Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

Tomorrow evening, I will be attending a caucus for the first time. I imagine it will be a fairly lonely affair, it being based on the small percentage of the very small number of Republicans who live in hippie-loving Nederland. (And to be clear, I like the hippies, too. Even though they tend to be liberal, they're much more libertarian in temperament than the "If you're not politically correct, you should be dead" people of Boulder proper.

As my first choice, Rudy Giuliani, is no longer running, I'll caucus for Mitt Romney. It's not that I think Mitt is the greatest candidate ever, though I don't think he's terrible. And it's not that I think Mitt is more electable in November than McCain is; I think Mitt is less likely to win than McCain is.

But the more I think about it, the more the calculus becomes clear to me. If I wouldn't support McCain in November, if he's the nominee, then I can't support him now. That's the position I find myself in. My regular readers know my internal debate on the issue of McCain vs. Hillary or Obama.

I've continued the discussion with a friend or two, and the conversations typically look like this:

Me: Yep, going to caucus if I can get out of the house. Will support Romney. I can't stand McCain. You?

Friend: Will hold my nose and vote for McCain. Check out www.intrade.com Shows how people are betting on the candidates. www.realclearpolitics.com has the latest polls. Right now (and I know this can change), McCain beats both Hillary and Obama head to head; Romney gets trounced by both Hillary and O. Romney will be painted as a flip-flopper in a general campaign, and the charge will destroy his candidacy.
Since my chief concern is defeating the jihadists, and McCain brings unparalleled credibility in our goal to get our allies to join in the fight, I feel comfortable voting for him. I can overlook his vote against the Bush tax cuts, his amnesty plan, and McCain Feingold because of this.

Me: I think McCain will be the nominee and then I'll write in Ron Paul. I don't forgive McCain for McCain-Feingold, nor for McCain-Lieberman (cap-and-trade proposal), nor for his views on global warming, nor for his utter lack of understanding of economics. The difference between McCain and anybody else in the war on terror is smaller than most people think, I believe, and definitely not that big a difference from Hillary who is the most conservative Dem on the issue.

Friend: I disagree that McC is as bad as Hillary. There would be significant differences in prosecuting the war on terror, Iraq, perhaps Iran, health care, taxes, and spending. If McC is elected, there is a chance the Bush tax cuts will be extended. If Hillary is elected, they expire. And McC has never killed anyone, other than VietCong. If the race in CO is going to be close between McCain and Hillary, would you still write in Ron Paul?

Me: Yes. The more I think about it, the more I think McCain is just as bad as Hillary. I'd rather have her win and then have the GOP pick up seats in 2010. McCain is irredeemable.

The fact that Ann Coulter has said she would vote for Hillary if McCain is the nominee makes me wonder if I shouldn't reconsider supporting McCain. Coulter is highly intelligent, but her brand of wild-eyed partisanship leaves me cold...and skeptical. But try as I might, and I have, to let McCain convince me that I should forgive his past sins, he reminds me of them and that he's proud of them almost every time he opens his mouth. The debate at the Reagan Library was probably the last nail in the McCain coffin for me.

To recap some McCain lowlights:
* McCain-Feingold "The Incumbent Protection Act": What would James Madison say if he knew our Congress had passed, our President had signed, and our Supreme Court had mostly upheld a law which includes not being allowed to mention a candidate by name within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. This is, as I've said repeatedly, the most direct attack on the First Amendment in 200 years.

* McCain-Kennedy "Comprehensive Immigration Reform": I am not a conservative immigration hawk. Indeed, I thought President Bush had closest to the right answer so far. But McCain went far to the permissive left of even President Bush, and would allow any illegal who has not committed (another) crime to stay for a small fee and would let illegals participate in entitlements and in-state tuition rates. And while I am not for letting partisanship interfere with actually getting important things done, McCain's willingness to let the Democrats get a huge political victory in order to pass massively flawed and unpopular legislation just before an election year shows that from a Party point of view, he can never be trusted.

* McCain freely admits he doesn't know much about economics. If there's anything a president should understand...including a war time president...it's economics. Just having a great team of advisors isn't enough if the president's instincts aren't good, and McCain's instincts are more like those of a Democrat than of Ronald Reagan. The point of McCain's economic illiteracy was hammered home during the last debate when he was asked why Americans should trust him with economic issues and his answer basically was "because I have consistently supported the surge".

* McCain-Lieberman "cap and trade" proposal would be a huge tax increase on Americans, all in the name of the myth of substantial anthropogenic global warming.

* I know a few people who have worked with McCain, and to a person they say he is of modest intelligence, has a very bad temper, and has no real conservative or libertarian foundation. He's also too old for the job of president...would be the oldest ever at the time of taking office.

Part of the problem I see is that Romney is not likely to be a substantially motivating figure for the population at large, especially if someone like me is motivated as much by disliking the other guy as by really liking Romney. I love his experience in business and his understanding of economics. As a social "liberal", I don't like his views on social issues, and as a Republican I'm not sure that social conservatives believe his newly found views enough to vote for him. That said, I find him becoming more appealing (and therefore, in the typical "projecting" style of all narcissistic bloggers) assume others are finding the same. I still don't believe Romney can get enough women to vote for him to have a strong chance in November. My only hope would be that things change as much, and are as unpredictable, as they have been so far this election season.

So, I know I've asked this before, but it bears repeating: Should a Republican support the philosophically better candidate who's less likely to win in November, or the RINO (Republican in Name Only) who has a better chance of keeping the White House in the hands of the Republicans and keeping the Dems from at least 2 years of control of both houses of Congress and the presidency simultaneously?

At this point (and I'm not sure what would cause it to change, but I'm trying to keep an open mind) my answer is this: I'm willing to support a philosophically inferior candidate who has a better chance of winning, but not as inferior as John McCain. Romney is the better conservative and as far as I can tell also the better man. I will caucus for Romney tomorrow, and then write in either Romney or Ron Paul in November if McCain is the nominee.

I ask myself, "Would you still do that if your vote was the one that would decide the election?" I answer myself that to be true to my principles, and probably for the long-term benefit of the country, I would indeed be the cause of John McCain losing. In fact, I hope I am.

Senator McCain, if you read this, you could probably get me to change my view if you repudiate McCain-Feingold. But since I asked you about it in person just a few weeks ago and your response was that you wanted to increase regulation of 527s rather than moving back toward protecting our First Amendment rights, I can't imagine that you would repudiate your signature (and most damning) legislation, a law for which you deserve to go down in infamy.