Mac Is Back (Again)
You may have missed this when you were either waiting in line for your new iPhone or fuming over your inability to activate it... John McCain's presidential campaign is alive and well.
Despite the media’s attempts this past week to bury McCain by portraying his campaign as struggling, retooling, dead in the water... despite all the stories about how we’d rather have a BBQ with Barack Obama and how people without pets prefer Obama and how McCain equals “old” in the minds of Americans... McCain has made this a race. In the last week, he went from 7 points behind Obama to dead even in the Rasmussen poll. But by now we should be used to McCain comebacks; after all, he was dead in the water 9 months ago but here he is, the presumptive GOP nominee.
The major reason for the latest McCain comeback? Backlash from Congress (with its 9% approval rating) doing nothing to fix our gas price problem… and Obama is part of that problem. While the country screams, “DRILL!” Congressional Democrats continue to tell us we’re wrong to want that. We continue to hear diatribes from Democrat leaders and their willing army of letter-writers about how Republicans only want to drill. America is seeing through that smokescreen. The only major supply difference between the Democrats' energy plan and the Republicans' plan is that the Republicans want to drill offshore and in ANWR. That's it. They're for supporting all the alternative energy production that Democrats want, but they want to be able to do BOTH alternative energy and drilling. And like I said a couple weeks ago, WHY CAN'T WE DO BOTH? Oh, because the oil companies will make more money... but these are some of the major players in creating our alternative energy of the future. Let's face it, they have to know that when we run out of oil or the cost to obtain it becomes prohibitive, they're out of business, so why wouldn't they be trying to hitch their wagon to green energy?
Since Congress is locked in a stalemate (and this being an election year, I doubt that will break any time soon), we have to rely on ourselves to fix the problems in the short term. You may have heard the ads this week on radio stations across the country by oilman T. Boone Pickens; he has a plan that is essentially the "moon shot" I referred to in my previous entry. And notice on his page he has a quote from the head of the friggin' Sierra Club! This guy is looking to do what no politician seems able to do, unite environmentalists and energy providers to make sure we can keep the country going in a clean, green manner. Sadly, there are still the radical environmentalists who are anti-wind power because the turbines endanger birds and they are aesthetically ugly, but hopefully enough people will get behind Pickens that we can make some serious strides. And if McCain jumps onboard, he can say hello to the White House, so hopefully he will, and soon.
Another major reason for McCain pulling even in the polls, one that is being well-chronicled right now (especially by upset liberals) is Barack Obama's flip-flopping. Obama voted for the latest intelligence surveillance bill after being against it. He's backed off his anti-NAFTA stance. He signaled his support for faith-based initiatives and got his own talking points about "supporting Bush's failed policies" thrown right back at him by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Obama slams Wesley Clark for swift-boating McCain, MoveOn.org comes to Clark’s defense and Obama dismisses McCain's call for an apology. Obama knows where his bread is buttered and with his fundraising well below projections ($30M in June when they were predicting $100M), he has to count on the MoveOn money. Meanwhile, Phil Gramm sticks his foot in it, McCain distances himself from Gramm… and sticks to it, despite the predictable outrage from conservative talk radio hosts who were just looking for another reason to attack McCain.
Meanwhile, Obama now says that we need another government handout, errr… stimulus package. All this will do, of course, is push the budget deficit (already at record levels from the first stimulus package) to even more astronomical levels and bring the government's finances that much closer to an IndyMac-style implosion. But of course then Obama and his fellow Democrats can attack Bush for the size of the deficit (they'll say the war caused it). Expect him to push back HARD on the liberal mantras of “Obama will fix the wagon of the evil oil companies if you elect him president” and “Obama supports government helping all you suffering people who can’t afford groceries or were too stupid to read the fine print on your mortgage applications.”
Of course, this can quickly be blunted by serendipitous news out of Iraq... today comes word that we may start withdrawing troops from Iraq even faster than anticipated. Democrats will be quick to call this a political maneuver designed to bolster support for McCain, but to them, EVERYTHING is a political maneuver. The fact is the Iraqis feel they are ready to take over, and the decision of when we pull troops out of Iraq has ALWAYS rested with the Iraqi government, not our Congress. That may piss the Democrats off more than anything.
Meanwhile, going from the politically sublime to the politically ridiculous... Lou Dobbs wants Bush impeached over the salmonella outbreak. I’m pretty sure that when the founders described “high crimes and misdemeanors”, they weren’t describing an inability to figure out what gave 1000 people salmonella. I get that people always want to blame the guy at the top... they blamed Bush for FEMA's response to Katrina, they blame Bush for the IndyMac failure, but if heads should roll for this bungled salmonella investigation, the SENSIBLE thing to do would be to whack the head of the FDA. Of course, I know that common sense is something that is often in short supply these days... especially in the media...
Despite the media’s attempts this past week to bury McCain by portraying his campaign as struggling, retooling, dead in the water... despite all the stories about how we’d rather have a BBQ with Barack Obama and how people without pets prefer Obama and how McCain equals “old” in the minds of Americans... McCain has made this a race. In the last week, he went from 7 points behind Obama to dead even in the Rasmussen poll. But by now we should be used to McCain comebacks; after all, he was dead in the water 9 months ago but here he is, the presumptive GOP nominee.
The major reason for the latest McCain comeback? Backlash from Congress (with its 9% approval rating) doing nothing to fix our gas price problem… and Obama is part of that problem. While the country screams, “DRILL!” Congressional Democrats continue to tell us we’re wrong to want that. We continue to hear diatribes from Democrat leaders and their willing army of letter-writers about how Republicans only want to drill. America is seeing through that smokescreen. The only major supply difference between the Democrats' energy plan and the Republicans' plan is that the Republicans want to drill offshore and in ANWR. That's it. They're for supporting all the alternative energy production that Democrats want, but they want to be able to do BOTH alternative energy and drilling. And like I said a couple weeks ago, WHY CAN'T WE DO BOTH? Oh, because the oil companies will make more money... but these are some of the major players in creating our alternative energy of the future. Let's face it, they have to know that when we run out of oil or the cost to obtain it becomes prohibitive, they're out of business, so why wouldn't they be trying to hitch their wagon to green energy?
Since Congress is locked in a stalemate (and this being an election year, I doubt that will break any time soon), we have to rely on ourselves to fix the problems in the short term. You may have heard the ads this week on radio stations across the country by oilman T. Boone Pickens; he has a plan that is essentially the "moon shot" I referred to in my previous entry. And notice on his page he has a quote from the head of the friggin' Sierra Club! This guy is looking to do what no politician seems able to do, unite environmentalists and energy providers to make sure we can keep the country going in a clean, green manner. Sadly, there are still the radical environmentalists who are anti-wind power because the turbines endanger birds and they are aesthetically ugly, but hopefully enough people will get behind Pickens that we can make some serious strides. And if McCain jumps onboard, he can say hello to the White House, so hopefully he will, and soon.
Another major reason for McCain pulling even in the polls, one that is being well-chronicled right now (especially by upset liberals) is Barack Obama's flip-flopping. Obama voted for the latest intelligence surveillance bill after being against it. He's backed off his anti-NAFTA stance. He signaled his support for faith-based initiatives and got his own talking points about "supporting Bush's failed policies" thrown right back at him by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Obama slams Wesley Clark for swift-boating McCain, MoveOn.org comes to Clark’s defense and Obama dismisses McCain's call for an apology. Obama knows where his bread is buttered and with his fundraising well below projections ($30M in June when they were predicting $100M), he has to count on the MoveOn money. Meanwhile, Phil Gramm sticks his foot in it, McCain distances himself from Gramm… and sticks to it, despite the predictable outrage from conservative talk radio hosts who were just looking for another reason to attack McCain.
Meanwhile, Obama now says that we need another government handout, errr… stimulus package. All this will do, of course, is push the budget deficit (already at record levels from the first stimulus package) to even more astronomical levels and bring the government's finances that much closer to an IndyMac-style implosion. But of course then Obama and his fellow Democrats can attack Bush for the size of the deficit (they'll say the war caused it). Expect him to push back HARD on the liberal mantras of “Obama will fix the wagon of the evil oil companies if you elect him president” and “Obama supports government helping all you suffering people who can’t afford groceries or were too stupid to read the fine print on your mortgage applications.”
Of course, this can quickly be blunted by serendipitous news out of Iraq... today comes word that we may start withdrawing troops from Iraq even faster than anticipated. Democrats will be quick to call this a political maneuver designed to bolster support for McCain, but to them, EVERYTHING is a political maneuver. The fact is the Iraqis feel they are ready to take over, and the decision of when we pull troops out of Iraq has ALWAYS rested with the Iraqi government, not our Congress. That may piss the Democrats off more than anything.
Meanwhile, going from the politically sublime to the politically ridiculous... Lou Dobbs wants Bush impeached over the salmonella outbreak. I’m pretty sure that when the founders described “high crimes and misdemeanors”, they weren’t describing an inability to figure out what gave 1000 people salmonella. I get that people always want to blame the guy at the top... they blamed Bush for FEMA's response to Katrina, they blame Bush for the IndyMac failure, but if heads should roll for this bungled salmonella investigation, the SENSIBLE thing to do would be to whack the head of the FDA. Of course, I know that common sense is something that is often in short supply these days... especially in the media...
posted by Dave | 6:16 PM
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