Mike, as I keep saying, McCain is the WORST choice. It’s amazing how many people that are afraid of Huckabee seem perfectly fine with McCain, maybe not as a the first preference but someone quite acceptable. What they don’t realize is that a pandering politician is better than a true believer with the wrong agenda.
McCain is bad on
-the Amnesty (and not just bad, but the worst)
-taxes
-Global Warming
-mental stability
-claiming he invented the surge
McCain is good on
-agricultural subsidies
-conviction about the war on Islamic terrorism
-understanding of the need to increase the armed forces
From my perspective McCain is capable of doing almost as much damage to this country as either of the three dems.
While I have not decided who I like on the Conservative side (notice, I did not say republican, but there are also no conservatives on the socialist-democrat side so they are ruled out), I have never liked McCain.
Why? Well, he seems too eager to answer a question both ways and really is not conservative on many issues.
In the first debate of this primary, McCain answered a Creationism vs Evolution questions (why doesn’t the left get asked these questions also?) and answeed one way, then 20 seconds into another candidate’s answer (different from McCain’s), McCain interjected and ammended his answer to try and have it both ways.
He would have been better to say, “yes, this is what I believe” and stick with it.
He also did the same “have it both ways” with his bi-partisan Campaign Finance “Reform” bill wich silenced free speach except for proxies (527s) and American Indian groups (big donors to McCain). As we know, very little “reform” happened with McCain-Fiengold.
So, I have to agree with Igor.
Both Huckabee and Paul are strong on convictions but short on practicality and realism in my view. Thompson may end up being my favorite, though he too supported the McCain bill it believe.
Igor: You left off McCain’s pivotal role in the infamous Senate “Gang of 14″ and his previous position on Immigration which everyone else saw as amnesty and his bringing up the “torture” of a handful of terrorist monsters in the weeks leading up to the 2006 election.
I asked him about some of that when he visited here in November and he said “tell your blogging friends” (he used that phrase at least twice during our meeting) that if they don’t agree with him on the Gang of 14 etc, then “don’t vote for me.”
That did it for me. Still, I wished him “good luck” at the end thinking “dead man walking.”
Forgot about the Gang of 14. And since I did not agree with him on that issue he is actually adimant about, then I guess I will not vote for him in the primaries.
Mike, yes I left those off, thanks for the addition. I also left off the Keating Five scandal.
It’s just that his illegal immigration stand is crucial for me. I have been interested in the Islamic Fundamentalism problem for years, and I think appreciate it’s seriousness properly, and yet I feel that legalizing all the illegals and enabling a new chain migration will do more damage to this country than all the Islamists put together. A primitive nuclear device going off will finally serve as a wake up call, and there will something to salvage afterwards. Forty million new Latin American immigrants will mean an irreversible end to this country.
I guess I am still the only guy reading this site that supports McCain. And quite frankly most of the bile slung at him from readers such as jainphx is completely undeserved. Why can’t we just say, as Mike did, that he stood his ground and you disagreed? If you think that John McCain is the only candidate in this race that has pissed some people off along the way you are nuts.
I respect your choices and you can all keep hoping that Fred Thompson will improve his chances in February, but by then he will be down a ton of delegates and out of cash. He will lose to Ron Paul by 10% tonight in NH. That might not be a reason to back McCain, but it might be reason enough to start considering viable candidates.
I agree that the first concern should be securing the borders and enforcing the laws on the books. Then I believe that shipping all 12 million back would kill our economy and a ton of produce in FL and CA. McCain knows that we have to have that kind of flexible labor market. Know what an apple will cost if we can not pay under Minimum wage to pick them?
I voted for Reagan and he passed pure amnesty, McCain’s plans are tougher than Reagan’s plan was on those that work here and McCain will close the border.
Senate Republicans will say whatever the Club for Growth tells them to say. And the “growing number of scientists” are almost all on that same payroll.
CentFla, an apple would probably cost 20% more if the Minimum wage was paid. Most of the cost is transportation and fertilizers. The native population with low education would feel a lot better about themselves if there were plenty of apple-picking jobs at reasonably high wages, they wouldn’t even consider “change” Obama is peddling. The hostpitals and ERs especially wouldn’t have to close. The second generation of illegals that don’t like to work nearly as much as their parents wouldn’t have to be incarcerated and dealt with for their gang activities. ESL teachers wouldn’t have to be hired.
Illegal Immigration is mostly a way for big businesses to shift their medical and other benefits cost onto the taxpayer. They get the cheap labor, the taxpayers get the really sick members of their family. Nice trade.
But the most important thing: a permanet Democrat-voting block, because their descendants need government services forever. Plus do you really think they care about the US Constitution and history having violated the law as their first act and having heard about Aztlan? I don’t think so.
So you guys are all OK with paying 20% more for all your produce grown in the US, fine. But 90% of the country would not be (maybe read some Adam Smith) and soon all of our vegetables and fruit would be grown in Mexico and Chile. Another American industry would be gone and another deficit increased. We need that labor whether you like it or not. Produce prices are already skyrocketing due to pressures from the ethanol craze as well as transportation costs. The absolute worst thing we could do to our dinner table economy is take the 20% price increase that you seem to be OK with.
Your worries about gangs and laziness are issues that exists with or without immigration. Frankly, the number of the 12 million that pay taxes is exponentially higher than the number guilty of illegal activity and everyone that knows anything about this topic is aware of that.
And really people… If this Aztlan crap keeps you up at night then buy several high caliber weapons, bury yourself in a cellar somewhere and hide from the rest of the world. Every single crazy theory does not come true. What we should be doing instead of demonizing everyone with brown skin and an accent is making them learn our language and assimilate, just like John McCain has said.
Or you can hope someone wakes Fred Thompson up before the primaries are over or vote for a thrice married cross-dresser who is pro abortion paid for with your tax dollars, or a guy who made the conscious decision to follow a religion that believes the New Testament of the Bible is a lie and that Black men just got souls in the 1970s, or vote for a kook from Texas again.
This is a high figure. I’ve seen much lower estimates. And even those assume no substitution effect from automation. Further, arguing that something illegal should be permitted solely for economic reasons is weak; if our cheap produce were a result of child labor violations, would you still be making this argument?
gangs and laziness are issues that exists with or without immigration
But illegal immigration still makes the problem worse. No one was claiming that gangs and laziness would disappear if illegal immigration were brought under control, only that it would improve the situation.
Aztlan crap keeps you up at night
It doesn’t, not least because I live in Pittsburgh. But that doesn’t mean that letting Southern California become more and more like Mexico is somehow good public policy.
It doesn’t, not least because I live in Pittsburgh. But that doesn’t mean that letting Southern California become more and more like Mexico is somehow good public policy.
Which is why McCain is calling for assimilation policies.
And the 20% argument was not mine, read up higher a bit. I know illegal immigration is wrong, I am talking about making a temporary worker program work. Correct – if it is cheaper is not a reason for making something illegal OK, but it is a reason to consider making it legal. Otherwise we would all still be driving 55 MPH.
Cyberwombat: Check the photo credit. If AP had photoshopped that McC’s campaign would have jumped all over it by now.
Centfla: I don’t agree that the McCain-Kennedy bill or it’s variants would have solved the assimilation problem. Here’s the letter I wrote to Senator Graham, whom you know is McC’s best buddy. The letter is also an executive summary of my extended study of the Immigration problem:
We are overrun with illegals in SC where I live. It has already had a major impact on our community. Sadly, there will be less assimilation as the numbers of illegals are so high that they can self segregate to neighborhoods where English is a second language if it is spoken at all.
The argument over the increase in labor costs for various industries ignores the costs and impacts of illegals on taxpayer services.
When I was growing up the farms in Ohio which grew tomatoes had small groups of cottages (shacks really) that the migrant farm workers would use while they were actively picking the crop. Then they would move on.
Because we have allowed the former migrant workers to settle permanently, we have created an underclass of unskilled, uneducated people who do not speak our language nor identify with our culture or our political system.
It’s like feeding Canada Geese as they migrate. Sooner or later the Geese just STAY and then you have to clean their poop outta your pool year round.
Which is why McCain is calling for assimilation policies
Yes. And ultimately, the crux of it comes down to: I don’t believe McCain (or Giuliani, or Huckabee) when they talk about being tough on illegal immigrants. I actually agree that deporting millions of illegals would be a human tragedy, that securing the borders and pursuing an aggressive assimilation policy would be preferable, and that some sort of grand unified policy that addressed various parts of the problem at the same time would be best. But the candidates pushing for those policies don’t appear to have any real interest in border security nor the stomach for the cultural fight that pro-assimilation policies entail (very non-PC), so I’m forced to go with a second-best solution in the form of a pure, hardline, anti-immigration approach.
We’re already seeing how workplace enforcement and state laws in Oklahoma and Arizona (?) are encouraging illegals to self deport.
From analyzing the last Senate Bill, I concluded that there were enough loopholes to make assimilation highly unlikely. All the “Z” visa holders would need to do is pledge they had taken English lessons and renew their visa without passing a test. And there was no workable enforcement provision that I could find.
CentFla, what Mike said. Also I am an immigrant myself so I’d like to think I know something about assimilation and had lived smack in the middle of lot’s of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants on and off for years. “Brown skin” has nothing to do with this. I love educated immigrants from India who have done much more than most realize for the hi-tech industries of the USA and have MANY friends of Indian extraction. As an American who loves this country I only want to attract those who have a long tradition of providing the best education for their children. I also hate the idea of the immigration laws keeping exceptional people away from the US while anybody who is daring and strong enough to make it across the border self-selects as the de facto choice. I hate the permanent Democrat voting block. I hate it that low-skilled native born Americans have no real jobs open to them in the areas that have a lot of illegals. I hate the permanent low-skill underclass.
Gradual increase in pressure will result in a slow self-deportation. Fred is so wise, and he is the only one who isn’t just spinning BS.
CentFla: Another of the dirty little secrets about the current problem is that we are just sitting here and watching as Mexico commits a form of Apartheid against the indigenous/indian ethnic people.
You see that footage on TV of illegals crossing and it is the brown Mexicans coming across, not the elite, lighter skinned. The Mexican government has discontinued agricultural reform and cultural preservation programs for their indigenous peoples and instead is printing comic books for the illiterates they don’t want to educate giving them pointers on how to enter the U.S. illegally.
What Mexico is doing is a crime against humanity and we should not be subsidizing it with free goodies the minute a pregnant illegal female and her extended family cross the border and she gives birth.
Hey guys I am backing out of this argument as neither side will convince the other of the right answer. I just wanted you to know that I have read your responses and your letter Mike, I don’t think you guys are stupid or anything but I will kindly agree to disagree with you on what is best for our country. I hope that you will likewise see that a reasonable person can disagree with you on this issue and still be an American Loving Marine.
CentFla, I wouldn’t under any circumstance accuse anyone who disagrees with me on this issue of not being a patriotic American. I’ve heard just about every argument on this thing when I used to argue with liberals on TheHill. Many people genuinely believe it’s better and more humane to legalize everybody. Jack Kemp the famous supply sider has endorsed McCain just two days ago, and he is very conservative in general although economists tend to like open borders based on pure economic arguments.
If you want to see how politically confusing this issue is read this:
Mike, as I keep saying, McCain is the WORST choice. It’s amazing how many people that are afraid of Huckabee seem perfectly fine with McCain, maybe not as a the first preference but someone quite acceptable. What they don’t realize is that a pandering politician is better than a true believer with the wrong agenda.
McCain is bad on
-the Amnesty (and not just bad, but the worst)
-taxes
-Global Warming
-mental stability
-claiming he invented the surge
McCain is good on
-agricultural subsidies
-conviction about the war on Islamic terrorism
-understanding of the need to increase the armed forces
From my perspective McCain is capable of doing almost as much damage to this country as either of the three dems.
While I have not decided who I like on the Conservative side (notice, I did not say republican, but there are also no conservatives on the socialist-democrat side so they are ruled out), I have never liked McCain.
Why? Well, he seems too eager to answer a question both ways and really is not conservative on many issues.
In the first debate of this primary, McCain answered a Creationism vs Evolution questions (why doesn’t the left get asked these questions also?) and answeed one way, then 20 seconds into another candidate’s answer (different from McCain’s), McCain interjected and ammended his answer to try and have it both ways.
He would have been better to say, “yes, this is what I believe” and stick with it.
He also did the same “have it both ways” with his bi-partisan Campaign Finance “Reform” bill wich silenced free speach except for proxies (527s) and American Indian groups (big donors to McCain). As we know, very little “reform” happened with McCain-Fiengold.
So, I have to agree with Igor.
Both Huckabee and Paul are strong on convictions but short on practicality and realism in my view. Thompson may end up being my favorite, though he too supported the McCain bill it believe.
Thompson was a supporter of McCain-Feingold. However I believe he has since stated that he was wrong but recognized the need for it.
Basically he has said that campaign finance reform is needed but the method taken ended up being the wrong way to do it.
McCain is mostly a media scam himself.
Igor: You left off McCain’s pivotal role in the infamous Senate “Gang of 14″ and his previous position on Immigration which everyone else saw as amnesty and his bringing up the “torture” of a handful of terrorist monsters in the weeks leading up to the 2006 election.
I asked him about some of that when he visited here in November and he said “tell your blogging friends” (he used that phrase at least twice during our meeting) that if they don’t agree with him on the Gang of 14 etc, then “don’t vote for me.”
That did it for me. Still, I wished him “good luck” at the end thinking “dead man walking.”
Buzz,
Thanks for the clarification.
Mike,
Forgot about the Gang of 14. And since I did not agree with him on that issue he is actually adimant about, then I guess I will not vote for him in the primaries.
Mike, yes I left those off, thanks for the addition. I also left off the Keating Five scandal.
It’s just that his illegal immigration stand is crucial for me. I have been interested in the Islamic Fundamentalism problem for years, and I think appreciate it’s seriousness properly, and yet I feel that legalizing all the illegals and enabling a new chain migration will do more damage to this country than all the Islamists put together. A primitive nuclear device going off will finally serve as a wake up call, and there will something to salvage afterwards. Forty million new Latin American immigrants will mean an irreversible end to this country.
I really hate McCain, he has stabbed and walked over more people that are his moral superiors in his lust for power.
McCain says the immigration bill he and Teddy Kennedy fashioned wasn’t amnesty, so it must be true.
I guess I am still the only guy reading this site that supports McCain. And quite frankly most of the bile slung at him from readers such as jainphx is completely undeserved. Why can’t we just say, as Mike did, that he stood his ground and you disagreed? If you think that John McCain is the only candidate in this race that has pissed some people off along the way you are nuts.
I respect your choices and you can all keep hoping that Fred Thompson will improve his chances in February, but by then he will be down a ton of delegates and out of cash. He will lose to Ron Paul by 10% tonight in NH. That might not be a reason to back McCain, but it might be reason enough to start considering viable candidates.
peace
CentFla, what do you think about his stance on illegal immigration?
I agree that the first concern should be securing the borders and enforcing the laws on the books. Then I believe that shipping all 12 million back would kill our economy and a ton of produce in FL and CA. McCain knows that we have to have that kind of flexible labor market. Know what an apple will cost if we can not pay under Minimum wage to pick them?
I voted for Reagan and he passed pure amnesty, McCain’s plans are tougher than Reagan’s plan was on those that work here and McCain will close the border.
Senate Republicans will say whatever the Club for Growth tells them to say. And the “growing number of scientists” are almost all on that same payroll.
CentFla, an apple would probably cost 20% more if the Minimum wage was paid. Most of the cost is transportation and fertilizers. The native population with low education would feel a lot better about themselves if there were plenty of apple-picking jobs at reasonably high wages, they wouldn’t even consider “change” Obama is peddling. The hostpitals and ERs especially wouldn’t have to close. The second generation of illegals that don’t like to work nearly as much as their parents wouldn’t have to be incarcerated and dealt with for their gang activities. ESL teachers wouldn’t have to be hired.
Illegal Immigration is mostly a way for big businesses to shift their medical and other benefits cost onto the taxpayer. They get the cheap labor, the taxpayers get the really sick members of their family. Nice trade.
But the most important thing: a permanet Democrat-voting block, because their descendants need government services forever. Plus do you really think they care about the US Constitution and history having violated the law as their first act and having heard about Aztlan? I don’t think so.
So you guys are all OK with paying 20% more for all your produce grown in the US, fine. But 90% of the country would not be (maybe read some Adam Smith) and soon all of our vegetables and fruit would be grown in Mexico and Chile. Another American industry would be gone and another deficit increased. We need that labor whether you like it or not. Produce prices are already skyrocketing due to pressures from the ethanol craze as well as transportation costs. The absolute worst thing we could do to our dinner table economy is take the 20% price increase that you seem to be OK with.
Your worries about gangs and laziness are issues that exists with or without immigration. Frankly, the number of the 12 million that pay taxes is exponentially higher than the number guilty of illegal activity and everyone that knows anything about this topic is aware of that.
And really people… If this Aztlan crap keeps you up at night then buy several high caliber weapons, bury yourself in a cellar somewhere and hide from the rest of the world. Every single crazy theory does not come true. What we should be doing instead of demonizing everyone with brown skin and an accent is making them learn our language and assimilate, just like John McCain has said.
Or you can hope someone wakes Fred Thompson up before the primaries are over or vote for a thrice married cross-dresser who is pro abortion paid for with your tax dollars, or a guy who made the conscious decision to follow a religion that believes the New Testament of the Bible is a lie and that Black men just got souls in the 1970s, or vote for a kook from Texas again.
Guys….that sure looks like a Photoshop to me. Why would McCain be holding up a sign from a CANADIAN organization?
20% more for all your produce grown in the US
This is a high figure. I’ve seen much lower estimates. And even those assume no substitution effect from automation. Further, arguing that something illegal should be permitted solely for economic reasons is weak; if our cheap produce were a result of child labor violations, would you still be making this argument?
gangs and laziness are issues that exists with or without immigration
But illegal immigration still makes the problem worse. No one was claiming that gangs and laziness would disappear if illegal immigration were brought under control, only that it would improve the situation.
Aztlan crap keeps you up at night
It doesn’t, not least because I live in Pittsburgh. But that doesn’t mean that letting Southern California become more and more like Mexico is somehow good public policy.
Aztlan crap keeps you up at night
It doesn’t, not least because I live in Pittsburgh. But that doesn’t mean that letting Southern California become more and more like Mexico is somehow good public policy.
Which is why McCain is calling for assimilation policies.
And the 20% argument was not mine, read up higher a bit. I know illegal immigration is wrong, I am talking about making a temporary worker program work. Correct – if it is cheaper is not a reason for making something illegal OK, but it is a reason to consider making it legal. Otherwise we would all still be driving 55 MPH.
Cyberwombat: Check the photo credit. If AP had photoshopped that McC’s campaign would have jumped all over it by now.
Centfla: I don’t agree that the McCain-Kennedy bill or it’s variants would have solved the assimilation problem. Here’s the letter I wrote to Senator Graham, whom you know is McC’s best buddy. The letter is also an executive summary of my extended study of the Immigration problem:
http://mikesamerica.blogspot.com/2007/05/current-immigration-bill-worse-than.html
We are overrun with illegals in SC where I live. It has already had a major impact on our community. Sadly, there will be less assimilation as the numbers of illegals are so high that they can self segregate to neighborhoods where English is a second language if it is spoken at all.
The argument over the increase in labor costs for various industries ignores the costs and impacts of illegals on taxpayer services.
When I was growing up the farms in Ohio which grew tomatoes had small groups of cottages (shacks really) that the migrant farm workers would use while they were actively picking the crop. Then they would move on.
Because we have allowed the former migrant workers to settle permanently, we have created an underclass of unskilled, uneducated people who do not speak our language nor identify with our culture or our political system.
It’s like feeding Canada Geese as they migrate. Sooner or later the Geese just STAY and then you have to clean their poop outta your pool year round.
Which is why McCain is calling for assimilation policies
Yes. And ultimately, the crux of it comes down to: I don’t believe McCain (or Giuliani, or Huckabee) when they talk about being tough on illegal immigrants. I actually agree that deporting millions of illegals would be a human tragedy, that securing the borders and pursuing an aggressive assimilation policy would be preferable, and that some sort of grand unified policy that addressed various parts of the problem at the same time would be best. But the candidates pushing for those policies don’t appear to have any real interest in border security nor the stomach for the cultural fight that pro-assimilation policies entail (very non-PC), so I’m forced to go with a second-best solution in the form of a pure, hardline, anti-immigration approach.
We’re already seeing how workplace enforcement and state laws in Oklahoma and Arizona (?) are encouraging illegals to self deport.
From analyzing the last Senate Bill, I concluded that there were enough loopholes to make assimilation highly unlikely. All the “Z” visa holders would need to do is pledge they had taken English lessons and renew their visa without passing a test. And there was no workable enforcement provision that I could find.
CentFla, what Mike said.
Also I am an immigrant myself so I’d like to think I know something about assimilation and had lived smack in the middle of lot’s of legal and illegal Mexican immigrants on and off for years. “Brown skin” has nothing to do with this. I love educated immigrants from India who have done much more than most realize for the hi-tech industries of the USA and have MANY friends of Indian extraction. As an American who loves this country I only want to attract those who have a long tradition of providing the best education for their children. I also hate the idea of the immigration laws keeping exceptional people away from the US while anybody who is daring and strong enough to make it across the border self-selects as the de facto choice. I hate the permanent Democrat voting block. I hate it that low-skilled native born Americans have no real jobs open to them in the areas that have a lot of illegals. I hate the permanent low-skill underclass.
Gradual increase in pressure will result in a slow self-deportation. Fred is so wise, and he is the only one who isn’t just spinning BS.
CentFla: Another of the dirty little secrets about the current problem is that we are just sitting here and watching as Mexico commits a form of Apartheid against the indigenous/indian ethnic people.
You see that footage on TV of illegals crossing and it is the brown Mexicans coming across, not the elite, lighter skinned. The Mexican government has discontinued agricultural reform and cultural preservation programs for their indigenous peoples and instead is printing comic books for the illiterates they don’t want to educate giving them pointers on how to enter the U.S. illegally.
What Mexico is doing is a crime against humanity and we should not be subsidizing it with free goodies the minute a pregnant illegal female and her extended family cross the border and she gives birth.
Hey guys I am backing out of this argument as neither side will convince the other of the right answer. I just wanted you to know that I have read your responses and your letter Mike, I don’t think you guys are stupid or anything but I will kindly agree to disagree with you on what is best for our country. I hope that you will likewise see that a reasonable person can disagree with you on this issue and still be an American Loving Marine.
No one would argue with your right to choose McCain CentFla.
But I insist that if illegal immigration is a key issue, then McCain is NOT the best choice.
He told me as much to my face.
CentFla, I wouldn’t under any circumstance accuse anyone who disagrees with me on this issue of not being a patriotic American. I’ve heard just about every argument on this thing when I used to argue with liberals on TheHill. Many people genuinely believe it’s better and more humane to legalize everybody. Jack Kemp the famous supply sider has endorsed McCain just two days ago, and he is very conservative in general although economists tend to like open borders based on pure economic arguments.
If you want to see how politically confusing this issue is read this:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2008/01/mccains_back_but_immigration_r.html
An oldie but a goodie on McCain’s connections
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/moonbatcentral/2005/03/john-mccain-gets-soros-cash.html
http://www.usvetdsp.com/manchuan.htm