Mark Steyn at his best on this Super Tuesday:
Forget the gaseous platitudes: in Dem terms, their choice on Super Duper Tuesday was deciding which candidate was Super Duper and which was merely Super. Over on the GOP side, it was a choice between Weak & Divisive or Weaker & Unacceptable. Doesn’t bode well for November.
The big surprise of the night is that the South voted for a Republican who has no chance, and essentially gave the Republican nod to McCain.
If Mitt gets a good amount of the California delegates I think he will stay in as the anti-McCain. Huck will drop out but will not be chosen by McCain as a VP. Those are my bets.
But as each day passes I come to grips with the fact that I will not be working my butt off FOR a candidate, but against a candidate. That candidate being Hillary/Obama. Victor Davis Hanson spells it out much better then I can:
Again, on judges, I think McCain would be far better than Obama or Clinton, maybe not as good as Bush’s two, but perhaps better than two of Reagan’s three.
On taxes I think not raising them is not as good as cutting them, but far better than raising them—as Obama and Clinton have already promised with income, estate and payroll taxes.
And we all know how much more different McCain would be compared to Hillary/Obama on the war in Iraq. I don’t like McCain, I think he is a very weak Republican and conservative, but with him we have a chance to get a conservative on SCOTUS. Without him we know, with one hundred percentage certainty, that a liberal justice will get on SCOTUS. Think the 70’s were bad with the Supreme Court? Roe v. Wade? Imagine what a liberal majority on that court would do to this country.
I won’t let that happen without a fight.

See author page
I expect McCain’s appointments to SCOTUS to make the Souter Pick no longer like a disappointment.
And there’s something to value above being Conservative in a Judge. Someone who respects the Constitution and the roll of the Judiciary. McCain does not respect the Constitution as seen in M-F and his defense of it. If I’m going to condemn activist judges for violating their authority, I have to stick with that principle in general and not just cry about it when judge’s politics don’t match mine.
Sorry, I know in general your trying to warm up to McCain. He may surprise me. However, I don’t expect it and in 2012 the party may be in dire straights.
The Democrats have moved so far Left, this country is headed for a party split eventually. By much of the Republican Leadership and Candidates taking that opportunity to chase the middle for easy votes instead of standing firm in its principles, its the Republican Party thats has put itself at risk for the split. Short term it will hurt both groups. Long term it will mean the death of the Leftist Democratic Party as one of the halves will replace them with less radical left leaning politics. So some good might eventually come out of it.
good post jpm
Me, I think the big shock last night was turnout. Not turnout overall, but D vs R turnout. Democrats consistently had 2-3 times as many voters as did Republicans. While the Republican party dances between: national security conservatives, social conservatives, and fiscal conservatives…the Democratic Party no longer just has its eyes on the prize. It’s got the numbers.
Prepare and accept a McCain candidacy=short sighted
Prepare and accept a Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton Presidency=doing the math.
The Republican Party may not be headed for the divisive split you fear. If the rumours of a deal between McCain and Huckabee (keeping Huckabee in the race to split off the Romney vote) are accurate, then you might see a McCain-Huckabee ticket in november: Something for everyone in the GOP.
Steve, that argument makes as much sense as a Clark/Sharpton ticket would have in 2004 for the Democrats.
Ed Morrissey at CQ wrote this in his morning post:
“Romney will probably stay in the race, as will Huckabee, for the next couple of weeks to see how the race progresses and to see whether he can consolidate his extraordinary support from conservative talk radio into any momentum.”
To which I responded:
The “extraordinary support ” Romney has recieved can be better described as a class-one hatchet job on McCain by conservative talk radio, (including our resident right-wing mouth–Ann Coulter—who claims she will actively campaign for Hillary Clinton). At least Laura Ingrahm confessed she would vote for the eventual nominee, which shows “some” party sanity.
In the best interest of the Republican Party and its primary goal, (which is to defeat the Democratic nominee), this “extraordinary support ” should at this point be thinking about uniting the party instead of furthering their disdain for the front-runner, which can only do more damage than good. At what point do we face this reality head on? Or is self-destruction on the agenda?
McCain will not be able to withstand the MSM onslaught — he doesn’t have the resources…I’m damn worried about another Carter era, another 4 years of foreign policy and economic hell: Obama the empty suit, or Clinton the empty skirt…scary.
Thanks to all the dumb independents and myopic conservatives; DON’T COMPLAIN after rotten judges are chosen, taxes are raised, and McCain makes pathetic deals with the Dems.
Yes by al lmeans somebody on SCOTUS that can finally remove all those pesky civil liberties and let corporations skullfuck the citizenry!
Philly Steve Huckabee isn’t competing for Romney’s votes:
“McCain wins over Romney as the second choice of Huckabee voters by more than a 2 to 1 margin, 64 percent to 28 percent.”
http://blogs.usatoday.com/gallup/2008/02/is-huckabee-hur.html
Since it appears McCain may be close to wrapping the nomination up, he needs to start to work on how to win over the conservative base. For example, here in Colorado, McCain lost to Romney by a 60%-19% margin. The Republican power base centered in El Paso County went strong for Romney. El Paso County by make up is strong conservative, strong military community (active/retired). McCain did poorly in the county, losing by a 4-1 margin. McCain needs to win strong in El Paso County and the Republicans have to turn out in record numbers there to carry the state.
McCain, by definition, has been all over the map with his positions. He was that way in 2000, and in the intervening years. He’s that way now. He needs to define his principles. He also needs to show that he will stick to those principles in face of polls, MSM hostility, etc. He didn’t show his commitment to principles by joining the “Gang of 14” on judicial nominations among other things. If he doesn’t work in that direction, election night in November might be quite dark.
The other point is that McCain’s vote total now is substantially less than that he received in 2000. My guess is about 12% less than his 2000 totals. With Dems turning out this primary season in high numbers, he has plenty of work on his hands.
Nonetheless, I will vote for him if he’s the nominee. He’s certainly better than the alternative.
The past seven years showed that Conservatism is wrong on every level. Everything you believe is a mistake. Why should we now get stuck with another SC judge like those idiots Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts?
Four stupid catholic old white men making legally stupid decisions, please!!
D vs R turnout. Democrats consistently had 2-3 times as many voters as did Republicans
This isn’t really a fair assessment. The Republicans had an awful lot of caucus-type events (raising the bar for participation fairly high, so low turnout), whereas the Dems so far as I know have a lot more pure primary elections. I agree that the turnout figures don’t favor us – for example, in Georgia you have something like 1.05 million D voters vs 0.95 million R voters turning out, and that’s a fairly Republican state. But 2-3 times overstates things.
…best interest of the Republican Party and its primary goal, (which is to defeat the Democratic nominee)
See, this is something that bugs me about a lot of Republican partisans (not to mention Dems when I bother to listen to them). Your *primary goal* is to defeat the Democratic nominee? You can’t define a positive goal for people to rally around, and then point out that defeating the Dem is necessary for that? If you keep talking about politics as if it were some sort of team sport, rather than a means to greater ends, you’re not going to grab a lot of independent voters.
In oklahoma independents are not allowed to vote in Primaries. How many other state suppress independent votes? 14% of all voters voted for Perot in 92. I bet most of those were conservatives.
The swing voters are not in the middle. We are on the outside ends. Conservatives, absent Romney, no longer have a dog in the presidential race. McCain is going to have do a whole lot of singing to get their support. Without it he will lose just like Dole.
It was McCain’s group of 14 that got Alito confirmed. Without him and that group of moderates we would have been in a filibuster still.
Re: “Steve, that argument makes as much sense as a Clark/Sharpton ticket would have in 2004 for the Democrats.”
In 1976 Ronald Reagan designated Senator Schweiker of Pennsylvania, one of the most liberal senators in the capitol (back when being Liberal meant something) as his VP candidate during the primaries. So stranger things have happened.
I would tend to doubt it as well. But given the degree to which the “Religious Right” still have not forgiven John McCain for his “agents of intolerance” comment in the 2000 primaries, such a selection would certainly be an olive branch to the core of the Republican party.
There are some simple fact-like predictions that are very difficult to disprove:
-McCain will HAVE to make Huck his VP, because Huck has already said he wants the job and Huck will have the delegates McCain needs to win the magic number.
-McCain WILL NOT win the general election no matter what he does and you can see it by comparing the number of votes in the Dem primaries vs. the Pubby primaries.
-Whoever wins the general WILL legalize the illegals. The illegals WILL bring their families over. This WILL result in the permanent (meaning the lifetimes of anyone reading this) Democratic majority.
Now enjoy the rest of the primary season.
I agree that all three of the predictions are making the rounds. Personally I do not believe that any of them are that certain.
-John McCain is, IMO, as likely to not name Mike Huckabee as his VP, if for no other reason than the “experts” say that he has to. That does appear to be a basic part of his personality: One I like.
-John McCain, or whomever the Republican party nominates is not certain to lose in November. The Republican party can command a very loyal base (not a criticism, so can the Democrats). And the Republican Party, even though its presidential candidates are trailing badly in fundraising, can still command a lot of money when it comes to directing money in the general election. That has been the pattern in the past where Republican and Democratic presidential candidates were pretty evenly matched in funds, but on a party level the Republicans has two or three times the money. Add to that a look at the electoral college map: The electoral votes are skewed heavily toward Republican strongholds. The example given most often is to compare California to the Rock Mountain states. If you add them up, both “blocks” have about the same population, however, due to their being individual states, the dependable Republican Rocky Mountain stattes have collectively about thirty more electoral votes than does California (the numbers are roughly from my memory, but if you look to any of the “abolish the Electoral College” web sites, you can see the math). With that in mind, I would never assume that a Republican Party nominee for President cannot be elected.
– I am less inclined to believe that the next president will push hard to “legalize the illegals”. This has become something os a political third-rail and I would predict that any president will duck and hide from getting out in front of this one.
With regard to your “Super Tuesday Thoughts” blog, I would like to ask you a question in all sincerity. What is it that you think Roe v. Wade ‘did to our country?’
Other then shredding the Constitution? Are you kidding me? One of the worst decisions in the last century based on a right that does not exist in the Constitution, that being the right to privacy. Abortion was a State matter before RvW, and should be a State matter today. Medical procedures are not addressed in the Constitution, the powers to regulate them are not a federal issue.
Judicial activism was the result and one of the main reasons why Hillary/Obama needs to be defeated.
Activist judges=the Rehnquist-wing in Bush v Gore 2000.
P-E-R-I-O-D.
As for rights that don’t exist in the Constitution, who decided a corporation had the rights of individuals? ThaT DECISION Makes finding the right to privacy in Roe v Wade look like child’s play.
Activist judges = Souter and the rest of the clowns
P-E-R-I-O-D.
As far as your example, name the decision. If your gonna name Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company then your sorely mistaken since giving corporations the same status as individuals under the 14th amendment was not ruled on by the court. They decided the case on other grounds. The court reporter at the time included a justices comment on the matter in the headnotes and ta-da, legal precedence was born which has been whittled away ever since. If your trying to compare the two decisions then you obviously got other problems, one of which I surmise is a severe case of BDS. Not surprising coming from a Salon fanboi.
I consider this wishful thinking. This “third-rail” didn’t stop a presumptive Republican nominee and much less likely to be troublesome to Hillary given how well she did among the Hispanics. McCain seems obsessed with this issue based on his behavior last summer and any Democrat realizes the value of creating a permanent Democratic majority.
Many of us believed Fred could win. He had no chance after a few realities became known. Facing unpleasant realities is better than denying them.
Somebody is already reacting to my concerns with a counter-strategy. This needs to be publicized and used to mobilize a pre-emptive effort:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1966125/posts
Re: “I consider this wishful thinking. ”
Perhaps it is. While my personal “simple” solution is to buuild a fence and throw employers who hire illegals in jail, I also understand that they are by no means as “simple” as my glib comment implies.
For one thing, if I recall correctly, most of the illegal aliens in the US did not cross the river but merely overstayed legitimate visas (tourist, student, …), so a fence of any kind is not going to stop them (anyone with better knowledge than I, please check me on that one).
Secondly, citizenship verification is not as simple as I make it sound, considering the multitude of potential documents and the popular resistance to a national identity card (although a passport certainly comes close, so perhaps requiring that every American seeking a job first obtain a passpport might be a back door method of accomplishing exacctly that.
But any “solution” to the illegals is certainly not going to come out of election sloganeering, even if it is a slogan I might like to hear (Bumper Sticker thinking is dangerous, no matter who practices it). So I hope whomever is elected at least waits a decent interval and tries to come up with something that is at least partly workable and not pandering too much (even if it is a “pander” I might like).
The solutions are only possible if there is political will and what I addressed was the lack of it, to put it mildly, among the current crop of the likely nominees for both parties. I have just seen an analysis at “Free Republic” of the Senatorial seats in flux and in jeopardy in November. This kind of thinking needs to be expanded, a counter-strategy to the amnesty developed, and an effort mobilized to counter the Presidential threat. Let me quote from the analysis:
A total of thirteen Class II Senate seats, currently held by Senators that took stances on Immigration Reform Legislation in 2007, are expected to have strong competition in the November General Elections. Ten opposed the amnesty bill, while three favored the bill.
Of the Class II Republican Senators voting Nay on Immigration Reform Legislation, 9 seats will face strong competition. The two Republicans that supported the amnesty packages are due to leave office.
Of the Class II Democratic Senators voting Nay on Immigration Reform Legislation, 1 will face strong competition. Additionally, 1 additional Senator absent due to health problems at the time votes were cast is a supporter of those measures, and may face stiff competition due to those health concerns.
Steve,
Your statements are valid and also shared by many conservatives. The RNC got more than an earful on this issue with illegal immigration last year. Enforce the laws and build a fence became almost a mantra.
As for immigration laws, if we want to imitate others, we could incorporate Mexico’s immigration and guest laws into our. Below is just one story from a Yahoo search on “Mexican immigration law”
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/lillpop022707.htm
What is Mexico’s law?
I think I will have to do a post solely dedicated to this as adopting a Mexican style immigration law would be interesting as the author I quotes states.