McCain closes gap

CBS POLL: McCain Closes Eight-Point Gap From Poll Taken Last Weekend.

And the Republican National Convention isn't even over.....Bwahahahahahaha!

This Needs to Be Seen

Marine wife answers moveon's anti-McCain ad.

McCain: "I voted against the Kyoto Treaty before I wanted to vote for it....

Yet again, McCain opens his mouth and drives away the GOP base......

The United States Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto Treaty. It was dead BEFORE arrival. President Clinton, seeing the writing on the wall, did not submit the treaty. Senator McCain was a member of that august body. So, if the Kyoto treaty was bad for America then, why is it such a good idea now, Senator McCain?

The Kyoto Treaty advocated reduced "greenhouse" gas emissions to a certain level below the 1990 levels. Kyoto is a 'cap and trade' system that imposes national caps on the emissions of Annex I countries. On average, this cap requires countries to reduce their emissions 5.2% below their 1990 baseline over the 2008 to 2012 period. Kyoto created a framework and a set of rules for a global carbon market, there are in practice several distinct schemes or markets in operation today, with varying degrees of linkages among them. (And we know how Al Gore made out from that. There's noooo chance of fraud in this scheme.....)

Now here's McCain's take:(sound familiar?)
"I will not shirk the mantle of leadership that the United States bears. I will not permit eight long years to pass without serious action on serious challenges. I will not accept the same dead-end of failed diplomacy that claimed Kyoto. (Uh, weren't YOU a Senator that refused to ratify? And what's with this "8 years" crap? Clinton is the one that didn't submit it. Still crapping on your own side to look like one of the cool kids, again....)

McCain's major solution is to implement a cap-and-trade program on carbon-fuel emissions, like a similar program in the Clean Air Act that was used to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions that triggered acid rain.
Industries would be given emission targets, and those coming in under their limit could sell their surplus polluting capacity to companies unable to meet their target.
McCain wants the country to return to 2005 emission levels by 2012; 1990 levels by 2020; and to a level sixty percent below that by 2050.

"As never before, the market would reward any person or company that seeks to invent, improve, or acquire alternatives to carbon-based energy," he said. "More likely, however, there will be some companies that need extra emissions rights, and they will be able to buy them. (Al Gore must be insane with glee......)

More McCain Wisdom:
“We have many advantages in the fight against global warming, but time is not one of them. Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming, or the precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring.”

“We know that greenhouse gasses are heavily implicated as a cause of climate change. And we know that among all greenhouse gasses, the worst by far is the carbon-dioxide that results from fossil-fuel combustion.” (Apparently he hasn't heard the latest: that the world is entering a cooling period, there is record snow fall and ice coverage, and that CO2 IS NOT the most effective "green house gas", but water vapor is. Idiot)

The worst part is this: McCain has long expressed a belief in global warming, arguing that even if he is wrong, acting as if the planet's temperature were increasing would only benefit the environment if scientists subsequently proved he was mistaken.
(So in other words, "its ok if I destroy the economy on a flawed theory and junk science because I think it will make the environment better."

From Powerline: If McCain is looking for a sensible energy policy, he might start with these recommendations from the Science and Environmental Policy Project:

Our policy recommendation is to phase out natural gas (methane) for electric power generation (now about 20% in US and 40% in UK), replace it with coal/nuclear, and use gas as a clean transportation fuel (in the form of Compressed Natural Gas -- CNG) for buses, trucks, and all fleet vehicles. In the US case it would cut oil imports by 30%. Further cuts would come from the use of plug-in and hybrid-electric cars.

I'm wrong. The worst part is that McCain is STILL the more "conservative" of the three main candidates.......

That's why I bought a shirt with the proper elections message. And I will be wearing it on election day.

Like THIS is a surprise....

Fox News and CNN saying that McCain is now OFFICIALLY the candidate due to a four state sweep. Huckabee drops out.

Now, where did I put that Scotch.....

On why conservatives should suck it up and vote for McCain

There’s a military maneuver called a “strategic withdrawal”, that allows a defender to give up ground to buy time, to marshal their forces, and to recruit others to their cause. It is as hallowed and successful a maneuver as the “to the last man” defense, and has been even more successful than the latter, on occasion.

That’s what we conservative are doing now: buying time, backpedaling now so we can come back stronger later.

Go read the rest at Kim's.

Choosing McCain- from the Conservative point of view - You may have some company.

I've been over at Kim's. He always has interesting posts and his Imaginary Wife's site (take the survey) is a smorgasbord of insight.

He has been struggling with the McCain issue for quite awhile. Here is his decision and the responses....

Excerpt from Kim:

On this website, we have supported our soldiers, even after death and injury. We ourselves have stayed in the homes of serving soldiers, and eaten their salt, as the expression goes.

By not voting Republican—even one as flawed as McCain—we will handing this country over to the peaceniks, and on this I am absolutely certain. The Democrat Party, in the shape of their current leadership, loathes and despises the military. While they talk in public about “bringing the troops home”, concern for the soldiers is not their primary, secondary, or even tertiary motive. We know that, they know that, and that’s the beginning and end of it.

Furthermore, if we wake up on November 5th to President-Elect Obama or President-Elect Clinton, and then we turn on the TV to see joyous street demonstrations all over the Arab world, how will we feel then?

I know; McCain’s a total shit, and I loathe him. But in the end, I love my country more than I hate John McCain—and handing over the reins of power to the Left will, with absolute certainty, bring this country down—just as the Left has brought down Britain, France and the rest of Europe.

Not gonna happen. Not while I draw breath.

This is not the time to pout. This, my friends, is our last stand. If we don’t win this one, the job is going to be incalculably more difficult in the future, both for us and for our kids.

And forget that childish “vote from the rooftops” nonsense, and all the End Times fantasies. They are not going to happen.

Big Government is going to happen, under President Obama/Clinton. That is an absolute certainty.

Responses:(And this isn't all of them...)

But in the end, I love my country more than I hate John McCain

BAM. Right there is the stripped-bare version of why I’ll vote for that toad instead of sitting out. Excellent. Had you said that a few days ago, you could’ve saved Rachel Lucas hours and hours of posting…

After a long weekend of introspection I’ve transcended my personal animosity toward McCain and will be grudgingly flipping the lever in his favor come November for one reason; Supreme Court Justices.

Yep, sometimes the lesser of two evils is the only choice available. There are two ways to deal with this:
1)The childish way- hold your breath and turn blue, pick up your toys and go home, ect. Doesn’t always work, you know- and oftens results in getting the greater of the two evils.
2) The adult way- make the least damaging choice, move on, and make sure to minimize the damage and work to prevent such choices in the future (if possible).
So let’s think about the upcoming congressional and senitorial primaries. Let’s see if we can’t get a few real conservatives in.

I still don’t know if I am convinced to vote for McCain, and I certainly don’t consider myself as a child picking up my ball and going home if I decide to withhold my vote. There is a lot of time and a lot of work to do on the local level before I make my decision. Your argument for Supreme Court nominees is compelling, and may just be the factor that makes me hold my nose and vote.
McCain is a truly foul candidate on many fronts, not the least of which is McCain Feingold, for which he should have been impeached. His votes against tax cuts, his wanting to shut down Guantanimo, his apoplectic response to waterboarding, his views on immigration and what to do with the current crop of criminal aliens in country, his saying Alito is “too conservative” a judge, and his willingness to stick it up the asses of conservatives at every turn make him a very difficult candidate for me to vote for.
It is all well and good to say vote for him and then clean up the mess later, but how many times have we heard that line? What will it take to send a message to the turds in the RNC? If we continue to accept mediocrity, then that is all that will be offered. I am working at the local level to recruit and support candidates for our State legislature. It might not be much, but it has to start somewhere. I encourage conservatives everywhere to do the same. I will certainly take your comments into consideration when I decide whether or not to vote for bastard McCain, but the jury is still out for me.

Kim I love you, you know that. But I am in disagreement. Every election we are told how this is the most important election and that is why we should hold our nose and pull the lever for a Republican who is just as conservative as a Dem 4 years ago. This is the problem, by voting for scum, we annoint this scum as what we Republicans want. We did it for Bush Sr., Dole, Bush Jr., and now Juan McCain. We are reaping what we have sown because we are now a party without principles, who will vote for any liberal lying piece of shit sent our way. The threat of well you better vote for him because if not the other side/boogie man will win. There is no way I will vote for McCain, my principles will not allow such a vote. I am tired of the slide. I am tired of the liberalization of the GOP. I am tired of being a conservative and having no representation and having the GOP tell me that I need to vote for someone with whom I almost totally disagree with. It is time for us to say enough is enough. I am tired of the reaching across the isle if the only reaching happens to pass constitution destroying liberal trash legislation (McCain/Feingold, McCain/Kennedy). Enough is enough and a vote for McCain is a vote the continued destruction of the GOP as a party that is conservative and a bulwark against the socialism of the Dems.

It is about cold hard facts.... and the cold hard facts are that the PRIMARY and most important job of the President of the United States is the HEAD OF STATE and COMMANDER IN CHIEF…

1) You cannot punish your way to winning… if you keep beating a dog, the dog will either die or turn on you.
2) In 2006 disgusted Conservatives stayed home. We got a Dem Congress… What happened? GOP congressmen began to resign or refuse to run in droves… Now the job of taking back Congress is infinitely harder… and still the calls are for more punishment…
3) McCain is the dog biting back, hard. The Republican Establishment is rapidly losing any interest in dealing with the increasingly marginalized far Right. Evangelicals are voting for Democrats because like Huck… they are fundamentally Pro-life Dems… The “Base” is beginning to hold its meetings in phone booths…
Meanwhile the wild critters are threatening the sandbox. I have my priorities. Sandbox first… then I worry about how much sand I get and why.
I will hold my nose and vote for McCain because I know that Putin and the Islamofascists are orbiting.... It is time to vote to live to fight another day.

If there exists no electable person who embodies the principles of the Republican Party then the Republican Party no longer exists and something to perform its function must be newly created. As it is now, the GOP has made the transition from being merely an inflamed appendix to being a septic one. Time for surgery.

elect conservative Republicans to Congress, in 2008, in 2010, and in 2012.

...and you can vote for such, when you can find one, without needing to vote for McCain.

I simply cannot continue to take an active part in the ongoing perversion of conservative principals. The blatant liberalizing and diluting of the RNC will have to catch a ride on someone else’s conscience. I can not vote for McCain.

It will get worse before it gets better, but when the people come and say why are we so far in debt, with no money to pay for our promises and no way to fend off our enemies, then we can say “Don’t look at us, we didn’t cause this”. In the end, you should vote for someone else. Write in if you have to, but vote for people who represent your views, and let the chips fall where they may. Then work on demonstrating to the people why what happened happened. You can’t convince a GFW to like a gun while you mug them, and we won’t convince the country we’re right while voting in democrats in republican clothes.

My two questions are as follows:
1) How do we expect to get good Conservative candidates when we consistently “hold our nose” and swallow what we are being fed?
2) How does one get that taste out of one’s mouth?

It comes down to the Hierarchy of Needs. Foundation layer is security of the nation. Without that, it doesn’t matter if you can find or afford food. It doesn’t matter how much is stolen from your wallet or stuffed into it. You’re dead so it is moot.

What matters most is the War on Terror and continuing to prosecute that war until we’ve ended the threat of it and come home WINNERS.

Three months after the wars were declared the Communists Democrats started running the Vietnam playbook. Nothing changed. They ran this exactly the way they did then… they presented the war as divisive, and unnecessarily killing Americans in a war that wasn’t ours. They talked of how we were just as bad as the enemy.
In the end, just like now, conservatives threw their hands up. They were tired of the arguments and just wanted to end the war, not as much to end the war, but to end the discussion of the war.
So, how’d that work out?
The terrorists were emboldened by our failures in Vietnam, again by our failures under Carter, and again by our failures under Clinton, who was too impotent to take any action.
I will not run their fucking Vietnam playbook AGAIN. If that means we have to elect McCain so that we can continue the WoT until it is WON, so be it.
When Bush prepared us for this war he told us ALL of this. Some weren’t listening. Some were listening half-hearted, not really clear on what he was saying. He told us it would be a long war, but some folks took that to mean 3 months instead of 1. He meant YEARS, DECADES. We have to reform the Middle East. Some people didn’t sign on for that--they really don’t know what it means, even today.
I do. I know what it means. It means that we have to rebuild the breeding ground that gives the world anarchists and have that breeding ground deliver happy and bored working stiffs. It means we have to reform Islam and segregate the moderates from the extremists.
Some people don’t want to do that--they don’t think it is possible.
I DO think it is possible or I would never have signed on to the war in the first place. It isn’t possible in 8 years or even 12. It will take decades, but it must be done or the only other option will be to turn the Middle East into a sea of glass… and no sane person would choose that.
The message is clear: Reform in the Middle East will be a requirement. Every man must change. Their entire culture must change, just as we changed Japan’s culture. We must also revise our position in the world and undo the Carter and Clinton years that tarnished America’s reputation in the world and made us out to be cowards, and the belief that we’ll give up eventually, so just lay low until then.
McCain gets that. He may not get anything else, mores the pity, but he does get that.
That is the ONLY thing important in the world. If we’re dead or our cities are being bombed or attacked on a regular basis, the economic impacts of 9/11 will be minuscule in comparison, so the economy doesn’t matter. Our rights will be meaningless because Americans will be terrified and stifled, and thousands more will be dead, so our rights won’t matter either.
This is the part of the playbook where the Democrats tell us that the above is just fear mongering… that there is no real threat, that the terrorists are just misunderstood and they aren’t really interested in bringing about an Islamic Caliphate… that this is just an ideological war, having nothing do with old fashioned ideas like a domino effect or a war for the hearts and minds.
I’ve heard that all before. 1970s it was.
NOT AGAIN.

It’s been just shy of 33 years since the fall of Saigon, and what do you think the short attention span set “remembers” about that?
Yup. How the short-attention-span set apportions blame, the short version:
Bad stuff that is due to the actions of Republicans is the Republican’s fault.
Bad stuff that is due to the actions of Democrats is America‘s fault.
We get to choose between bad and worse this time around. I’m going to be voting for bad, and then working to ensure I have better choices next time around.