I have a thousand other things I'd like to post about, most of them unrelated to the primaries, but this question circles in my head with an eerie persistence.
Will the Republicans really nominate John McCain?
I realize that may sound absurd, especially coming from me. As I've posted here before, I've believed since early '05 that McCain was the one and only person his party could nominate in 2008, as he is the sole name conservative truly far enough away from the neo-con scandals to be viable in terms of image (at least in the mainstream media).
But I keep...hearing stuff. Nothing from any source I could list here as "credible," unfortunately. Just...stuff. Making me wonder if the right isn't getting a tad worried about how McCain is going to play against Hillary and/or the "rock star" in the fall, and might be considering switching out McCain at the last minute for someone younger or more palatable.
Does this sound crazy? Has anyone else wondered about it? McCain does come with some disadvantages for them, and they have a couple of decent replacements to fall back on, including Huckabee.
I'm nursing a couple of barely cohate theories about all this, but for now, I want to ask our readers: could it yet be someone other than McCain? If so, why? Which Republican do you think they'd use instead? Finally, if a switch-out took place, what, if anything, would the Democrats need to do in response?
10 comments:
Nah, it's gonna be McCain.
There would have to be an excuse, either the alleged grave illness of McCain, or perhaps worse, the alleged (and in this scenario, probably real) lack of life in McCain's body, something of that nature, to make this kind of change fly.
Otherwise, it couldn't be pulled off, even with the actual lack of democratic processes compared to what is claimed true of our processes.
However, given a suggestion of this scenario, the real way it would play out would be by placing the 'right' VP candidate along side him (as of or about the GOP nomination convention), and then...
...sofla
well if they want to go surreal life on us, they can always shoe-horn in Connie Mack IV. What could be better than having a First Lady Mack Bono??? really..
or they can one-up the Progs... if BHO wins for the Ds maybe they'll dust off Chief Nighthorse Campbell...
Too much money spent already to just throw McCain to the side. And, if the republicans tried a switch like that at the convention, Americans would SURELY not vote republican.
With respect for some, I'm amazed at this late date that no one (are you reading, Joseph? notice the lack of a hyphen in 'no one'?) has tried to calculate the stakes, even if they are incalculable. Yeah, the Bush and Moon purchase of a country-size piece of Paraguay is jokey and beneath comment, plus Pagefuckergate distracted us back then; the candidates in all the parties are sized up or down exclusively in superficial terms about superficial issues - the ones the MSM and the bloggers talk about, like health care, Iraq, the 'economy'; or 'immigration', oil prices and supplies, 'global warming'; or left/right/moderate/extremist political values; or 'terrorism'. You knew in 2001 and you know today about 'shadow governments', and if you pretend they don't exist and that they don't exert their force, you're an ostrich. Keep pretending the US of A is a government of laws and also that God will protect you because the contrary, i.e., the truth, is simply too terrifying to worry about, especially since none of it is hidden any longer.
Scooter Libby ... really? That's all you got?
As long as enough people had mortgages, car payments, and health insurance, they wouldn't complain or go out on strike.
McCain's not the oldest candidate running for POTUS, incidentally; he's younger than Nader, and Nader's younger than Gravel.
Take some surveys, but not where you work or hang out. My neighbors believe the world and the universe (whatever it may be to them) was made by God some 6,000 years ago. Two of them are state-certified elementary school teachers, and college graduates. Another is a former (1998) state beauty queen. We live two hours away from Duke University, or a hundred thousand years away, depending on your reckoning.
Emma Goldman: "Voting is the opium of the masses in this country. Every four years you deaden the pain."
The 'nominee' and the winner will be tall, dark, and handsome but caucasian. Damn, I wish I had a copy of Run, Lola, Run!
Newt Gingrich has been in the news lately.
I think the Republicans kept looking for a savior this go-round. Rudy. Thompson... Gingrich...
But, Gingrich said ixnay and Thompson was terrible and Rudy had a dumb ass strategy and Huckabee was too Democratic on economic issues and they settled on McCain.
But the real reason no one is jumping up and down about being the nominee is Democratic interest. Whoever runs on the Republican ticket will get their ass handed to them in the worst of ways, and the Republicans know it. No one wants to get crushed. But, McCain thinks he might get lucky and pull it off, and he knows his age is already a big issue, so no way he runs in 4.
McCain will stay the nominee. And McCain will be crushed. So would any Repub, no matter the nominee. All of the polls showing McCain v HRC or McCain v BO and it being even/almost even are junk because the winner of the Dem nom will get a bump from currently-supposedly-stubborn supporters. So sayeth Chuck Todd, anyway.
No way the Dems lose. No one will volunteer to be led to slaughter.
No way the Dems win. Especially with Barry leading the charge, although I don't think Hillary could pull it off either.
Look, Obama cannot win Florida and Ohio. He'll probably lose Missouri. He may even lose Massachusetts, for crying out loud!
It won't be '88, but it'll be bad.
McCain is 44.
(So what if I'm wrong? It wouldn't be the 1st time!)
Joseph, you beat me to it. Mark, I like your confidence, but it's based on an entirely misplaced faith that the folks who still control both the voting machines and the media don't intend to press the advantages they have to steal '08 as they did '04. If they even have to make much of an effort to steal it, as Joe's re-caps of the polls at even this very late date have indicated.
Also, I don't buy that the Republicaneocons view themselves as being "led to the slaughter" and therefore cannot get anyone else to take McCain's place. If anything, I think they're suspiciously over-confident as it is, and feel they might have an even better chance at a perceived or actual victory (and a potential president substantially easier to control) with a Huckabee or a Mitt.
Further, although I can't substantiate this with any kind of a citation, it's obvious to me that McCain was foisted on the Republican Party this time by...outside influences. The same folks who are trying to remove the neo-cons' case for war with Iran from the mainstream media and not succeeding. (For a while, I thought said influences were succeeding in their counter-propaganda effort, but now...not so much.) If the Republicans and/or the neo-cons get the chance to oust McCain without doing too much damage to their image, I think they might take it. That's one of the only reasons I'm glad "our" convention is in August.
I realize this all sounds like outrageous supposition, which is why I might not make anymore actual posts about it. Oh, and by the way, I'm not (I repeat, not) suggesting that anyone abstain from voting this time around because "it doesn't matter," nor am I suggesting that McCain poses less of a danger on the foreign policy front than other Republican figures or the Democratic candidates. I just thought the possibility of a non-McCain scenario merited some discussion.
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