, their combined delegate count would not be enough to mathematically lock up the nomination.

Next up, the surviving also-rans, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul:

In order to remain “effectively viable”, both Huckabee and Paul would need to get at least 40% of the delegates on SDT. Morever, while both could theoretically be mathematically eliminated, only Paul is in serious danger of that. He would need to more than double his average delegate performance in order to have any shot whatsoever.

(Extension) Now that Super-Duper Tuesday is over, let’s go back to Flip for an analysis of the numbers. He does assume that McCain got all of California’s delegates because he won every county, while Jim Geraghty says that Romney will end up winning between 2 and 4 of California’s Congressional districts and thus between 6 and 12 delegates. There are also currently a few anomalies between plugging the percentages into the above analysis and the current Flip analysis that I cannot currently explain.

What is clear by any metric that includes California is that McCain has somewhere more than 60% of the delegates he needs to get the nomination on the first ballot. Worse, specifically for those hoping for a brokered convention, there already has been a deal cut between McCain and Huckabee, specifically in the West Virginia convention, where the McCain delegates flipped to Huckabee en masse on the second ballot. If the inverse holds true, McCain would have roughly 75% of the delegates he needs.

The road is all-but-impossible for Romney. Most if the states and territories up in the next 2 weeks, including Wisconsin, use by-district WTA schemes, and I expect McCain to take both of the “state”wide WTA contests (the largest prize of Virginia and the District of Columbia) as he is the Beltway and veteran candidate.

Bill Quick has the first 10, John Stephenson has the last 3. They both do a better job of explaining than I, and since I pretty much agree with the explanations, I’ll simply list the thirteen here…

#13 – The McCain-Snowe-Dorgan Drug Reimportation Act of 2004 (which would have shut down pharmaceutical research and development)

#12 – The McCain-Edwards-Kennedy Patients’ Bill of Rights Lawyers’ Bill of Sale

#11 – McShame’s defense of John F. Kerry against the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

#10 – McShame’s siding with the gay activists in a case when the Christian Civic League of Maine attempted to generate grass-roots support for the federal Marriage Protection Amendment

#9 – The Keating Five (mark my words; should McCain become the nominee, the moment he gets the required number of delegates, the presstitutes will be all over this)

#8 – Siding with the pro-abortion lobby when Wisconsin Right to Life attempted to generate grass-roots support to bust the filibuster of an attempt to prevent minors from crossing state lines for the purpose of getting an abortion without their parents’ consent during the re-coronation of Nobody’s Senator, Herb Kohl

#7 – Siding with the pro-abortion lobby again when Wisconsin Right to Life wanted to bust the judicial filibusters while his good friend Russ el-Slimeroad (Moonbat-Al Qaeda) was up for re-coronation

#6 – McShame’s starring role in the Gang of 14, which buried several good Constitutionalist judicial nominees

#5 – McShame’s ongoing class warfare

#4 – The McCain-Kennedy-Bush Shamnesty Act

#3 – McShame’s support for full Constitutional rights for terrorists

#2 – McShame-Slimeroad Lieberal Protection Act

And the #1 reason why I will never vote for John McCain…

#1 – If John McShame is not a RINO (he said in 2004 when he was flirting with running with Kerry – "I believe my party has gone astray. I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and in their philosophy."), I don’t know what a RINO is

Like I said, I’d rather deal with the flip-flops I do and don’t know about than somebody who, but for the War (and even on that, there’s a vital portion he agrees with the ‘Rats on), would be happier than a pig in day-old shit as a ‘Rat.