The trouble with McCain…

This is perhaps the most interesting presidential race the United States has seen since Harry Truman trounced Thomas Dewey. It’s interesting because Barack Obama has received some highly unlikely endorsements and the smart money is betting he’ll win. Christopher Buckley, son of the founder of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley, was recently bounced as a columnist for the National Review because he endorsed Obama rather than the Republican candidate. Ken Adelman also endorsed Obama, as did George Bush’s former Secretary of State, Colin Powell. What gives?

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The problem is the candidate fielded by the Republicans in this year’s presidential contest has left much of the Republican base cold. While McCain bills himself as a ‘maverick’ that likes to go against the grain, many of his past actions and current platform have angered conservative voters. So rather than vote for McCain’s liberal policies, many voters are deciding to go for the real thing by voting for Obama. Christopher Buckley put it best when he said that his endorsement of Obama was not because he had left the Republican Party, but because the Party had left him. And so goes the lament of many Republicans. The trouble with McCain is that he has failed to address the issues that are of importance to the Republican base or to differentiate himself enough from the socialist Obama. Instead he has attempted to lure moderates and uncommitted voters to his side, which frankly, is a losing strategy. The base is assuming that McCain doesn’t care about illegal immigration, as the subject has never arisen throughout the entire campaign, despite the fact that the southwestern United States are facing a virtual invasion staged by illegal immigrants entering through Mexico. If national security were truly as high on the list of priorities as McCain is attempting to convey, then the security of America’s borders would have been an issue, especially for a candidate who hails from Arizona. His proposal that the federal government buy up all mortgages currently in default and renegotiate them to ensure that no one loses their home is what one might hear from a socialist Democrat like Obama. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that privately held property cannot be unreasonably seized without just compensation. It doesn’t guarantee protection against bank foreclosure, yet McCain wants to insulate individuals who got in too deep from the consequences of their own actions. McCain is now in favor of drilling for oil domestically, although he had to be dragged to this position kicking and screaming, realizing that if he adhered to his initial belief of not attempting to break America’s foreign oil habit he would lose hands down. He is also in favor of developing alternative sources of energy, including flex-fuels, nuclear power, wind and solar energy. While there is nothing inherently wrong with these ideas, a lot of them involve pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. What’s really needed is an action plan McCain’s position on climate change is also a non-starter. He’s in favor of a European style cap-and-trade scheme that will have the government establishing how much so-called greenhouse gas American businesses are allowed to emit. Those that emit less will be able to sell their excess credits on the open market, while those that emit more will have to purchase credits to offset their excess. Only problem is that the climate change issue is as yet scientifically unresolved, given that over the past five years the earth has actually cooled back to pre-1970s conditions. What’s more, having the government set limits on so-called greenhouse gas emissions is yet another step toward rampant statism. This year American voters are given a choice of two statist candidates. While McCain is clearly the candidate most voters would trust with national security issues, he, like Obama, is a big-government, regulate-everything liberal and Obama can probably regulate more and better than McCain. Maybe four years of government under the total control of Democrats will bring Americans around to realizing that hope and change isn’t all it was cracked up to be.