It's been almost a week since Mitt Romney bowed out and the vitriol against John McCain that has been coming from the right has steady flowed non-stop, almost to the point of becoming a sort of derangement syndrome. Frankly, the Dems couldn't have asked for a better scenario than that, especially since their contest may actually come down to the Convention and who has control over the superdelegates. Such a situation could tear the Dems apart and seriously hamper their efforts in the final two months before November.
Lt. Col. Oliver North reminds us that the same thing can happen to the GOP and that the voter turnout numbers in the Dem and GOP primaries are not encouraging. From his latest column:
| My "colleagues" in the so-called mainstream media gladly roll their cameras and recorders for those who assert that "McCain is not a real conservative" or who say, "I can never support him," and the ones claiming, "I just won't vote this year." It is, for me, a disheartening display because I have, as we say in the Marines, "been there -- done that." After I won the 1994 Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Virginia, I naively assumed that all in the GOP would pull together behind my conservative candidacy. I clearly don't know much about politics. If I did, I'd be writing this from my U.S. Senate office instead of my home in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. But at the trade school John McCain and I attended in Annapolis, Md., they did teach me how to count. I lost by a narrow margin in a three-way race. Some of those who were with me then are among those who now say they won't support John McCain. |
I remember that race. I couldn't vote in it because I was living in Maryland at the time but I do remember how it turned out. The same thing could very well happen to the GOP if we don't unite.
Lt. Col. North goes on:
| Worse still, since this election cycle began last year, the Democrats have raised more money than the GOP, and in the primary balloting that began last month, Democrats have turned out more voters. These numbers matter because they reflect the energy and commitment of the opposing parties in this year's presidential contest. |
And this begs a question: Where were all the GOP voters who claim they could only support a Conservative during these past primary elections and on Super Tuesday? It seems as if there are more anti-McCain Republicans than there were people who actually showed up to vote in the primaries! How did that happen?
For some reason, the more Conservative candidates such as Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo and Fred Thompson had fewer supporters than the more liberal candidates McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Giuliani. Where were these Conservative "values voters" when the voting happened in places like Florida? I can't tell you where those people were when the polls opened, but I can tell you where they were not: voting or campaigning for a Conservative candidate.
Thus, my belief is that it is not one single person or one faction of the GOP that brought us to where we are now. We all share in this responsibility either by commission or by omission. Now, we need to deal with the reality of that collective responsibility.
Lt. Col. North is right: the most logical way to deal with it is to unite.
You can access the complete column on-line here:
Decision Time
Lt. Col. Oliver North
GOPUSA.com
February 12, 2008
And along this line of reasoning, we have an open letter from Jack Kemp to radio personalities Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham and columnist Ann Coulter. Jack writes:
| The mistakes he alluded to in his CPAC speech reflect humility going forward that is encouraging to those of us like me, Steve Forbes, Ted Olsen, former Sen. George Allen and other conservatives who wanted to see in him a genuine desire to work with, and listen to, some of the original Reaganites. ... Collectively, you have all pointed out some of his faults (and failures), but overall, McCain is a genuine American hero, an 82.5 percent conservative, according to the American Conservative Union, and a man whose courage and tenacity are well-chronicled. You gave him your best shots and he took it like a man. Now, as he heads toward the nomination, I urge you to continue to be critical, but to do so in measured ways that will not damage his ability to win in November against those who would weaken our nation's defense, wave a white flag to al-Qaida, socialize our health-care system, and promote income redistribution and class warfare instead of economic growth and equality of opportunity. With Supreme Court appointments to be made in the near future and attacks mounting on traditional family values, it's critical to our cause to have a candidate who can appeal to Reagan Democrats and independent voters who share our world view. The stakes are enormous, and I urge you to put the McCain candidacy into historical perspective and recognize that he isn't just a bulldog of the Senate, but that he can become the lion of the 21st century. |
We all know what the alternative is. Is anyone seriously willing to risk that?
I'm not.
You can access the complete column on-line here:
An Open Letter To Rush, Sean, Laura, Ann, Mark, et al.
Jack Kemp
TownHall.com
February 11, 2008
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