John McCain the perfect Presidential Candidate for 2000 2008 not so much

The Republican nomination of John McCain is causing me the worst conflict of my political life. In todays political climate let me declare my biases right off. I am a registered independent comfortable voting republican or democrat. In short I am a angry moderate. Not a term you hear a lot but I have a feeling there are many of us. Flash back to the year 2000 when everything was up for grabs. Traditionally the Republicans have a great shot at the presidency just because after eight years of one party people are often ready for a change. Enter the evil empire of talk radio and Fox news 24/7 far right wing propaganda. Early on John McCain is the front runner and looking good with his “Straight Talk Express” Talking to the public like no one has done before. He ran a open campaign not only talking but listening to the people along the way. Then things go horribly wrong, enter a mostly unproven and unknown candidate who was willing to work with the far rights plan to expand their power to unprecedented levels. They not only wanted a “Permanent majority” with virtually no limits on their power but were willing to do absolutely anything to get it. This is the politics as war scenario. Nothing is off the table. It's no longer about what you feel you can do for the country but how can you impose your political and moral will on every aspect of the government. Besides not playing by the rules they have two other advantages. There is the well proven psychological tool. If you say something loud enough and long enough it will eventually become common knowledge and unquestionably true. I thought this trick was obvious when I noticed every single person on talk radio had the exact same opinion on every single issue and where all saying the exact same thing at the exact same time. This is when I learned about “republican talking points”. Their second psychological probably came threw luck. People are always more comfortable with things they now and have a natural attraction to anything in pares. Example ask any man about twin fantasies, or how
often the term “double double” pops up. “So nice they named it twice” syndrome. Please go to your favorite psychological text books at this point for further explanation. At this point the only thing anyone outside of Texas knows about George W Bush is “He looks exactly like George Bush!” Followed quickly by “wouldn't it be cool to have two Presidents with the same name! Like a double Double, that would be history!” So now the table is set and enter our villains Carl Rove, George W Bush, Dick Cheyney, and Donald Rumsfeld. What I heard time and time again was. “These are the people with experience who will really run the government” , “Wouldn't it be cool to have a President who isn't some cardboard intellectual but a guy like us?” not to mention the ever popular “How does a President really effect your life?” Even if you leave out the Ralph Nader disaster (thanks dick) things are starting to look very scary.


Re-enter our hero John McCain. Some how in this process McCain the decorated Naval officer who not only fought in Vietnam, but spent time as a POW. As if that's not good enough to show patriotism, leadership, and commitment. He turned down the chance to get out earlier so that others he felt a commitment to could go. On the other side we have a huge group of people with multiple collage military deferments lead by a guy who some how leaped to the front of a long line to enter the National guard guaranteed not to go anywhere near a foreign country. Then to show commitment for some reason in order to avoid his final flight physical just left the National guard a few months ahead of schedule. This is normally called AWOL or absent with out leave. There is no way for me to prove anything but for some reason the commercial jingle “thinks go better with coke” keeps playing in my head. We will put that aside for now and compare the last two paragraphs. In the real world who do you think would be the “patriotic leader” and who would be the one that is 'not dependable because of his anger issues”?

That is a short description of how I feel the Republican party has been stolen by the neo-cons. Of course there was much more to to it like the bottomless pool of political has beens and want to bes found among various “think tanks” and organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, CPAC and others willing to go on talk shows and say anything at all to improve their standing in the club. I am also not even going to touch the Florida voting scandal that just gets uglier now that the people involved at the time moved up the politic ladder into job like Ambassador to the UN leaving evidence trails of their true nature. That was anything but the Republican but fair minded looking for the truth image they portrayed as. Not to mention it is all under the heavy influence of the states Governor who happens to be the candidate's brother. What could possibly go wrong?




John McCain the perfect Presidential Candidate for 2000

The Republican nomination of John McCain is causing me the worst conflict of my political life. In todays political climate let me declare my biases right off. I am a registered independent comfortable voting republican or democrat. In short I am a angry moderate. Not a term you hear a lot but I have a feeling there are many of us. Flash back to the year 2000 when everything was up for grabs. Traditionally the Republicans have a great shot at the presidency just because after eight years of one party people are often ready for a change. Enter the evil empire of talk radio and Fox news 24/7 far right wing propaganda. Early on John McCain is the front runner and looking good with his “Straight Talk Express” Talking to the public like no one has done before. He ran a open campaign not only talking but listening to the people along the way. Then things go horribly wrong, enter a mostly unproven and unknown candidate who was willing to work with the far rights plan to expand their power to unprecedented levels. They not only wanted a “Permanent majority” with virtually no limits on their power but were willing to do absolutely anything to get it. This is the politics as war scenario. Nothing is off the table. It's no longer about what you feel you can do for the country but how can you impose your political and moral will on every aspect of the government. Besides not playing by the rules they have two other advantages. There is the well proven psychological tool. If you say something loud enough and long enough it will eventually become common knowledge and unquestionably true. I thought this trick was obvious when I noticed every single person on talk radio had the exact same opinion on every single issue and where all saying the exact same thing at the exact same time. This is when I learned about “republican talking points”. Their second psychological probably came threw luck. People are always more comfortable with things they now and have a natural attraction to anything in pares. Example ask any man about twin fantasies, or how
often the term “double double” pops up. “So nice they named it twice” syndrome. Please go to your favorite psychological text books at this point for further explanation. At this point the only thing anyone outside of Texas knows about George W Bush is “He looks exactly like George Bush!” Followed quickly by “wouldn't it be cool to have two Presidents with the same name! Like a double Double, that would be history!” So now the table is set and enter our villains Carl Rove, George W Bush, Dick Cheyney, and Donald Rumsfeld. What I heard time and time again was. “These are the people with experience who will really run the government” , “Wouldn't it be cool to have a President who isn't some cardboard intellectual but a guy like us?” not to mention the ever popular “How does a President really effect your life?” Even if you leave out the Ralph Nader disaster (thanks dick) things are starting to look very scary.


Re-enter our hero John McCain. Some how in this process McCain the decorated Naval officer who not only fought in Vietnam, but spent time as a POW. As if that's not good enough to show patriotism, leadership, and commitment. He turned down the chance to get out earlier so that others he felt a commitment to could go. On the other side we have a huge group of people with multiple collage military deferments lead by a guy who some how leaped to the front of a long line to enter the National guard guaranteed not to go anywhere near a foreign country. Then to show commitment for some reason in order to avoid his final flight physical just left the National guard a few months ahead of schedule. This is normally called AWOL or absent with out leave. There is no way for me to prove anything but for some reason the commercial jingle “thinks go better with coke” keeps playing in my head. We will put that aside for now and compare the last two paragraphs. In the real world who do you think would be the “patriotic leader” and who would be the one that is 'not dependable because of his anger issues”?

That is a short description of how I feel the Republican party has been stolen by the neo-cons. Of course there was much more to to it like the bottomless pool of political has beens and want to bes found among various “think tanks” and organizations such as the Heritage Foundation, CPAC and others willing to go on talk shows and say anything at all to improve their standing in the club. I am also not even going to touch the Florida voting scandal that just gets uglier now that the people involved at the time moved up the politic ladder into job like Ambassador to the UN leaving evidence trails of their true nature. That was anything but the Republican but fair minded looking for the truth image they portrayed as. Not to mention it is all under the heavy influence of the states Governor who happens to be the candidate's brother. What could possibly go wrong?