Good clip courtesy of Think Progress:
Oddly, though, McCain keeps picking up the votes of Republican primary voters disgruntled with the Iraq War despite being, in reality, the candidate most fanatically devoted to the cause.
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Less Jobs, More War
29 Jan 2008 10:38 pm
Comments (30)
Not sure it's that odd, since all of the GOP candidates are pro-war. Moderate Republican primary voters may be supporting McCain for other reasons such as immigration, or possibly his straight talkitude.
I don't understand why you don't understand this, Matt. These aren't people that are mad we went in, they're the people mad we're not being merciless enough. We are not kicking enough ass.
They're disgruntled by Bush's seeming lack of bloodlust and they see McCain as the one to correct that shortcoming.
Not to get all literate, but it should be written: FEWER jobs, more war.
Yup,
FEWER jobs...
Atlantic should know better.
he's quoting the yackers grammar police.
I agree, FEWER has to be the most egregious typo/grammar mistake I have ever seen on this blog.
He's quoting the yackers grammar police.
I think Matt is pointing the polls showing McCain is getting support from those in the GOP who want to redeploy from Iraq as quickly as possible... and there are a good number of them...
From those I know still Republican, their view of McCain is that of an experienced military person, someone who actually knows war and understands the costs, and if presented the opportunity would more competently run the war effort. Which could even mean redeployment and return of the troops. That's why McCain is getting their support: none of the other major candidates offer that. Ron Paul's isolationist-type position about the war and foreign policy in general doesn't appeal to them...
Why is it odd? People don't vote based on issues. How else could Hillary even be in the running on the Democratic side?
Well his domestic record draws support from moderates, and Romney has refused to pivot away from the war, so this is not surprising.
Oddly, though, McCain keeps picking up the votes of Republican primary voters disgruntled with the Iraq War despite being, in reality, the candidate most fanatically devoted to the cause.
As Louie B. Mayer said to his fellow immigrant Polish-Jewish Hollywood Mogul,
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of American goyim".
I don't think it's that odd at all. I think it's more a matter of people voting based on their overall ideology rather than a specific issue like the war.
In the current Republican spectrum from liberal to conservative it seems the candidates are basically arrayed as follows
L - McCain - Giuliani - Romney - Huckabee - R
In other words, McCain is perceived as the most liberal of the 4 major Republican candidates. And that's probably an accurate perception as he was even flirting with running as Kerry's running mate in 2004. The Rabid-republican base hates him.
So McCain is more likely to draw his support from the mainstream non-ideological Republicans who aren't far-right on social issues, tax issues, or neocon issues.
Those non-ideological Republicans who appreciate McCain for his "maverick" reputation are probably not the ones who are still drinking the Iraq kool-aid. In other words, they are voting for him despite his Iraq views not because of them. Or rather, they just aren't paying much attention to his Iraq views because there really isn't any daylight between any of the Republicans on the war anyway. And if they really cared that much about the war they wouldn't be voting in the Republican primary in the first place.
So it makes perfect sense to me that McCain would be drawing in most of the self-professed free-thinking type of Republicans who are skeptical of the war. Who else they going to vote for in the REPUBLICAN primary?
"Less Jobs" may be incorrect grammatically, but that's not its point, which is: "Less" rhetorically balances "More" in the phrase.
If Romney would have went negative earlier, I bet he would have won. I dont think this is over by a long shot. I think he is really doing a number on McCain and I think that the establishment is going to go nuclear on him before super tuesday.
Don't you think that's because a lot of the disgruntlement with the war among Republicans is not with the war as such but with the way Bush has conducted it, and McCain is the single Republican most identified with criticism of the way Bush has conducted the war and therefore with the notion that there is a different, better way to conduct the war, and win it? Incompetence may be a dodge, but it is one that a lot of Republicans go in for.
And as for the polling that shows lots of people, necessarily including lots of Republicans, want out of Iraq sooner rather than later, the explanation may be that those Republicans wishfully think that competent handling of the war, which McCain is presumed to offer, will then mean a quicker exit on good terms. It doesn't matter that that's completely and patently wrong.
In the long run a pro-war stance, a "pro-victory" postition, is a political winner, not a loser. Those who doubt this will surely be surprised by McCain's glorification of his military background, vis-a-vis Hillary's inexperience, in the general election.
Shorter Jensen: IOKIYAR. And 2004 is just a figment of your imagination.
How do you judge it, though? Pro-choice Republicans vote for McCain over the others as do anti-war Republicans. You start to wonder whether GOP voters are either very dumb, or very misinformed, or don't care about a candidate who represents their views.
The comparison with Romney, made here and elsewhere, is apt. It's just that the BS around McCain is very much sustained by the media. I don't know what he's putting in the snack boxes on the campaign bus, but it must be good shit.
McCain is the single Republican most identified with criticism of the way Bush has conducted the war
Well, that's a sentiment that he's packaged up with a nice bow, and the press has treated it like a Valentine. That his criticism translates into 'more war, please, and for as long as possible' has yet to be unwrapped. I can think of a few ways to unwrap it in 30 seconds of video.
Oddly, though, McCain keeps picking up the votes of Republican primary voters disgruntled with the Iraq War despite being, in reality, the candidate most fanatically devoted to the cause.
That's because of his competition. I'm a member of that small Republican demographic that didn't think "Domino Democracy" in Iraq as a means of fighting Islam made sense, but I find McCain preferable to Romney when it comes to dealing with the situation if we're staying (on capably cutting waste from government agencies, not so much). Better the Don Quixote who really, really wants to win than the guy who selects enemy targets based on microtrend polls that also ask questions about the color of his tie.
Besides, McCain did advocate the only strategy that has produced anything whatsoever--and did so four years before anyone else. If we're not going to get our boys out of the way and let the Iraqis kill each other, we might as well give it the best effort we can. That's McCain.
In the current Republican spectrum from liberal to conservative it seems the candidates are basically arrayed as follows
L - McCain - Giuliani - Romney - Huckabee - R
The records of these guys actually suggests the exact opposite ordering, but I understand why you would think that (though Huckabee, as a Christian Socialist, probably doesn't belong on any "conservative" axis whatsoever).
The punditocracy's characterization of McCain as "left-most" has more to do with his willingness to thumb his nose at the Republican party (often to the benefit of the Democrats) than his conservative apostasies--which certainly exist, but are less severe than those of any other candidate.
With McCain, at least this torture crap would end. I'm not sure even Clinton would do that.
McCain's election might even show that the Talk Radio Republicans are a bunch of blowhard idiots who are about 20 years out of date on about everything.
I'm not sure polls that ask about progress in the Iraq War capture the subset of people disgruntled because we're not kicking more ass and turning the Middle East into a piece of glass. The John Bolton crowd who thinks Bush is a p&ssy. There is more than one flavor of disgruntled and I think McCain picks up the "Bush didn't kick enough Arab ass" disgruntled vote.
In a general election in a bad economy that line of argument gets you a landslide defeat.
If the "economy" was most on voters' minds, then how could they choose a self-confessed ignoramus about the subject, who just offers mindless cliches about
"reading Alan Greenspans' book", or propping up Greenspan's corpse? The Republicans are a pathetic bunch indeed.
Does anyone else think that a Hillary Clinton-John McCain matchup in the GE would reinforce the "Mommy Party" vs. "Daddy Party" paradigm? If so, is this a positive thing for the Democrats?
Don't Dems already struggle with pulling in male voters? Will a Hillary-McCain contest exacerbate these problems?
If McCain gets the Republican nomination, I think Democrats would sacrifice two strains of critique they used effectively against Bush, which ain't good for the Dems:
1. Bush avoided the war in Vietnam. McCain served honorably and is a war hero.
2. Bush got to where he is through nepotism and family connections. Say what you will about McCain, but his dad was never President or Vice President of the U.S. He earned his accomplishments.
McCain could be very tough for the Dems to beat.
jvoe touched on what I think is the driving force for many of the anti-war Republicans to vote for McCain, his opposition to torture.
As an independent McCain supporter my feelings are:
1. I'm dissatisfied with the war more because of how it was mismanaged for four years than because of its existence per se.
2. I value Iraqi lives as much as I do American ones, and I think our leaving could very well worsen the total body count.
3. I go back and forth on how I feel about whether the war should have been started, but given that we went in and screwed their country up, if our staying is better for THEIR country (irrespective of what it means for ours), then we should do it. And I haven't seen much evidence that's not the case.
Anyway, I think 1. is the most likely reason for most Republicans. You look at the poll numbers and see "60 percent (or whatever it is) of GOPers dissatisfied with the war" and assume they all want us out of Iraq ASAP. When really they'd just like us to do a better job.
"Bush got to where he is through nepotism and family connections. Say what you will about McCain, but his dad was never President or Vice President of the U.S. He earned his accomplishments"
You mean his dad, Admiral McCain Jr., and his grandfather, Admiral McCain Sr.? It's not exactly a "by the bootstraps" story. :)
The number 1 definition of "less" in the dictionary has been "fewer in number" for decades. I know a lot of English teachers apparently taught this to be a wrong usage, but English is more flexible than that.
Or do you tell the manager of every supermarket you go into to change the sign from "10 items or less" to "10 items or fewer"?
Perhaps McCain thinks we "should have" won in Viet Nam and now he's out to prove it. Hard to see how he will do anything differently from Bush. What's his plan?
Comments closed February 12, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Yep, and that's something the Dems had damn well better keep pointing out throughout any general election campaign against him. Given that you have a candidate who has actually been filmed singing "Bomb, Bomb Iran", one would think this wouldn't be difficult for them to do; but the Dems have shown an uncanny ability lately to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Posted by Bruce Moomaw | January 29, 2008 10:45 PM